That's an interesting observation. A few months after the opening of the Berlin Wall, I visited -- as a news reporter -- a neo-Nazi rally in what was still East Germany.There's a special German custom that you are most likely not aware of.
It's about demonstrations and counter-demonstrations.
Whenever the extreme right wing (let's call them neonazis) organize a demonstration, they have to announce it tot he police in advance (traffic regulation and so on).
The result is that the left wing mobilizes for a counter-demonstration
At one point, a crowd of tough-looking leather-clad men and women surrounded a young, clean-cut woman in a college sweatshirt. When I moved in close to see what was happening, I understood that the young lady was demanding her rights to voice pro-Nazi views, and the people surrounding her were anti-Nazi counter-demonstrators.
There was a very small number of right-wingers and a very large number of counter-demonstrators. A few moments later, someone said something to the effect of "oh just shut up" and punched her pretty hard in the face, knocking her to the ground and giving her a bloody nose. Here's a picture I took (pre-nose punch) for my newspaper.
There seems today to be a strong national current of unease about the Iraq war. Certainly the November congressional election was meant, and perceived by the White House, to be a signal of the nation's mood toward the handling of the Iraq war.
I don't know if there's widespread apathy toward the war. I think it's more of a widespread sense of concern with a tinge of helplessness. The nation was never properly mobilized for this project. In 2002-'03, public debate was strongly discouraged over whether or not armed conflict was the best way to handle the problems of Iraq. People were told it would be handled by the professionals and to go about their business. That initial hubris, followed by a pretty violent reality-check, is what makes it so hard for people to want to get involved in solving the problems as they exist now. So I think part of the attitude is a kind of a disillusioned disbelief, tempered by the sobering knowledge that, even if Iraq wasn't really a vital interest in 2003, it certainly has become one now.
Vietnam seems to have been viewed as more of an "exit of choice" -- if the United States left, the conflict was seen as distant enough and marginal enough that withdrawal was seen by many as a responsible choice that might actually minimize harm to the Vietnamese people (I'm talking about the perceptions of the mood at the time, not the reality).
By contrast, most people who've given this much thought seem convinced that a hasty exit from Iraq can make things much, much worse than they are, both for the Iraqi people and for the United States.
I think the nation as a whole has also endured many complex national and international situations since the 1960s. Just 25 years separated World War II from the anti-war rallies of the late 1960s. In a nuclear era of Great Power confrontation with the Soviets, a black-and-white war/antiwar choice made more sense to a larger number of people. The anti-war movement also carried over the momentum of other upheavals in American society, notably the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Lib, and the fast-growing social consciousness in popular arts and entertainment. All were interrelated.
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