Tom Hayden's pep talk to the anti-war movement

[welshTerrier2]

Tom Hayden's pep talk to the anti-war movement

here's just a sample of his article that will appear in the 5/29 issue of The Nation magazine:

Besides remaining a formidable factor for politicians facing close elections and military recruiters chasing down high school students, the peace movement has a historic role to play every day in shaping the public understanding of the lessons of Iraq. The lessons of this war will "prepare the battlefield," to borrow a Pentagon term, for future wars and political campaigns. It will determine whether the current peace movement will be limited to a single important issue or be an embryo of a broader progressive movement.

This is the sharpest potential difference between the peace movement and the centrists. Both can and should collaborate on military withdrawal. But the peace movement wants to prevent future wars, reverse the nuclear weapons momentum, end domestic spying, divert resources to domestic priorities and, just for starters, put an end to the pattern of "armed privatization."

These are issues the centrists and most politicians will not touch unless they are confronted with a future climate of opinion in which real answers are demanded. Moderates wish the war to end so that the "real" war against terrorism can be prosecuted more effectively. Progressives should be making the case that the Iraq War is far from a misguided adventure but rather the result of pursuing an anti-terrorism approach that divides the world into camps of good and evil, just as Vietnam was the logical outcome of cold war assumptions about a monolithic Communist conspiracy.

The national security establishment already fears this legacy of Iraq. A December 2005 Foreign Affairs article fretted about an emergent "Iraq Syndrome" that parallels the "Vietnam Syndrome" of previous decades. Based apparently on a disease-control model, the "Iraq Syndrome" will make Americans skeptical that having the largest defense budget is "broadly beneficial." Other Vietnam-era themes critical of empire have re-entered through the window of the Bush era; among them, opposition to an imperial presidency or any notion of policing the world.

If the Vietnam era left any "syndrome" behind, it was a healthy irreverence toward power, which shows up today in antiwar marches and parents' opposition to military recruiting. The first President Bush prematurely believed that the "Vietnam Syndrome" was defeated in the Persian Gulf War, but it only remained dormant until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Whether a Republican or Democrat finally withdraws American troops from Iraq, it is crucial that public opinion remain angry and critical of the deceptions that resulted in so many needless deaths. That is the final victory, which only the peace movement can achieve by drawing more Americans into questioning the nature of what Robert Lifton calls "the superpower syndrome."

click here to read the full article ...

[dweller]

1. a bit more

All disrespect aside, there is a significant acceptance of the peace movement's message buried in this centrist proposal. It is not a proposal to keep US troops fighting until victory. There is a definite withdrawal timeline proposed and defended--eighteen months, starting immediately. Last year, peace groups collected tens of thousands of petitions for an exit strategy includinga US declaration that no permanent bases are intended, a proposed paradigm shift to conflict resolution, selection of a peace envoy and power-sharing talks with Iraqi nationalist supporters of the insurgency. Kolb and Katulis examined the proposal carefully, and these concepts seem to have been incorporated into the document.

The proposal has weaknesses. First and foremost, it assumes that the new Iraqi government and armed forces will be sustainable if the United States begins to withdraw. There is no proposal for an interim peacekeeping force from neutral countries, as many Iraqi insurgent groups propose. There is no pledge to assure Iraqi sovereignty over Iraqi oil. There is an assumption that military withdrawal will be accompanied by a transition from "a highly centralized command to a market-based economy." In short, the proposal envisions a kind of devastated but safe post-Saddam Iraq integrated into the World Trade Organization, one requiring no more combat deaths.

The current Iraqi Parliament is by no means a solid pillar of the US occupation. Evidence is mounting that supporters of the Iraqi resistance have established a stronghold for their views even within the US-dominated "puppet" structure. Just this week, the Sunni vice president of Iraq, Tarik al-Hashimy, approved talks between the insurgents and American officials, but only on the condition that the guerrillas not stop the fight without a "final deal." President Jalal Talabani recently said he was negotiating secretly with seven insurgent groups. A report from reliable Iraqi sources indicates that a majority of the Parliament's 275 members will support a one-year withdrawal deadline if the question is put before them. Faced with this quagmire and election-year pressures, the option of peace, or the appearance of peace, seems to have been forced on the Bush Administration.

Iraqi army claims that it can "stand up" as the Americans leave are beyond credibility. If the US armed forces cannot end the insurgency, why would Iraqi security forces with sectarian loyalties and inferior weapons be any more effective? Could Shiite forces defeat the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr? Impossible. Would the modest Sunni security forces suppress the Sunni insurgents? No. Could the Kurdish peshmerga hold off the whole Iraqi resistance? No. As in Vietnam, "Iraqization" could become a fig leaf covering the US redeployment, but then only an agreement with the multiple resistance groups could prevent their demise.

Many in the peace movement are entitled to be affronted over the hawkish language of the Korb-Katulis strategy paper. But profound strategic questions are emerging for the peace movement as a whole, as a result of the movement's relative success. A planned US withdrawal is the majority sentiment in America, Britain and Iraq. Politicians are adjusting their positions accordingly, if only for the sake of survival. Political efforts to isolate and smear the movement, as well as counterintelligence operations, have failed. In perspective, the peace movement has contributed to constructing these formidable obstacles to continued war:

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read more at OP provided link.
dp

[Donna Zen]

2. Another bush sin:

When he switched the goal of Iraq from WMD to "human rights," he created a future mind-set that America should turn its back on people living under threat of despots of the future. Coercive invasions are never the answer, but lending a hand to other humans struggling for life, is a very different matter. The rightwing has never favored helping people (too Christian I guess) and ironically it will be bush's war that is used as their next excuse.