AP takes note of the, how shall we say this, low levels of participation in anti-war protests.   A rally in Boston - sparsely populated Boston - not a big college town Boston - decidedly conservative and Republican Boston - drew a "couple hundred people."   A really big rally in San Francisco drew a thousand hippies.   A couple weekends ago I drove through an "anti-war rally" at the gates of a military installation.   I was driving and got stuck at a traffic light in front of the fort when I looked to my right and saw about a dozen people holding signs saying "honk if you support our troops" or some such and, wondering why they were there, I looked across the street to see about the same number of people carrying anti-war signs.   It was pathetic on both ends.   But the AP's attempt to paint the anti-war "movement" as significant is even more pathetic.

The AP story explains the low levels of anti-war participation by noting: "There were four times as many troops involved and 10 times as many American casualties over a comparable period in Vietnam."   People don't feel connected to the war because we aren't suffering the same sort of deprivations we did during WWI and WWII, Korea and Vietnam.   There isn't a draft.   The economy is thriving.   There's no stagflation.   And there aren't any pitched battles in which the US suffers hundreds or thousands of casualties.

That's approximately accurate.   The US had some 600,000 troops - probably more - including support personnel in-country in Vietnam.   More military support personnel were located offshore at sea and in nearby countries.   And we experienced about 60,000 combat deaths.   But there are more differences between Vietnam and Iraq.   The Vietnam war involved more "conventional battles" in which thousands of the enemy fought from fixed positions against thousands of our troops.   Also, we were there in significant numbers for more than a decade.   The Vietnamese were supported by two large, powerful, militarily advanced countries.   The Vietnamese felt they were fighting the same battle against colonial powers, be they European or Asian, that they had been fighting for centuries.   Vietnam was surrounded by countries engaged in the same fight they were conducting.   The US was worn out from decades of fighting the same battle - from 1945 forwards there was virtually constant war between Communist governments and Democracies in various forms.   The US conducted largescale air operations including massive carpet bombing campaigns against the north.   The North Vietnamese held hundred of prisoners of war and paraded them before the media.   The differences go on and on.

There are some similarities between the anti-war protests in the sixties and those today.   The same people are doing the protesting.   Their numbers are diminished, however, at least partly because some have died and others have other things to do.   But what hasn't happened is a full-scale joining in by the nation's college and high school students.   And the music sucks.   And there are no drugs.   And nobody seems to be looking for an excuse to drop out and do nothing - they're all too busy trying to finish school and get jobs.

At this point it doesn't seem likely the anti-war protests will ever grow into anything close to what they were in the 60s and 70s but the media would like to change that if they can.   The prrof is in the pudding.   Despite efforts to garner support, the movement seems to be losing people more than gaining them.   But there is one more chance to make a showing.   That will be in Washington when the Cindy Sheehan crowd stages what they call a "massive rally" on January 27.   They've had months of planning for this.   Their grassroots movement is well funded and they've gotten plenty of media coverage.   This is their big chance.   But if they fail to gather at least 100,000 people, this thing will never grow to Vietnam War proportions.   50,000 people will be a decent showing.   10,000 will be an abject failure.   Less than that will be laughable.

The gauntlet has been laid down.   The anti-war movement's survival is hanging in the balance.   Gather 100,000 or fade into oblivion!