Muted protest from a nation at war

By HELEN TUNNAH


Washington student Mark Harris barely hesitates when asked if he would still support the war in Iraq if he was drafted.

"Yes, I would want to do service for my country," the 19-year-old says.

The self-proclaimed conservative studying political science at George Washington University had an interesting take on why the war he thinks is right is hurting President George W. Bush's image abroad.

"We have to do a better job of selling abroad the idea of Americanism."

It is a curious aspect of the Iraq war that the so-far subdued nature of any protest is linked to the absence of the draft.

The nearly 1100 American soldiers killed in the war were professionals.

It's different, we are told, to Vietnam, when kids were drafted and killed in their tens of thousands.

These casualties signed up to fight, so there is less emotion when they die.

In this war, Americans have to read well into their newspapers, and glance to the bottom of a page, to find reports on the young soldiers who have died.

Each day USA Today lists their names, ages, ranks, home towns, and the overall toll. The paragraphs are brief, startling, sad.

Many other papers make only limited references to fatalities. Television remembers - if there are pictures.

To criticise the war has been deemed unpatriotic, disloyal, uncaring of the thousands who died on September 11. That means people have generally stayed off the streets in protest.

Critics of the war say that is because the Bush administration has used the nation's grief after the terror attacks "to shut people up".

Harris argues it's because most Americans still support the war.

And he may not be wrong.

There is debate about the war, but little about whether Bush should have invaded Iraq at all. Even in Detroit's Muslim community - the largest in America - sympathy is expressed for the purpose of the war, although not for what looks like an occupation.

Yet as the number of American casualties climbs, and as rumours of a draft in the New Year gain momentum, criticism is increasing with a common thread that Iraq will become America's 21st-century Vietnam.

* Helen Tunnah's visit to the United States was sponsored by the State Department.