[Peace-discuss] Re: a new P4P idea (feedback and details)

[Randall Cotton]

Regarding my idea about posters showing killed U.S. soldiers as a first step
in a new initiative for P4P:

Peter said:
But I also think we should have pictures of Iraqi children and civilians.

Anne-Marie said:
Combined with photos, names, etc of victims of BOTH sides, I think P4P could
become an incredibly powerful demonstration.

Charlotte said:
Maybe we could also make large posters with pictures of Iraqi men, women,
and children.

First let me say I couldn't agree more that Iraqi civilian deaths and
casualties should also be included. I guess it was my error to assume that
this goes without saying =8-) I do think an important point, though, is one
would NOT want to BEGIN with posters of Iraqi civilians because that would
only reinforce the false conception (which we're all earnestly trying to
counter) that we don't care about our troops (we'd be accused of only caring
about Iraqi civilians). If you first present posters of killed US soldiers,
you avoid that trap completely. It was always obvious to me that it would be
best to start with a few soldier posters and then later (perhaps starting
the very next week) also add in Iraqi civilians.

The other issue that argues in favor of soldiers first and Iraqi civilians
later is that accomplishing the same thing with Iraqi civilian posters is
significantly harder. Ideally, one would need to find photos on the web
somewhere of verifiably killed Iraqi civilians which were taken before they
actually became casualties. To just use an arbitrary photo of an Arab
civilian (even a verifiable Iraqi civilian) could easily be seen as
disingenuous and would expose the effort to attack by critics (such as the
media). We could also use genuine photos of injured Iraqi civilians or
perhaps a funeral or gravesite or something, but obviously nothing that
would pointlessly traumatize, say, a passing child (or an unusually
sensitive adult for that matter - they may be driving, after all). Anyway,
the point is, the Iraqi civilian side of things would require non-trivial
research to do it right.

OK, next subject:

Peter said:
We need to address the 'support our troops' line, but I don't think it
should control our entire agenda.

Carl said:
I don't think our public demonstration should focus exclusively on even
principally on the deaths of Americans.

It was my error if I gave the impression that the soldier posters should be
a dominant part of what I'm proposing. In fact, I view it as merely a first
baby-step in what I'm proposing. And I'm not saying we should discontinue
anything we already do, either - far from it.

First, soldier posters. Iraqi civilians (and other victimized innocents) are
the logical next step. If we accumulate a good number of these (dozens or
more) and especially if we can get a group of volunteers to hold these in an
unbroken line some place where traffic is usually jammed up (and again,
wearing all black would help), this could establish a visually arresting,
perhaps staggering display of the most condemnable cost of this war that
would be nearly impossible to ignore. Once we have that "baseline" display
in place, we can build on it. It works as a resounding exclamation point to
current arguments and whatever other future arguments we present against the
war.

In particular, because the war will apparently happen in its entirety, many
of Bush's unproven justifications for war (or "lies", if you like =8-) will
at some point be exposed as either genuine or fraudulent. Think about it. If
you can accept the premise that Bush will go all the way (and who's to stop
him, really), the US will indeed ultimately control and occupy the entire
country. At that point the administration will have to back up their stated
justifications with hard evidence. Evidence of WMD, 9/11 links, Al-Qaeda
links, low casualties, Iraqi's feeling "liberated", the bloom and spread of
democracy, decreasing terrorism, positive progress on Israel/Palestine etc.
As I mentioned before, the folks that support the war do so because they
trust the president on his unproven justifications. We can continue to make
the detailed, sometimes unavoidably subtle arguments which argue against the
validity of his justifications (and, of course, we should), but the vast
bulk of those who still think the war is a good idea will continue to do so,
in my opinion, until at least one of the president's unproven justifications
is unambiguously, emphatically proven fraudulent in a way that can be summed
up on a single demonstration poster. When that happens, we pounce on it and
drive it home at P4P (and every other opportunity). At that point, the value
of  the baseline "lives lost" poster demonstration would really kick in,
though of course, it will be helpful all along.

R