No One to Demonize--WaPo: Harold Meyerson

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101361.html?referrer=email

Wednesday, June 22, 2005; Page A21

"In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq. Those two facts, I suspect, are connected...There was a very real antiwar movement early on. In the months before, during and immediately after our invasion, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the intervention. Then chaos, followed by insurgency, enveloped Iraq, and the need for a constable to restore some order became indisputable. Those who had opposed the war -- this columnist included -- argued that the occupation would be less of a lightning rod if conducted by an international force under U.N. aegis. But the Bush administration insisted on U.S. control (a decision that grows less explicable with each passing day), and other nations with real armies made clear that they wanted no part of what was becoming a bloody occupation.


Confronted with a choice between U.S. occupation and chaos, millions of Americans -- chiefly liberals and Democrats -- who'd been against the war decided to give occupation a chance. In the streets, demonstrations dwindled; in Congress, Democrats (save for a handful) did not call for withdrawal. With unprecedented discipline, Democrats who had opposed the war lined up behind the candidacy of John Kerry, whose position on the war was muddled at best. The question of the occupation fell off the liberal agenda. At the Take Back America conference, a national gathering of liberals held this month, the issue barely came up at all....

....disapproval was key to Nixon's political strategy. He didn't so much defend the war as attack its critics, making common cause with what he termed the "silent majority" against a mainstream movement with a large, raucous and sometimes senseless fringe. When Nixon won reelection in a landslide, it was clear that the strategy had worked -- and it has been fundamental Republican strategy ever since. Though the public sides with the Democrats on more key issues than it does with Republicans, it's Republicans who have won more elections, in good measure because the GOP has raised its ad hominem attacks on Democrats' character and patriotism to a science.

Which is why, however perverse this may sound, the absence of an antiwar movement is proving to be a huge political problem for the Bush administration, and why the Republicans are reduced to trying to turn Dick Durbin, who criticized our policies at Guantanamo Bay, into some enemy of the people. The administration has no one to demonize. With nobody blocking the troop trains, military recruitment is collapsing of its own accord. With nobody in the streets, the occupation is being judged on its own merits...Unable to distract people from his own performance, Bush is tanking in the polls. And with congressional Democrats at least partly muting their opposition to an open-ended occupation, it's Bush's fellow Republicans -- most prominently, North Carolina's Walter Jones -- who are now calling our policy into question...."



[e-mail]

[ixion]

1. the only reason this strategy works is because the LMSM allows it by

not refuting the arguments, or allowing others to do so. :grr:

[stevedeshazer]

2. BS - "Give Occupation A Chance" nonsense

The very first sentence is wrong:
"In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq."

There's ALWAYS been an anti-war movement.

Then Meyerson says this: "Confronted with a choice between U.S. occupation and chaos, millions of Americans -- chiefly liberals and Democrats -- who'd been against the war decided to give occupation a chance."

Let me ask publicly for ANYONE who decided to 'give occupation a chance' to step forward...anyone?

I didn't see the waves of 'chiefly liberals and Democrats' give occupation a chance as Meyerson says. What a load of crap.

Meyerson needs to get out more.

[phantom power]

3. Also...

isn't that first sentence actually saying that "the American people" are now anti-war? Which is like saying that the anti-war movement is now enormous?

In the absense of an anti-war movement, everybody is now anti-war! But it's not an anti-war movement! :crazy:

[ConservativeDemocrat]

4. Anyone? How about John Kerry for starters...

It is patently obvious that Democrats wouldn't have started this war in Iraq, but the fundamental problem is that if we pull out now, the results will be even worse. Even with U.S. intervention, Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war.

That's not just my position, it's John Kerry's, Hillary Clinton's, and a host of mainstream Democrats.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[stevedeshazer]

5. Thanks for stepping up - you've proved me wrong.

There are Democrats like yourself and many members of Congress who support the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

I have no idea why, but what do I know?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

6. Don't count me among the liberal hawks

I was never for the Iraq war.

Not because I have any illusions about Saddam. (Michael Moore's kite flying scenes in F/911 masked a brutal reality in which people were routinely dragged off the streets and quietly "disappeared" into unmarked graves.) I was entirely selfish in my motives to oppose invading Iraq. As I remarked to a co-worker the day we invaded: "I figure that in about 20 to 30 years, the Iraqi people will eventually be both richer and safer because of this - but we Americans will be neither".

Still, even though I disagreed with the 30% of Democrats who supported invading Iraq, I do understand their point of view enough to not hate them for the mistake they made.

Insofar as the "illegal" "occupation" (which has been at this point sanctioned by the U.N. so it is not "illegal", and is welcome by the only elected government Iraq has known, so is not an "occupation"), I really don't think there is any alternative. People in the D.U. get apoplectic over the estimated 25,000 direct civilian casualties as a result of this conflict, what would you feel about 250,000? Or half a million? Civil Wars are dirty dirty things (just look at the body count in the U.S. civil war), and if there is a chance the U.S. can somehow keep Iraq from falling into that, we have a moral obligation to pursue it.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Wright Patman]

7. There is a doctrine in contract law

called "void ab initio" or invalid/illegal from the beginning.

Contracts which are void ab initio cannot be ratified by later actions such as you describe.

The UN can put lipstick and high heels on the pig known as the illegal Iraq war, but that doesn't change anything. The entire criminal enterprise was void from the start as a matter of international law and cannot be made "okay" afterwards, no matter how much you might like to rationalize it as such in your mind.

If the UN had existed in 1939 and had decided to ratify Hitler's occupation of Poland, would that make it "legal" in your mind?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

13. De facto and Du Jere Sovereignty trumps "contract law"

Contract law is a formal system of resolving disputes invented under British common law. It has power only within the borders of a number of Sovereign nations only because those nations decided to adopt it. It has no power beyond that, and is, in fact, not accepted everywhere: most notably inside Communist countries.

More generally, law is merely a formalization of the rules within a Sovereign nation. It has nothing to do with agreements between Sovereigns - which are called Treaties - and it is well established that Sovereigns can choose to break Treaties at their whim. So while I would agree that the war in Iraq was a very bad idea, the whole business of calling it "illegal" is silly.

Very silly. You claim that even the UN is acting illegally, putting "lipstick and high heels on a pig known as the illegal Iraq war". So to what Court do you intend to take the UN Security Council? Is there some authority above them I don't know about?

Obviously not. The UN isn't even sovereign itself. It has no authority over the US, other than what our nation decides to grant it. So you would do much better trying to persuade the American people that the Iraq war is a mistake, rather than detracting from your credibility by appealing to non-existent law.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Wright Patman]

14. I don't have to persuade them

and I wonder how reality-based you really are if you think 140,000 mostly disenchanted Americans are going to transform Iraq into something better than what it was before.

It looks to me as if they are only serving as targets. Then when they get tired of "insurgents" treating them as targets, they go on nihilistic rampages. And then even the people who once favored their presence are largely viewing them as the enemy.

You didn' t answer my question about UN ratification of Germany's invasion of Poland. Would that have made it okay?

"Might makes right" is your doctrine. But all our "might" is not ever going to bring stability to occupied Iraq. Other nations are laughing at us as we try. Big winner here is China, which minds its own business and seems to be very good at its business indeed these days.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

16. Hmmmm...

Yes, I suppose, you're right. Might does make "right" in a literal sense, although I usually express it differently: history is written by the winners. And it colors everybody's thinking, even yours.

You chose to talk about Germany Invading Poland as the worst example you could think of... you didn't even think of the U.S. genocide of the native american peoples...

(I'd say more, but I have to go -- maybe I'll edit this later.)

- C.D. ...

[kliljedahl]

8. No One to Demonize - Harold Meyerson WAPO

In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq. Those two facts, I suspect, are connected.

There was a very real antiwar movement early on. In the months before, during and immediately after our invasion, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the intervention. Then chaos, followed by insurgency, enveloped Iraq, and the need for a constable to restore some order became indisputable. Those who had opposed the war -- this columnist included -- argued that the occupation would be less of a lightning rod if conducted by an international force under U.N. aegis. But the Bush administration insisted on U.S. control (a decision that grows less explicable with each passing day), and other nations with real armies made clear that they wanted no part of what was becoming a bloody occupation.


Confronted with a choice between U.S. occupation and chaos, millions of Americans -- chiefly liberals and Democrats -- who'd been against the war decided to give occupation a chance. In the streets, demonstrations dwindled; in Congress, Democrats (save for a handful) did not call for withdrawal. With unprecedented discipline, Democrats who had opposed the war lined up behind the candidacy of John Kerry, whose position on the war was muddled at best. The question of the occupation fell off the liberal agenda. At the Take Back America conference, a national gathering of liberals held this month, the issue barely came up at all.

In Iraq, however, the situation clarified. What had looked like a choice between occupation and mayhem was something even grimmer: The mayhem proceeds, and will proceed, occupation or no. It will doubtless grow worse if we pull up stakes, but our presence has failed to guarantee stability in politics or daily life. More than two years after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled, the drive from downtown Baghdad to the airport is still a crapshoot with death.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101361.html


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Absence of an anti-war movement? I beg your pardon, Mr. Meyerson

I think this movement is still there, although Mr. Meyerson is correct to point out that it has been in remission since the actual invasion/occupation began.

Meyerson does make some good points:

These figures already match the polling in the middle and late years of the war in Vietnam -- even though that war was fought with vastly higher casualties and a conscript army. In a series of polls taken in November and December of 1969, the Gallup Organization found that 49 percent of Americans favored a withdrawal of U.S. forces and 78 percent believed that the Nixon administration's rate of withdrawal was "too slow." But there was one other crucial finding: 77 percent disapproved of the antiwar demonstrations, which were then at their height.

That disapproval was key to Nixon's political strategy. He didn't so much defend the war as attack its critics, making common cause with what he termed the "silent majority" against a mainstream movement with a large, raucous and sometimes senseless fringe. When Nixon won reelection in a landslide, it was clear that the strategy had worked -- and it has been fundamental Republican strategy ever since. Though the public sides with the Democrats on more key issues than it does with Republicans, it's Republicans who have won more elections, in good measure because the GOP has raised its ad hominem attacks on Democrats' character and patriotism to a science.


Photo of anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC, January 2003, from Four Winds

[kliljedahl]

10. He should have said

Absence of reporting of an anti-war movement. I caught that too.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Stand and Fight]

12. Absolutely!

[Stand and Fight]

11. I don't have the energy to recant this nonsense...

He seems to be saying that the lack of a solidified anti-war movement is hurting Bush. I could not disagree more -- it is helping him, not hindering him. Look -- Bush is able to continue his lies and banter because the people have yet to realize just how much this guy has manipulated everyone -- the American people and Congress alike. The Bush administration is literally able to get away with murder because no one is minding the god-damn store. This opinion piece, this fluff, is saying that anti-war activist should "forget about the streets and focus on the polls." :wtf: I call BULLSHIT.

Anti-war activist have not been successful because they have not been organized as they were in the past. They have not been organized because the public still wants to believe that the president would not lie. The lies, the charade, continues because the god-damn press is not jumping all over "old news" like the Downing Street Minutes every single damn hour of the day like they did that idiot fucking run-away bride, Laci Peterson, Aruba girl, and all the rest of the trash that is labeled news as of late.

The polls, the polls, the polls... Sure anti-war activist need to focus on the polls and exploit the hell out of that weakness by doing just what Meyerson said they shouldn't -- take to the streets, loud, proud and in force. Enough of this "let's roll over and play did" poppy-cock, candy-ass, pansy, “tip toe through the tulips,” “whoa is me” bullshit already! We're nearing 1800 dead Americans and an untold even higher number of dead Iraqis, when will the mother-fucking insanity end? Enough!

The anti-war movement needs to get louder -- it's the by-the-waysiders who need to shut the fuck up!

[Demeter]

15. I'm Afraid At This Point There Are Only Two Scenarios

1). Take to the streets in civil disobedience and bring down Bush

2). Take to the streets armed and enact a second Civil War and take down the fascists in the GOP.

I'd like to think the first would work, but I have my doubts. Too many idiots left, too little time before the next election cycle.

The second option is so horribly wasteful and really opens the country up to foreign invasion, that I would be loathe to put anyone through it (except GWB and friends).

So, we wait upon events and lean as hard as we can to keep the ship afloat (or to overturn it, depending on your viewpoint).