[This important piece first appeared at the website of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad. It is reposted here because Fire on the Mountain, as a blog, has the capacity to house a discussion of its content, which we are starting here by following the piece with five interesting comments which appeared on a Facebook thread.]
by Dennis O'Neil & Eric See
The war in Iraq is still on. It's already the second most expensive war in US history--only WWII cost more.
The war in Afghanistan is heating up. It's now the second longest war in US history--only Vietnam lasted longer.
So what the hell happened to the anti-war movement? Today, the movement that turned out millions around the world to try and stave off the invasion of Iraq, that created the conditions for Barack Obama's history-making electoral victory, is nearly invisible and in disarray.
How Come?
We can stipulate a few causes everybody will agree on.
* Mainstream media coverage of the wars has been criminal.
Pop quiz: How many US troops are still in Iraq? (Answer: 100,000, and that's not counting an equal number of "contractors," i.e. mercenaries and logistics people our tax dollars are paying for.)
In some cases we're better off when they don't cover it. Take the Battle of Marja in Afghanistan. After breathless news reports quoting Pentagon spokespeople about a week-long offensive against the Taliban for control of this key city of 80,000, the place turned out to be a rural crossroads with more goats than people.
* The military has become very good at holding down casualty figures among US troops. In Iraq, they are hunkered down in bases and avoid combat, while the escalation in Afghanistan is just now starting to produce a new spike in US casualties. But people in this country have an unfortunate tendency to care only about "our" deaths, even as the super-expensive remote-controlled drone aircraft blow up schools and kill non-combatants in Afghanistan. (This, we are told, is okay, because the military wasn't actually trying to kill those kids.)
* Of course there is the ongoing economic meltdown which has become the principal focus for tens of millions of ordinary people looking fruitlessly for those green shoots of growth that the politicians and TV talking heads keep promoting. Activists, too, have been scuffling for their own survival and struggling to organize their coworkers and communities to fight cutbacks.
Behind The Obvious
There is another big-picture reason for the sorry state of the anti-war movement that is not easy to come to grips with. We have to face it: the 2008 election campaign and the Obama presidency are the biggest
things that have taken the wind out of the anti-war movement's sails.
From 2003-2008, a substantial and growing mass of class forces and social movements formed an objective bloc to the left of the Bush/Cheney administration. It was a broad united front consisting of sections and strata of the people including trade union members, environmentalists, educators, civil libertarians, college students, women's groups, African Americans, immigrants, veterans, etc.
The bloc was dominated by large, reform-minded, generally liberal organizations and coalitions whose leaders realized that there was no gain in kowtowing to the Bushies to try and get their programs passed. Still, it was more than a brief alliance of convenience, and was manifested in the deep visceral loathing for Bush/Cheney among the masses.
The lead unifying issue for this united front became the war in Iraq. For one thing, none of the forces in the bloc was strong enough to impose its program on the others: the unions weren't going to mobilize around reproductive rights nor the environmentalists around card check. More important, the war was, objectively, the principal contradiction facing the people of the US (and the world) and by early 2005 or so, popular rejection of the war had made it a very prominent vulnerable spot for the administration.
In fact, it can be said that it was the anti-war movement that elected Barack Obama. His Democratic rivals, Clinton and Edwards, had not spoken out during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, while Obama had. He became, by default, the anti-war candidate. And once the primaries were over and John McCain predicted that the US occupation of Iraq might continue for 50 or even 100 years, he was toast, even before the economy went belly-up.
By mid-2008, the united front was largely incorporated into the Democratic Party campaign. With Obama's election, the main organized groupings from that bloc became part of the establishment, and they did so on terms dictated by the White House. What was once an objective bloc is now an array of interest groups, each pursuing its own agenda, and each tending to regard others as rivals for (increasingly shrinking) resources and positioning to "affect affairs of state."
None of these groups was about to put the war at the center of their agenda, especially when confronted with the catastrophic and ongoing collapse of the economic boom. Even when Obama announced two big troop escalations in Afghanistan in his first year in office and showed no sign that a rapid and complete withdrawal from Iraq was in the making, there wasn't a peep. Quite the opposite, Obama was able to bring anti-war groups into the White House for closed-door meetings before making his announcement.
We ask: Is there any basis for expecting even a weaker version of a broad united front to coalesce to the left of the Obama administration any time soon, in particular one centered on opposing the wars?
A Hard Look Around
Looking around, the organized anti-war movement found that these developments had downsized it to its hard core: essentially peace people (religious and secular) and the anti-imperialist left.
The long uphill slog of trying to end the occupations now seemed like a task that might never end. As Obama put more troops in harm’s way than had ever been deployed under Bush/Cheney, Congresspeople who had spoken and voted against war funding before were, with a few honorable exceptions, suddenly confused and silent.
More important, hundreds of thousands of everyday people who had participated during the Bush years simply weren't there any longer. Their organizations weren't mobilizing them. Individually, some figured the job was done with Obama's election, or that he deserved a chance to get it done. The economy pulled the attention of many. Others were dismayed at how little their efforts had produced and gave up.
That all had its own suppression effect, disheartening a good part of the hard core of the anti-war movement. That core group, mainly aged forty-five to sixty-five when the war started, is not only tired but nearly a decade older.
We ask: When was the last time you turned out for an anti-war mobilization?
This highlights a final problem facing the anti-war movement. The sheer duration of these occupations has tended to normalize war—with "acceptable" casualty levels—as a regrettable but inevitable fact of life in the US. The first-year college students who were demonstrating against education cuts in California and around the country last month were in 3rd grade when Afghanistan was invaded and occupied, and in 4th when the Iraq war started. They've never really known a country not in combat in that region, since during their lifetime “we have always been at war with Eurasia."
Could the anti-war movement become the equivalent of the nuclear disarmament movement, with a handful of stalwarts still lobbying and holding vigils, still fighting the good fight three generations after it started in the early '50s?
So What Do We Do?
If there were some quick and easy way to bring into being a vibrant and growing anti-war movement, it would already be happening. We have our work cut out for us.
But we must keep on. As much as the terrain has shifted under our feet and presented us with an even steeper uphill trek, we still have a duty to oppose the crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan that our rulers are committing, with our tax money, in our name.
The folks who marched with us in 2005 and 2006 and 2007 haven’t disappeared. There’s a whole layer of folks who cut their political teeth in the anti-war movement and are now organizers against budget cutbacks and the collapse of our social safety net. We need to reconnect the dots and bring an anti-war analysis and message into the struggles that have motion on the ground now.
One of the most powerful arguments against the wars right now is the astonishing bill for them. It costs $1 million a year to keep a single soldier in Afghanistan. How much does it cost to keep that person in college? Your city has a $300 million deficit? Simple--just don’t send 300 people to Afghanistan for a year, problem solved.
We need to build activity at the local level that’s easy for people to engage in and doesn’t require signing on to a whole stew of anti-imperialist statements. We also need to bring our bodies and signs to the marches and vigils against budget cutbacks in our communities, instead of just waiting for people to show up at an anti-war rally. We need to make the connections in our messages; “Heath care Not Warfare” at the rallies on the congressional showdown. “Books Not Bombs” when folks march in defense of public education.
This isn’t rocket science. We know how to do it. Let’s get going.
Dennis O'Neil is a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad and active in the War Moratorium project.
Eric See became active during the first Gulf War, he was one of the co-founders of the War Moratorium project and currently works at Peace Action.
Initial comments on this piece
FotM has taken the liberty of borrowing these from Facebook. Kindly add your own in the comments section below.
Sigrid: i have not been able to leave town, pretty much, since last summer (think gas & brake repair). seattle is 100 miles to the south of me & is the nearest protest game around...not to mention i can't find anyone who can, who would.
Diana: There was not enough interest to have a bus from the Lehigh Valley to Washington [for the March 20 Demonstration]. Wwe drove down last weekend. There are vigils in several places on different days in the area, but since the Republicans are out of office people don't seem as outraged as they should be about the wars, the drones, the 20% unemployment, climate change...
Bruce: there's nothing wrong with the anti-war movement being a little like the nuclear disarmament [movement]--which was, after all, was incredibly effective and made up of long distance runner-type activists.
Larry: This is a very sound and very valuable article, and I hope it gets wide distribution. I do want to say though that at the beginning, it seems to buy into the emotional roller coaster so typical of the left.The statement that the anti-war movement is now "nearly invisible and in disarray" is simply not true--and in fact the rest of the article demonstrates this. There is a broad and tested base of anti-war activists in every part of the country, including rural Virginia, where I live. Yes, the highly visible actions are not happening and would not be covered if they did.
It is critical, as the article suggests, that anti-war activists move into alliances, esp. around the budget, and otherwise respond effectively to current conditions. But it is also critical that we convey a historical or at least transgenerational awareness of our task. Of course the antiwar movement shrank after Obama's election. Of course it shrank after the national turn against the Iraq war (almost entirely due to the antiwar movement). and of course imperialism didn't go away because either of these events. These are the conditions we work with. They do not contradict the reality that the anti-imperialist movement has grown in numbers, sophistication, and geographical and racial and age diversity over the last 40 years. It will never be easy in the belly of the beast, but let's not confuse predictable short-term changes with deficiencies in the movement building for the long term.
Laurel: If you want to feel better, Dennis, check out http://ny4cg.org/resources/detail.php?rid=2396 [which] spotlights 20 of 150 organized events organized around the 7th anniversary of the war.
March 28, 2010
The Anti-War Movement Seven Years After Shock & Awe
July 16, 2008
Attack On Iran On The Way? Uh, Maybe Not...
By Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Dennis O'Neil
[Originally posted at Znet]
[UPDATED, with some corrections based on information received from poligirl in an interesting discussion that developed when this was crossposted at Daily Kos.]
Once again, there's a lot of serious attack-on-Iran talk going around. We've both been following this, admittedly with no deep expertise, for several years now. During that time a number of media/blogosphere storms declaring such an attack imminent have whirled up and then blown away. (Of course, we oughtn't to forget that in the old children's story, the wolf eventually does come and eat the shepherd boy who produced the false alarms.) So we decided to sketch out these few points.
1. No matter how much Bush and his coterie may want it, we give no more than 10% odds on an attack actually taking place, and that's mainly just covering ourselves.
2. The furor is not a calculated bluff by the administration to put pressure on Iran. Neither is it a planned distraction to weaken opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq. It's the public face of a tense struggle within US ruling circles, concentrated in the state apparatus. Among those pushing for an attack are Bush, who is looking for the Hail Mary pass that will redeem his presidency in the history books; Cheney and the neocons and open advocates of empire, who are certain that the US can by force of will and arms dominate the world; a minority in the Armed Forces, mostly notably in the Air Force which hasn't been permitted to get their lethal jollies in the region; and the Israel lobby people, fronting for ruling class forces there who want to crush anything that might end Israel's regional monopoly on nukes.
Arrayed against an assault on Iran are a whole range of powerful forces in the US and throughout the world. Articles like the well-publicized Seymour Hersh pieces in the New Yorker recently are salvos in that battle. We identify a few more below.
3. First and foremost, it is the majority in the military high command that is blocking any attack on Iran--as they have, unswervingly, for the last four years. They know full well that even an assault as limited as air bombardment of "suspected nuclear sites" would put US land and naval forces in the region in an untenable position, and they are nervous about the longer term damage it would do to US power, "soft" as well as military.
Just look at three key developments in the last weeks, hardly coincidences as the pounding of the war drums by attack advocates in and outside the administration supporters grew louder.
First, the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth issued On Point II, the second volume in its ongoing history of the Iraq war--which focuses the lack of a follow-up plan for after the capture of Baghdad and victory over the regular Iraqi armed forces:
The army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place.This was intended to underline the fact that there is no post-attack plan for Iran, nor any feasible way to develop one, to say nothing of the absence of a plan to deal with likely blowback in other parts of the region--the preparation hasn't happened and the horses just aren't there.
Second, to follow up, the Pentagon released a report on how things are going in Afghanistan, "its first assessment of conditions in Afghanistan since the invasion began in 2001" according to the Wall Street Journal. In short: Armed attacks up, US fatalities up, narcotics production up, corruption up, Taliban influence up, stability down, and worse to come.
Third, to cap it off, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen announced at a Pentagon press gathering that the US is currently in danger of losing in Afghanistan because there aren't enough troops:
I don't have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq. Afghanistan has been and remains an economy-of-force campaign, which by definition means we need more forces there.Regarding Iran, Mullen added, evidently for those too dim to draw the obvious conclusion:
Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful for us. This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable.Nor is this view limited to the Armed Forces' uniformed commanders. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates late last year spoke to the Democratic caucus in the Senate. In his remarks, as reported by Hersh,
Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preemptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, "We'll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America." Gates' comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates' answer, the senator told me, was "Let's just say that I'm here speaking for myself."4. The most valuable political ally the pro-attack faction has, despite Gates' warning, is the national Democratic Party. Congress voted $400 million earlier this year to fund and operationalize a secret "Presidential Finding" signed by Bush. This Finding steps up incursions into Iran by CIA and elite military units and the passing of arms and intelligence to extremely sketchy "opposition" forces within Iran. The Democrats went right along with this transparently provocative effort to create an incident inside Iran which could be exploited as a casus belli.
Now before Congress we have House Resolution 362, which 102 House Democrats have joined 117 Republicans in sponsoring. More aqgressive than its similar, but milder sib, Senate Resolution 580--introduced by Evan Bayh (Dem, IN)--it demands that Bush take steps "inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran." The basic idea of this non-binding resolution is that the US will take advantage of Iran's refinery shortage by stopping the flow of much-needed gasoline into the oil-producing country.
Despite a clause stating that the bills do not authorize military action, the fact is that no such blockade of shipping into and out of Iran could be conducted without force. To initiate a blockade without UN approval would be a declaration of war against Iran (and an act of aggression against any country peacefully trading with Iran).
Driven primarily by the politics of posing (The Democrats: Tough on Towelheads!) and placating (HR 362 and SR 580 are among AIPAC's top legislative priorities according to the Zionist lobbying group's website), the bills are actually very dangerous in two ways. First, they continue the ongoing demonization of Islam and of Iran and its people, and promote the idea that the US has the right to intervene wherever it wants on any pretext. To do this at a time when the invasion of Iraq has made the US population very wary of rhetoric about why "we" need to go to war is unforgivable.
Second, should Bush & Co. actually manage to conjure up a convincing Gulf of Tonkin-type incident, they could point to this resolution to justify starting an armed blockade--and a war!
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, incidentally, blusters of Iran that the military option "is on the table" and that he will meet Iranian leaders only on his timetable and "if and only if it can advance the interest of the United States." He has not yet announced what he intends to do about SR 580, which, like HR 362, may well pass the Democratic-controlled Congress in the relatively near future.
5. Overall, the signs indicate that the majority of the US ruling class really does not want an attack on Iran. One clear indication came with the release last fall of the National Intelligence Estimate, the consensus opinion of more than a dozen US intelligence agencies (some part of the Armed Forces, others, like the CIA, not), that Iran did not even have an active nuclear weapons program!
After being rolled by the Bushies in the Iraq WMD fiasco, these crucial institutions of capitalist rule are eager to prove their position "above politics" and their worth to their masters.
It is true that the US imperialists are already in a deep, deep hole in Iraq, with no good options--they can't afford to stay (the growing budget deficit, the lack of troops, popular opposition to the occupation) and they believe that they cannot afford to leave (the damage to US interests and prestige, all that lovely petroleum). But at least most of them recognize the folk wisdom that when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
To concentrate their minds, we have crude oil climbing to $145+ a barrel. Economists at major imperialist institutions globally, public and private, are warning of catastrophic outcomes if the trend continues. "Two-hundred-dollar oil would break the back of the global economy," is the blunt estimate of Deutsche Bank AG's chief energy economist Adam Sieminski. Is it possible to imagine a major assault on Iran that wouldn't drive oil prices much higher than that for an indefinite period?
6. Despite chit-chat by pundits, there is no easy way for the administration to finesse these contradictions by having Israel undertake the attack. Even under the extremely questionable assumption that the Israeli Defense Forces (a) have the capacity to devastate what is claimed to be the very dispersed and hardened Iranian nuclear program without US participation and, (b) feel like going it alone in the teeth of international law and world public opinion, one brutal geographic fact stands in the way. Any IDF air and missile assault on Iran would have to pass through Iraqi airspace, which is controlled by the US occupation, and would constitute a US-approved and sponsored attack. Further, the al-Maliki regime in Iraq would have to denounce it as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and turn hard against their own US sponsors or fall in the face of Shiite rage.
So what do we do? Journalists like Hersh are yelling like their hair is on fire, trying to forestall the attacks they predict. Activist experts like Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy work tirelessly to focus the attention of the left liberal blogosphere on Iran and promote options for negotiation. US Labor Against the War and others have called for a massive phone-in directed at Congress. The country's largest anti-war coalition, United For Peace & Justice, has called for protest actions on July 19-21.
Though skeptical of the likelihood of an attack, we strongly support all of these initiatives. Still, the most important thing for us to be doing at this time is to continue building an independent movement focused on ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on winning the 70% of our fellow Americans who are against the Iraq war to act against the war. The stronger that movement is, the more it serves to forestall further imperialist ventures in Iran or elsewhere. Check out the Iraq Moratorium.
And this holds true even if the two of us should prove wrong. An actual attack would mean that even the implacable opposition of the high command and deep concern in the ranks of the powers that be are not enough to forestall a spectacularly unpopular lame duck administration from launching a whole new war in its death throes. Supposing our gritty but fatigued anti-war movement could shift gears to make Iran its main focus, how much more weight would that throw on the scales? They know what we think already.
We have to continue to build on our strengths, to expand the movement and draw in the tens of millions we have helped persuade, over the last half decade, that the occupation is a slow-motion train wreck causing catastrophic destruction in Iraq and irreparable harm to our own country.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of www.blackcommentator.com and a co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. Dennis O'Neil is on the national coordinating body of the Iraq Moratorium.
Read more!
April 1, 2008
Beyond Despair--The Young People Are Our Hope
[Not long after I saw my friend Jeri Reed, mother of an Iraq vet and a fighter to end this catastrophic war since before it began, at Winter Soldier, she sent me this passionate and hopeful piece. Anyone who wants to repost it has her permission.]
I stood out on the street Monday night with about fifteen others. Two members of the Oklahoma National Guard, one a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, both about to deploy to Iraq. Another mother whose two sons have been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, one son is in the Green Zone right now. Safer? She worries that he is in the middle of Baghdad, in the middle of Iraq, surrounded by millions of Iraqis who could one day get sick and tired of the American occupation once and for all.
A big supporter of IVAW who distributes their newsletter in his small Oklahoma town drove up from his farm to join us. His Marine son was killed in Iraq on September 6 last year, my birthday, he is my birthday soldier, which probably all of us have by now. We were supposed to be commemorating the death of the 4000th soldier in Iraq. But people weren't even honking any more like they used to. I'm sure a lot of people drove by thinking we were just foolish for even bothering. What's another dead soldier in a sea of so many? What's another dead Iraqi?
We keep standing out there even though it really does not do much to end the occupations. I wouldn't know what else to do. When my son rolled across the Iraq border five years ago on March 21, 2003, it became my eternal responsibility to do something, even if it seemed hopeless, which it does. But maybe that is what a lot of people think---why bother?
We are powerless to end this war, so why try? Better to just ignore it and keep our minds elsewhere. A lot of people have turned their attention to electoral politics, putting their faith into one of the dismal presidential candidates. At the same time, I have not talked to anyone who really believes that any of the candidates will actually end the war in Iraq, and of course, few people think to consider Afghanistan at all.
But some small events have given me hope, actions that have been criticized by others as rash and disruptive. Actions by young people guided by their passion and certainty that the occupation of Iraq is a crime against humanity that needs to stop immediately, by their youthful disbelief that such things could take place and no one would do anything to stop them. On Easter Sunday, six young people, members of a street theater group called Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, entered the services at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago and staged a die-in, they spread fake blood around, right in the aisle in the middle of respectable parishioners there to quietly hear the mass, not be reminded of the atrocities happening thousands of miles away. They yelled out "Even the Pope calls for peace!" and lay down in the aisles as if dead. They vocally objected to the priest, Cardinal George, meeting with a known war criminal, George W. Bush.
They were arrested, and face felony charges for their actions, bail was set at $25,000 for five of them, $35,000 for Donte Smith allegedly due to a previous arrest at the School of the Americas, they are presently all free after putting up $16,000 of borrowed money. It made me so glad; it gave me so much hope. I was so proud of them.
Because if anyone thinks, after five years of this outrage, after one horrible year of my son invading another country and helping to wreak havoc and death and destruction, after a year of him being mortared almost daily, wading through depleted uranium which is like the ticking time bomb of our lives, after two years of trying to help him deal with the aftereffects to no avail, which of course we are supposed to keep to ourselves so as not to disturb others and simply smile and go about our normal lives which are not normal, after filing for bankruptcy the first year and continuing to sink money I don't have into fighting to end this war, we all do, those of us affected, our cards if we still have them are maxed out, we don't pay our bills. After sharing the pain of hundreds of other families and soldiers for five years, of all of those friends whose kids did not return from Iraq or Afghanistan, of all of those members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who despite the fact that they must deal with their own deep injuries physical and mental are courageously willing to put themselves on the line, even if they are active duty, even if they are in Iraq. Saying nothing of course about the tens of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqis and Afghanis or the lives they must lead in devastated nations, the fear that they live with daily, the sorrow and anguish they face daily. If anyone thinks that after all of this pain and death and disruption and destruction of our lives and the lives of all the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, I care if Easter Mass at Mayor Daley's church was disrupted by six young people with fake blood and cries for an end to this atrocity, they would be wrong. Good. I hope they do it some more. They are our hope.
I'm just saying that because I was looking for updates on the Holy Name 6, the name they have acquired, and ran across a message board, a generally anti-war message board made up of "progressive" Democrats, where opinion seems to be running against them, how dare they, on Easter Sunday yet, disrupt a church service. The innocent parishioners should have been allowed to enjoy their Easter in peace, to think of peace, perhaps to pray for it, then head to their homes for nice Easter dinners with their families. There were children present after all. They were scared.
There are children in Iraq. They are scared. They are wounded. They die. They have needed us to end this occupation for five years. They needed us to stop the invasion before it began. We failed. *None of us are innocent.* If our young people are willing to take risks to try to shock some compassion and concern into the American public who would rather look the other way and spend their time on football scores rather than thinking about the number of dead Americans and Iraqis and Afghanis, we need to support them. This is our hope--sedate crowds of marching old people have failed, devoted prayers of peace have failed, polite conversations with spineless and lying politicians have failed.
The action at Holy Name last Sunday is not the only sign of hope. Earlier this month at the University of Alabama, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Students for a Democratic Society were arrested for staging a mock incident between soldiers and Iraqis in one of the university's buildings. Recreating the day-to-day behavior of soldiers in Iraq towards Iraqi citizens was simply too alarming for those nearby, or in the words of the dean of students, it was disruptive and wrong because it was "mimicking a true emergency." This is a true emergency.
Students at the University of Iowa recently made war criminal Karl Rove very unwelcome after he was paid $40, 000 to speak there. Not only did a couple hundred students disrupt the speaking event, they surrounded the restaurant where Rove ate dinner later, calling for him to "come out with his hands up" over a bullhorn, attempting to make a citizens' arrest of this notorious war criminal, causing him to delay his exit for quite a while.
At a "teach in" near the University of North Texas a few weeks ago, I listened to students talk about ideas for actions, much of it taken from the pages of history. Members of a new SDS chapter like those springing up on campuses around the country were present. I found myself wanting to interrupt; some of the ideas sounded too much like the ideas of 20-year-old college students for me, because they were. I stopped myself from criticizing. It is all right for us to share wisdom. It is not all right to stifle our young people in this hopeless situation. We cannot tell them what to do. We have no grounds. We have failed.
Two weeks ago, Tina Richards spent the evening waiting at the juvenile facility in Washington DC for the release of her fourteen year old daughter who had been arrested blocking a street while chanting "Arrest Bush, not kids!" as part of the Stop-Loss Congress actions, along with many young people who descended on our nation's capitol for what they called Our Spring Break. This was Chrissy's second arrest. With two other young women, she was held for hours in a cell smeared with human feces and male bodily fluids, while the arresting officer kept trying to intimidate them, trying to scare them. They sang instead, they emerged with shining eyes and smiling faces, these three girls. They were proud of themselves and they should have been. And Chrissy was ready to do it again.
This is personal to Chrissy, along with her mother she has had to deal with the problems of her brother Cloy, a former Marine, now disabled with PTSD. She has had to stand by her mother as Cloy collapsed further and further after returning from Iraq, to the point where he called Tina and told her he was holding a gun to his mouth. Chrissy's life is permanently disrupted; I don't think she cares whether the rest of the country feels her pain.
I can remember how I felt when I was young, just realizing how the world really worked, I remember my shock and disbelief, my anger and my passion, and my belief that I could help change things. I think of things that I did that I would not do now, things that seem rash and dangerous. It is easy to look at the alleged excesses of the 60s and 70s with a critical eye, looking at the actions of so many young people then, the actions of ourselves. Some of them were misguided; some of them just did not work out the way they were planned. These were not things done by people who worried about their personal safety or the long-term repercussions of their actions. But then again, the Vietnam War ended and people of color in this country got more rights. None of this happened because people quietly prayed it away or went to the polls and elected the "right" people. Nothing has ever really changed in this country because people followed the rules and did the right thing and did not disturb others.
We live in the most powerful nation in the world with the biggest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, run by people who are murderers and torturers and thieves. Most of us acknowledge that we are ruled by murderers and torturers and thieves, mainly because they don't even bother to keep it from us. You could not bring enough buttons reading "Arrest Bush and Cheney" or the ever popular t-shirt "Arrest Cheney First" into the state of Oklahoma to satisfy demand. Yet no one seems willing to do anything about it. They don't want to disrupt their lives.
When the bombs started dropping on Baghdad on March 19, 2003, then my son drove into Iraq two days later, I knew we had failed. We had not been willing to disrupt our lives to stop this; I had not been willing to disrupt my own life enough even to prevent my own son from participating in these atrocities. I have always thought, what we should have done was shut down the whole country to stop it, no matter what.
None of the actions listed involved any kind of violence; they merely caused a lot of disruption and inconvenience for surrounding people, watch the video if you want to see what the Holy Name 6 actually did. None of these small incidents by themselves did much to end the war. But one can only hope that they are sparks. One can only hope. And if our young people decide that they simply do not want a future like this, that they do not want to give their silent assent to war crimes and war criminals, if they decide to disrupt the whole country to end this, to do what we have not been willing to do, we don't need to criticize them, we need to support them.
Or join them.
Read more!
February 27, 2008
Some news from the student movement
Seems those meddling kids in SDS are at it again, with a new issue of the SDS News Bulletin. Some stuff about creative uses of the Iraq Moratorium ahead of the March 20th protests and lots more. (PDF badness defanged through use of PDF Me Not, btw).
Now a question for those elders who "saw it live": how's the new SDS stacking up against the original? Read more!
September 15, 2007
Dave Cline Is Dead
Dave Cline died last night at his home in Jersey City, NJ.
In one sense it comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked closely with Dave in recent years. He had lived for two decades with a severely compromised immune system and had recently been battling both Hepatitis C and the Veterans Administration health care system, which did a shitty job of treating it.
Stan Goff reached me first with the news, crying at the loss. I have been surrounded by death recently--Stans's call came while I was sitting in a memorial service for an old friend, longtime fighter for socialism and Black liberation Vicki Garvin.
The news hasn't really sunk in yet, and I have no idea how it will hit when it does, or how hard.
But I do want to say a few things right now to set some context for what will surely be a great outpouring of sorrow and memory in weeks to come.
Dave Cline will someday, in a better world, stand recognized as one of the great figures in the history of the United States since the Second World War. After a tour in Vietnam as a grunt, where he was shot and shot at others, he returned to become an early member and leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Through tireless organizing and dramatic events like Operation Dewey Canyon III, where hundreds of vets threw their medals on the Capitol steps, and the Winter Soldier Hearings into war crimes committed during the occupation of Vietnam, VVAW did much to finally doom the U.S. government's murderous assault on the heroic people of Vietnam.
I have here on my desk a 1969 flier from SDS (the original one, not version 2.0) on the GI Revolt. It's an interview with Dave and another vet, fresh out of uniform and into the anti-war struggle. I am reminded by it to recommend that everyone reading this check out the recent documentary "Sir, No Sir!" Dave is featured in it as a young vet and as a present-day fighter against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
And this last role is where Dave truly became great. He stayed active in VVAW right up to the present day, but also joined another organization called Veterans For Peace, which united vets from all eras in an essentially pacifist oppostion to war, military recruitng, US aggression abroad and the neglect of those who had served in the armed forces.
Dave Cline was in his first term as president of Vets For Peace when the attack on the World Trade Center took place. He helped guide the small group through a period of war fever and jingoism in this country and growing concern as the Bush/Cheney regime prepared to attack Iraq--and did. Dave presided over the rapid, severalfold growth of VFP and its conversion into a dynamic and leading force against the war. He helped forge a tight alliance with Military Families Speak Out and birth the Bring Them Home Now! campaign. The handful of young men and women just back from Iraq who initiated Iraq Veterans Against the War consulted with Dave on a near-daily basis and grew to become the most dynamic element in the alliance.
This alliance has played the role of spearhead in the movement to end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home now. Without a sharp point, capable of cutting through defenses, a spear is just a fat stick, but without the weight of the spear, the whole anti-war movement, behind it, the spearhead lacks real momentum. Just weeks ago I was discussing with him the role this force could play in the Iraq Moratorium project.
Dave was the leader of this informal but vital alliance of forces with roots in the "military community" or, it would be more accurate to say, he gave it leadership. He could play this role because of his long experience, and because of how he had summed up and internalized that esxperience. That was in no small part a matter of style. Dave could be contentious but he had also become genuinely humble and thoughtful, always trying to avoid repeating mistakes he had made earlier in the struggle and also to help others avoid those mistakes or sum them up quickly and move on.
One instance where the breadth of his contribution can be seen most clearly is in the historic "Walkin' To New Orleans" march of veterans and survivors of Hurricane Katrina from Mobile to New Orleans last year on the fourth anniversary of the invasion. The conception of the march, linking the horrors of the war with the horrors of Katrina and concretely working to bring the struggle of Black people in the South closer to heart of the anti-war movement--that was Dave's. And, with Stan Goff and a handful of others, he saw to the planning and execution of the march as well.
Hell, there's so much more I could say about Dave, now the floodgates are open, about his revolutionary stance until the day he died, of the arrogance of the young Dave and the kindness of the older one, concerning the drinking and the clay feet, about the music.
But I will close by underlining my basic point: Dave Cline made a substantial difference in the world. He did it by struggling against oppression and militarism; he did it by drawing lessons from earlier battles and by living those lessons, so he, and all who worked with him, could fight better in the new struggles history presented us with.
Call it wisdom. Call it leadership. We have suffered a great loss, and those who feel that loss are just going to have to step up and try to fill the hole.
[UPDATE: More Dave Cline memories:
Remembering Dave Cline, Part 2 (a moving tribute by Nancy and Charlie Richardson of Military Families Speak Out)
Dave Cline, Part 3: The First Memorial
Dave Cline, Part 4: Goodbye, Bro... ( a short talk by Dave in NOLA, more memories and some links)
Fire on the Mountain also carried a series of four articles on Dave's activism as a militant labor rank and filer, especially in the major wildcat strike in The NJ Bulk Mail Center of the US Postal Service in 1978. The first, Dave Cline: Rank & File Rebel, Introduction, contains links to the other three parts.]
September 3, 2007
Iraq Moratorium "Empty Call"? Not Really
[Last week a post on this site got a comment from anonymous, which I copy here:
So... is this Iraq Moratorium thing gonna jump off in a few weeks or is it another empty call for "local actions everywhere"?This is a legitimate question, considering that one of the early proposals for the Iraq Moratorium was floated on this site.
Are there any meetings or public forums scheduled in the New York area? I have not seen anything about it other then the website and some emails.
What follows is a short overview of ongoing activity that was sent to me and other folks working on the project a week ago or so. So, "empty?" No. What it will be remains to be seen--- on September 21, and October 19, and November 16 and...]
Wind In Our Sails
This is just a quick post to spread the word on a slew of what seem to be very positive straws in the wind that've blown our way lately. If you visit the website regularly, you'll have seen some of this.
(So it's a little long...You can't skim?)
On the cultural front:
The Dreamtime Circus, based in Northern California, is planning a free Moratorium Day public performance on September 21 prior to their tour of South Asia.
On the labor front:
Via Mike Eisenscher, USLAW has printed up and is distributing Moratorium stickers!
Please share this announcement with others. Apologies for duplicates.
Order your stickers for the Iraq Moratorium!
USLAW has endorsed and encourages all affiliates, members and supporters to participate in the Iraq Moratorium, which begins on Friday, September 21st and repeats on the 3rd Friday of each month thereafter.
On each Iraq Moratorium day, all those who oppose the war and occupation in Iraq are asked to take some action to give evidence to that opposition. This could be wearing an armband, button or sticker to work, calling or writing members of Congress, attending a vigil, rally or other demonstration, participating in a sit-in in a Congressional office, or any other action designed to communicate your desire to end the military occupation of Iraq now and bring all the troops safely and rapidly home.
The objective is to get a growing number of the 70% of the population that opposes the war but have yet to demonstrate their feelings to break with business as usual to show their opposition to the war.
In support of the Moratorium, USLAW is making available two stickers that can be ordered in quantity and distributed to be worn on Moratorium days or to promote the Moratorium. Please order some and ask coworkers to wear them on Moratorium Day.
Please place your orders early. Order extras for coworkers, colleagues, friends and family.
On the labor front, part 2:
The Los Angeles Central Labor Council issued the following statement (Moratorium content in red):
The LA County Federation of Labor passed this resolution at its Delegate meeting on Monday, August 20, 2007.
Resolution on Fall Anti-war Activities
Whereas , the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has expressed its opposition to the ongoing occupation in Iraq and military operations in Afghanistan; and
Whereas, these conflicts continue unabated, and over 3700 US troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and fighters opposed to the occupation have lost their lives, and countless others have been wounded, and
Whereas, the costs of the war, both in its operation and expected costs in healthcare and benefits for returning troops is projected to be over 1 trillion dollars, while other pressing human needs at home such as healthcare, education, housing, and disaster recovery (such as Katrina) are neglected and under funded, and
Whereas, major labor leaders have recently condemned the actions of the Iraqi Oil Minister in declaring public trade unions illegal, adding to the attacks on workers in that country,
Whereas, President Bush and the Congress continue to fund the war despite the fact that over 60% of the American public feels we should bring our troops home from Iraq, and
Whereas, several national, regional, and local organizations are calling for a variety of anti-war campaigns, educational programs, and mobilization efforts this fall, designed to put more pressure on the administration to end these conflicts,
Therefore, let it be resolved that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor renew its call for the immediate beginning of the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and
Resolved, that the Federation promote and endorse fall anti-war activities, specifically the September 15th, September 29th, and October 27th national, regional and local mobilizations, and the September 22-29 Tent-Cities at the Westwood and Downtown Federal Buildings; and
Resolved , that the Federation will encourage its affiliates and members to break their daily routine and to take some action to end the war, such as organizing programs in their workplaces or union halls, the wearing of armbands, and other forms of participation in the Iraq Moratorium, beginning on September 21, 2007, and continuing on the third Friday of each subsequent month.
Finally Resolved, that the Federation will publish this resolution and circulate it to its affiliates and members through its various communication vehicles, and send copies to other county federations, the CA State Federation and the AFL-CIO, urging them to adopt similar motions.
and the large and powerful LA teachers union followed suit (excerpt):
At its Board Meeting on Thursday, August 23, the Board of Directors of
United Teachers Los Angeles passed the following resolution:
Support for Fall Anti-War Activities
Moved, that UTLA renew its call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and
Further moved, that UTLA promote and endorse fall anti-war activities, specifically the September 15th, September 29th, and October 27th national, regional and local mobilizations, the ILWU (San Francisco) sponsored Labor and the War Conference on October 20, and the September 22-29 Tent-Cities at the Westwood and Downtown Federal Buildings; and
Further moved, that UTLA will publicize the Iraq Moratorium to our members, giving them opportunities to break their daily routine and take some action to end the war, beginning on September 21, 2007, and continuing on the third Friday of each subsequent month.
Finally moved, that UTLA will publish this resolution and circulate it to its affiliates and members through its various communication vehicles, and to inform our Congressional Delegation of this resolution, encouraging them to vote against further allocations of funding for the Iraq occupation, except for the safe and immediate removal of our troops there.
On Left websites:
The influential CommonDreams carried this on Friday.
Blogger lao hong han is trying some shit-stirring in the anti-war movement and left blogosphere.
And if you add this Technorati link to your bookmarks, you can check our growing blogosphere presence daily.
In the media:
Eric See was interviewed on a Harrisburg, PA radio station recently.
Out among the masses:
Paul K reports from the road in Northern CA:
Our trip across California has been tremendous. I've talked to scores of people in towns and villages up the coast of California (we're almost to Oregon) about the IM -- peace and justice organization activists, bookstore, cafe and inn owners and others (several were flying peace flags in front of their businesses) and many say they will try to do something on IM days, beginning Sept. 21. I got their names and numbers and will follow-up with them when I get home.
Out among the masses, part 2:
A bit of explanation--this next exchange is excerpted from a DailyKos thread entitled "I joined a union today" which blogger lao hong han used to plug the LA CLC resolution:
1. Hey, I've worked union and I've worked not-union--and believe me, union is better. (h/t Sophie Tucker)
And my union good news for the week is that the LA Central Labor Council has backed the Iraq Moratorium, calling on locals and members to take steps like "organizing programs in their workplaces or union halls, the wearing of armbands, and other forms of participation."
by lao hong han on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 07:34:47 PM EDT
2. That's great that they're backing it!
:)
"I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth." - Molly Ivins
littlesky on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 07:40:15 PM EDT
3. joined the Iraq Moratorium? Way cool!!!!
littlesky and I came up with our Iraq Moratorium idea. She has a big front porch so we're going to hang signs on it that say, "Mission Accomplished!" and "Oh yeah?"
After the (s)election in 2000, we posted signs there that had the popular vote totals. :)
Turn the Mountain West blue! Support Gary Trauner (WY-AL) for Congress!
by kainah on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 07:43:37 PM EDT
4. Excellent! That's the whole idea of the Moratorium--do something where you are, with others or by yer own self. But littlesky, and presumably the porch, are in WV, right? How come you've got "Turn the Mountain West blue!" as your sig?
Iraq Moratorium! Sign On Now!
by lao hong han on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:06:44 PM EDT
5. She's visiting from WY
Go Gary Trauner! :)
"I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth." - Molly Ivins
by littlesky on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:09:28 PM EDT
6. back in Laramie for Iraq Moratorium they will be displaying our peace group's IRAQ WALL at our regular, going-on-five-years Friday protest.
Turn the Mountain West blue! Support Gary Trauner (WY-AL) for Congress!
by kainah on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:28:00 PM EDT
[Just to sum up, two sibs, littlesky based somewhere in WV and kainah in Laramie, WY have 1. heard of the Moratorium 2. are excited that the labor movement is aboard, and 3. have already made their plans for September 21!]
Local Mobilizing, part 1:
Some SDSers in NYC have taken the initiative to call a city-wide planning meeting for the 21st next week, to draw in all sorts of forces. They will need help with outreach.
Local Organizing, part 2:
The early birds in Sewanee, TN, did it again! Third Friday in August--and they doubled their July numbers!
And Saving The Best For Last:
Check out Moratorio Irak! Read more!
August 21, 2007
Black NJ Organizes Against the War (Part 6)
One further note: the title of this post emphasizes the extremely important fact that the Coalition and the March have been initiated by forces in the Black community in Northern Jersey, folks who somehow always seem to wind up somewhere in the middle of the "To Do" list of the mainstream (and mainly white) anti-war movement. Everyone is welcome to the March, more than welcome. Broken rib notwithstanding, I will drag my pale behind there on Saturday and, if you live anywhere in the vicinity, I certainly hope that you will, too.]
The People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs & Justice
The People's March commemorates the 44th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the 40th Anniversary of the 1967 New Ark Rebellion, and the 2nd Anniversary of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
Sponsored by the Peace and Justice Coalition "The Grassroots Speak" A grassroots coalition of more than 150 organizations "Resisting the war on Iraq and the war on our communities."
March for:
Peace at Home and Abroad!
Troops Home Now!
Respect Civil, Human & Workers' Rights!
Fund Human Needs!
Health Care for All (H.R. 676)!
Money for Living Wage Jobs!
Justice for Hurricane Katrina Survivors!
Environmental Justice!
Accountability!
Undocumented Immigrants!
When: Saturday, August 25, 2007
Where: Beginning at Lincoln Park, Broad Street & Lincoln Park,
Newark, New Jersey
Time: 12:00 noon
Info/Volunteer: 801 457-9447, 848 248-2282, 973 801-0001,
peaceandjusticecoalition.org Read more!
July 23, 2007
New Yorkers--Benefit Gig for Iraq Moratorium!
DJ D has a resident gig every other Thursday at the venerable Williamsburg institution, Teddy’s Bar & Grill, and on August 2, he will be running it as a fundraiser for the Iraq Moratorium. The Iraq Moratorium is a vitally important initiative to manifest and focus the growing majority anti-war sentiment among the American people with locally-based activities on the Third Friday of every month, beginning on September 21. Check out the website at Iraqmoratorium.org.
Teddy’s Bar & Grill
Corner of Berry and North 8th, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L train to Bedford Avenue)
Admission is free. Teddy’s management will donate a portion of the night’s take to the Iraq Moratorium. So contribute by dining from Teddy’s worthy menu and by drinking freely. And bring some spare cash--donations will be solicited.
In honor of the event, and to draw out folks unimpressed by mere great deejaying, DJ D promises a heavily political set:
- Hum along to Christian pacifist Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”
- Discover Lula Belle & Scotty’s hillbilly rant “I’m No Communist”
- Hear the two best songs of the Vietnam War era (one by crooner BJ Thomas!)
- And for the first time in any NYC club in 30 years, easy, thrill to the Black Panther Party’s house band, the Lumpen, singing “Free Bobby Now!”
Note: the term “political” is very loosely defined—there’ll be songs about sex, drinking, shoes, working, hooking up at demonstrations, getting old, school, and major strikes as an occasion for cheating.
Plus plenty more. Ya can’t beat it with a stick. And if you are unable to attend, please consider making a direct tax-deductible donation to the Iraq Moratorium at the website.
UPDATE:
If you're coming to the gig, suggests DJ D, right here and now might be a good time to make requests--just hit the comments button at the bottom of this post. (Thanks to ey, who came up with some good suggestions.)
And, as a sneak peek--or, rather, listen--here's the video of the excellent Bruce Cockburn tune plugged in the announcement:
Read more!
February 20, 2007
Will Murtha's Plan Damage The Anti-War Movement?
Representative John Murtha (D, PA) has a plan to end the war in Iraq (though at the moment he’s selling it only as a way to end "The Surge."). This plan is based on attaching conditions to Bush’s "emergency appropriation" request. It has the backing of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership, and presumably of those significant allies within the military’s High Command with whom Murtha has legendary ties going back decades.
The Murtha plan also serves to provide cover for elected officials, especially Democrats, who are facing intensifying pressure to take strong action to end this fiasco pronto. That pressure comes from (perhaps through would be more apt) a resurgent anti-war/anti-occupation movement which is moving powerfully forward on a broad front these days. The Murtha plan is bound, and perhaps designed, to put obstacles in the path of that advance, and to change the balance of forces within the anti-war movement and its focus.
This piece will summarize the Murtha plan, touch very briefly on its actual prospects for success and then discuss its very serious implications for the anti-war movement.
I recommend that anyone wanting to understand the political terrain anti-war activists will be facing watch the video interview with him posted at MoveCongress.org a couple of days ago. It fleshes out what has been in the press about the Murtha plan, and shows the subtle thinking and the flexibility that has the Right in a foam-flecked attack frenzy.
First, let me state at the outset that I think Murtha genuinely wants to end the occupation of Iraq as soon as possible, and has for some time. He fears the enormous harm it is doing to his beloved Marine Corps and the military as a whole, and he recognizes, like many, that the occupation is lost. And unlike many politicians, he has had the guts to take a stand. His November 2005 call for complete rapid "redeployment" out of Iraq--no timelines, no benchmarks, no phased withdrawal, no residual forces—changed the terms of the debate over the war greatly and for the better. (I also liked that, when asked about what he meant by "over the horizon" redeployment, he suggested Okinawa would be a good place.)
His MoveCongress.org talk lays out a strategy based around the upcoming debate on Bush’s latest trip back to the "emergency appropriation" well—a request for $93 billion this time. In hearings in the House Appropriatioons Defense Subcommittee, which he runs, conditions will be attached to the bill.
Moreover, the most prominent conditions are couched as defense of the troops: No troops to be redeployed to Iraq without a year intervening, and then only if they are certified as being fully retrained and equipped. No more extensions of deployment (which would mean that one year, boots on the ground, would be the maximum). No more Stop Loss, the dreaded "Back Door Draft" that snatches men and women with a few months or weeks left of their service commitment and sends them back into harm’s way for another full tour.
Murtha presents this as a way to stop any further escalation of the US presence in Iraq (and with most of the remnants of the Coalition of the Willing eying the exits, the occupation is the US, a shrinking contingent of Brits, and mercenaries, period). In fact, to a military strapped for troops, with a brutal optempo, sinking morale and barrel-bottom-scraping recruiting practices, this would make anything like the current occupation impossible to sustain any longer.
What’s more, Murtha says he intends to include a clause requiring that the US announce that it will not seek permanent bases in Iraq, which rules out keeping a toehold (meaning a trigger point for re-invasion). He also talks about mandating the closing of Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo.
The mechanisms through which all this will be enforced are unclear, but the general idea appears to be that the money will be released in batches and failure to comply with the bill’s requirements at one stage will immediately result in the sequestration of the next batch.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
Will this pass? We’ll see. And to go into effect, it’ll have to get the Senate’s okay too.
Would it stop the war? Quite possibly, but with a couple of very important caveats. First, almost any scenario for ending or downsizing the war other than waiting until January 2009 may well lead to a Constitutional crisis. Faced by a funds cutoff or by a veto-proof bill calling for withdrawal or a revocation of the war powers bill, Bush will try and keep the war going. Though Murtha’s strategy is gradualist, there are potentially a lot of separate trigger points for such a crisis. Second, it would take a long time to end the occupation this way, time in which the devastation of Iraq will continue unabated, troops will die and be wounded and the damage to the US itself will deepen.
Will it lead to impeachment? It would be foolhardy to predict that now.
Will it help position the Democrats for the 2008 elections? Funny you should ask. By not choking off funding for the war now (or when the 2008 emergency appropriation comes up), they get to run against Bush and his failed war all over again. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children who will die between now and then. Never mind the tens of thousands of troops who will be killed or wounded.
THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT’S PLAN
Before it does anything whatsoever to bring the end of the war closer, this approach has the potential to do real damage to the anti-war movement. That movement, let me underline, is on a roll. The January 27 demo was large and determined and far broader than generally understood, campuses are stepping up, resolutions against the war are in play at the state level instead of just in cities, local activities are doing very well. And there has been intense focus on Congress and stopping the funding as the key to stopping the war.
Therein, of course, lies the rub. Congress has been the focus of anti-war strategy for a long time now, as activists and everyday people alike realized that how intent Bush administration was on "staying the course" (and possibly rolling double or nothing in Iran). Mass disapproval and indeed seething anger were not gonna change much of anything in the White House. Congresscritters on the other hand are clearly more susceptible to mass pressure, especially after the wholesale rubbishing of Republican candidates in the November election.
Thus lobbying, petitions and other pressure tactics have been intensified even more than demonstrations and broadly-directed educational activities. Some organizations like Progressive Democrats of America and Military Families Speak Out have mobilized to really bear down on this, supported by United For Peace and Justice and other groups in the mainstream of the anti-war movement. One whole new effort, the Occupation Project, sponsored by the Committee for Non-Violent Action, represents a bold ramping up of this approach. They’ve been occupying Congressional offices, demanding that the Senator or Representative targeted agree to vote against the "Emergency Supplemental"--in the case of those who’ve declared their opposition to the occupation but done squat, to put their money where their mouths are.
Absent a serious worsening of the situation on the ground in Iraq, it has been a long shot that we would be able to cut off the funding this time. On the other hand, all it would take would be defeat of the $93 billion appropriation by a simple majority vote in either house. No need to get the same bill agreed to by both houses, to beat back a filibuster in the Senate, to overturn a presidential veto. One more "No" than "Yes" vote, and that’s that (or rather, here comes the Constitutional crisis).
TWO PLANS COLLIDE
The Murtha strategy and its adoption by the Congressional Dems knock this topsy-turvy. First off, it gives pro-war, waffling, and anti-war but gutless elected officials an out: "I’d love to vote against Bush’s request, but we are using the appropriation to turn the tide and start bringing the war home." It may even increase pressure on the more principled souls who have voted against emergency appropriations in the past to fall in line now.
(How much pressure will depend on how smart the Republicans play this. Suppose that they can stay united on voting against Murtha’s booby-trapped version. Suppose further that they put their opposition in terms of not getting in the way of the troops—after all, at this point nobody’s likely to rally behind, "We can’t tie the President’s hands." Too many people would like to see his feet tied, too, and wired to the engine block of a 1947 DeSoto and dropped in the Potomac. How many Dems will vote "No" if it means joining the Republicans in trying to block the Murtha plan?)
Second, it sets up the folks who have been working hardest on pressuring Congress to defund for a big, fat demoralizing hit.
Third, and more broadly, if the Democrats and a bunch of Republican allies go with the Murtha approach, gradualism becomes the order of the day. We will be back to politicians and pundits talking about timetables and phased withdrawals and benchmarks and all the rest of the think tank nonsense we had to fight to sweep away in 2003 and 2004. Once again we will have to blaze a path our way through thickets of policy wonkery to keep to the fore the simple demands that more and more people in this country are uniting around: Stop The Occupation! Bring Them Home Now!
This is already happening. Tom Hayden has jumped out with a convoluted plan that amounts to dumping the current puppet government and somehow getting the Iraqis to set up a new one. These puppets would then demand that the US withdraw all troops within six months to a year. Oh yeah, and the new regime will also establish a cease-fire among the militias and call an international conference to "fill the vacuum." And people like him claim it’s "not realistic" to demand that the US government just end the occupation!)
Fourth, it has the potential to drive a wedge into the critically important movement of Iraq veterans and active duty troops who are speaking out against the war. With Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Appeal For Redress leading the way, more and more soldiers are coming to the anti-war side. Murtha’s approach, cast as it is as a defense of the troops and a way to enhance their capacity to fight, thus making it eassier to isolate those who attack the occupation as insane and unjustifiable and call for its immediate end.
Finally, it gives a big boost to the more reformist Beltway-based opponents of the war, as opposed to the left, progressive, pacifist, and just plain fed-up folks who are the rank and file of the peace movement. They will again claim a disproportionate share of resources and media attention. Meanwhile, grassroots opponents of the occupation will get discouraged or quickly grow more radical (the latter being just fine with me, but concerning if it comes at the expense of weakening or sidetracking the anti-war movement.)
What do readers think of this take on developments, and what do you think should be done about it? I’ll save my few suggestions about how the anti-war movement might respond to this turn of events for a later post, but as a sneak preview let me leave you with two words: Iraq Moratorium.
[crossposted at DailyKos]
