I mean if only committed pacifists actually demonstrate, then how come the anti-war movement was so much bigger for Iraq than Afghanistan?

I can answer the question. I would not have dodged the draft. My father didn’t, and I have a lot in common with him, so I have some evidence to back that up. He ended up getting sent somewhere else anyway (to his dismay) which is how he met my mother in Italy.

The Vietnam War, especially in retrospect, was to my mind clearly justified, Tonkin incident or no. The “retrospect” is abundant with evidence. North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam shortly after we left, in clear violation of the peace treaty. This was not unusual, just as North Korea routinely violates treaties. These states see treaties as postponements of their aims, not as deterral.

The same thing they had been doing for years. The North Vietnamese violently purged the country of those who did not subscribe to Ho Chi Minh’s communism, nurtured and assisted Pol Pot in taking over Cambodia, and then with the rest of the world turned against him when they realized that his extremism would destabilize their own country. The decade after the Communist takeover of Vietnam saw boat people, and the past two decades continue to see refugees from Vietnam. The latest news has been the Montagnard ethnic minority of the central highlands, whose land has been subject to confiscation because (a) in a communist state, it doesn’t belong to them anyway, so the state can simply take it from them, and (b) the state can give the fertile farmland to other Vietnamese peoples, who (c) are seen as “more loyal”, partly due to ethnic allegiances, partly due to the Montagnards having been some of the most determined foes of the communists during the War.

Many people today argue that we were supporting an unjust government in South Vietnam. True. But was the North Vietnamese government that much more just? I’d argue that only people who think communism is inherently better than anything else would say so. The Ho Chi Minh government was a disaster for Vietnam, just as Mao was a disaster for China and Castro has been a disaster for Cuba. China and Vietnam have since abandoned communist ideology, and have begun to prosper. Cuba, well…

In the end, the domino theory proved correct. After Vietnam came Cambodia and Laos. Thailand didn’t fall, because we invested such huge amounts of money and aid propping up a corrupt regime that was, for all its flaws, less corrupt, unjust, and bloody than the “heroic” communist regimes to its east.

To give another example, I’ll speak for myself. I am a young man in the United States. Because of my JWT principles, I am unlikely to join today’s military. (There are other reasons for my reluctance as well — reasons that suggest the military is better off without me — but that doesn’t change the fact that JWT is one of my reasons.) And I voted against George W. Bush in 2004 almost entirely because of the Iraq War, and I have tried very hard to win my friends over to my perspective.

A friend in college asked me whether I would have dodged the draft in Vietnam. I answered that I was not sure. I still am not. And that’s true even though civil disobedience is totally contrary to my temperament, and in most circumstances contrary to my ethical principles as well.

Does my JWT position have “teeth?” Maybe not, but I’m not sure what more Mr. Westmoreland-White would like me to do under the circumstances.

Also it’s worth pointing out that civil disobedience may have different purposes. There’s CD which is aimed directly at changing some policy (CD as protest). And there’s CD in the sense of refusing to obey an unjust law or order. The former is a case of breaking a law (e.g. against trespassing) which is otherwise unobjectionable to make a political statement. But the latter is concerned with the unjustness of the law itself. Seems to me the latter has a stronger grounding in Christian tradition.

In addition, I recognized that I might have been wrong. Suppose, for example, that vast stores of chemical weapons had been found ready to use in the depots scattered throughout Iraq, and that definitive proof of an impending attack on the United States or one of its allies had been discovered. I would have participated in civil disobedience that was ill-founded, merely because I prized my ill-informed opinion above that of those who could actually see the evidence. Moreover, that civil disobedience (which, quite often, involves vandalism against innocent bystanders) would have contributed to additional polarization of the country.

I’m not saying that civil disobedience is an invalid course of action; I’m saying that it’s not necessarily the ideal course of action, and sometimes it is unwise. At some point we have to admit that honest people can draw different conclusions after looking at exactly the same material, which is why St. Paul advises us to pray that our leaders are wise enough to come to the correct conclusion. They weren’t this time, and the effects of this war on our country—as well as the effects of an awful lot of irresponsible things said by the “no war at any cost” faction—are in my opinion sufficient proof that war should be avoided unless one is absolutely certain.