Editorial: America not same country it was during Vietnam War

The U.S. has changed since Vietnam.

It may seem like the public took a long time to turn on the war in Iraq. In Vietnam, however, tens of thousands of troops had to die before protest became widespread. The majority of the country supported the draft. Richard Nixon was elected president twice - even though he failed to end the war - and actually increased the number of troops fighting.

OK, maybe not so much has changed.

We did elect Bush twice, and we haven't voted every supporter of the war out of Congress, but the U.S. has undeniably voiced its dissatisfaction with this war for a number of years now. Change hasn't always come from this dissatisfaction - we're still fighting in Iraq, obviously - but public pressure has sent a message to our government that we can't all be fooled all the time, and something had better change soon.

Criticism of the government, criticism of war and the understanding of foreign cultures are more accepted in the U.S. now, less an act of social rebellion than an understood social reality. While the U.S. let the Vietnam War drag on for more than a decade, I don't think modern America will let this war go that long. At least, I hope not.

We may have destabilized an entire region due to the Iraq war. We may have set a nation into an interminable cycle of poverty and failed states. But at least the people of the U.S. - if not the president - have admitted there's a problem.

Joe Buffaloe

Opinion editor