Do antiwar protests prevent or stop U.S military actions all over the world? A hard question to answer. Although demonstrations and protests have accompanied every U.S. war in the 20th and 21st centuries, their success as a change agent is mixed. Demonstrations and rallies accompanied every phase of the Vietnam war. But it took over a decade of a losing war and a shattered presidency to make Congress turn off the money spigot financing the war. History repeated itself almost four decades later in 2003, when worldwide protests [between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests] against the Iraq war failed to stop the US and its European vassal states from invading Iraq. That wasn’t the end of the story. Ten years and another war hawk president later,
Congress finally showed a spark of gumption and refused to authorize President Obama’s war plans for Syria. History teaches us that the value of antiwar protests may lie in their power to finally get leaders to reject the myth of America as the rightful hegemon. Calling out the U.S. war machine in public protests may be only way to a saner, safer America. For all who hold out hope that the US will turn from its wanton ways, check out “A Battle for the Ages: Antiwar Protestors Meet the US War Machine.”
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