Finally, it was in January 1980 when Americans had to decide whether they would cooperate in the great U.S. Arms buildup of the 1980s (or not).
That month, Jimmy Carter reinstated draft registration as part of a fairly weak threat to the Soviets after their bungling into Afghanistan the year before.
1980 to 1983 was when the Anti-War movement in America had made its somewhat inadequate stand, encouraging thousands and thousands of young males to ignore the government’s regulations to sign their name on the dotted line, i.e. committing the newest 18-, 19-, and 20- year olds spiritually and mentally to future wars for the coming decades—whether these young men were actually drafted or not.
The anti-war movement actually did strike a cord in America—a land and people still weary of endless wars after being in major conflicts and arms buildups for nearly 35 years, i.e. between 1940 and 1974.
Despite the rah-rah-proud-to-be-red-white-and-blue of the Reagan era, it would take nearly a full decade for the U.S. military to feel secure of itself in the American system to take on an adversary any bigger than the tiny island of Grenada heads-on.
Meanwhile, draft-registration stayed fairly low until the U.S. Congress began threatening to take student loans and grants away from those thousands and millions of young Americans uninterested in encouraging American military journeys and forays into foreign wars once again.
In a way this anti-war movement was supported by war-weariness and inertia than by actual national leadership.
In short, despite the humongous spending on the U.S. military throughout the 1980s, it took until January 1991 before the U.S. actually participated again in a major war. (There was that war in when Bush, Sr. took over Panama in order to kill or arrest Manuel Noriega in 1989. However, that involved almost no U.S. military bloodshed at all.)
I was in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. in January 1991 and heard the Senate debate whether to go to war or not-to-go-to-war. It was a relatively close call.
1991: THE WAR GENIE IS OUT
Despite the U.S. and its coalitions’ surprisingly quick victory in Kuwait in February 1991, I recall that there were continuing brisk quick sales of “Bring the Boys home!” t-shirts in Junction City, home to Ft. Riley until summer 1991 when U.S. forces did begin to trickle back.
In short, Americans were still not ready to return to the sad and strenuous period of American history, i.e. between 1939 and 1975 when every generation of American youth faced constant threats of continuous global deployment.
It wasn’t actually, though, until the combined leadership of the Neo-Liberal Clinton and the Neo-Con dominated Bush-Cheney administration when Americans surrendered their hard fought logic and aversion in the post-Vietnam War America to perpetually sending U.S. troops into harms way around the globe—even proudly calling for unending war against terrorism and a few selected despots.
THE NIGHTMARE IS HERE
Now, in 2008 America is in Recession but denial runs rampant—despite the legitimate and illegitimate costs of fighting unending high-cost high-tech wars for nearly 10 years.
This was the nightmare that those of us who refused to sign the selective service papers in the early 1980s had tried to oppose (or at least had tried to get the selective service act repealed-- and disrespected by all Americans in a continuous act of civil disobedience against war ventures).
