Discursive Legacies: The U.S. Peace Movement and "Support the Troops"

Abstract

To mobilize support for war and to control dissent, governments draw upon deeply engrained discourses regarding soldiering and the citizen’s duty to support the troops. We identify the cultural and political evolution of the discursive legacy of “support the troops” from the Vietnam War through the Iraq War. Using longitudinal and comparative organizational analyses, we analyze how this discursive legacy was engaged by U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOs). PMOs frequently made positive references to U.S. troops during both the Gulf War and Iraq War, creating a stable discourse centered around supporting the troops. Moreover, during the Gulf War the movement expanded the web of support by asking who else should be cared about beyond the troops, thus de-coupling the support discourse from the nation and the state. During the Iraq War, PMOs also developed an elaborated “discourse of betrayal” by redefining what it means to support the troops. Here they deployed proactive, anticipatory discourses, turning the tables on the Bush administration. PMOs also increasingly criticized the troops during the Iraq War due to well publicized human rights abuses. The findings demonstrate that movement discourses are both stable and flexible, influenced by past rounds of discursive contention as well as contemporary political events. We highlight the cultural constraints imposed on movements by dominant discursive legacies, and the strategic responses made by movements in response to emerging discursive opportunities. Keywords: peace, discourse, social movements, troops, Iraq War. The relationship between soldiering and citizenship in the United States is long and intimate. The colonial militias required episodic military service as part of citizenship. During the Civil War, male immigrants of new minority groups were cajoled to prove their commitment to the United States and shunted directly into the military upon landing ashore. In general, military service has been valorized as the definitive demonstration of citizenship, the most heroic, the most dangerous, and the most selfless (Shapiro 1994; Snyder 1999; Tickner 1992,). With the cooperation of the mainstream media (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Small 1994), policy elites have successfully used these widely and deeply resonant beliefs about citizenship and soldiering for two purposes: to mobilize popular support for war and to stigmatize This research was partly funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES 043289) and from the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline. The authors are grateful to Christopher Bellas, David Castillo, Denise Dollar, Doug McKinzie, Michelle Prescott, and Musa Tuzuner for their research assistance. We also thank George Cheney, Ed Kinane, Louis Kriesberg, Erin O’Brien, and Manfred Steger for their helpful comments. The three authors contributed equally to the research and writing of this paper. Direct correspon