[Peace-discuss] Bring Them Home Now

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From Yohsie Furuhashi, who runs the interesting and erudite blog,
Critical Montages.  --CGE]
                                                                                
Since July 7, 2003, I've been arguing for immediate US withdrawal.  I'm
happy that I've played a modest role in having the slogan Bring Them Home
Now adopted by others:
                                                                                
"Mon Jul 7...
                                                                                
"Dear Organizers & Activists:

"Let's organize a campaign (letters, petitions, sit-ins, demonstrations,
etc.) to bring soldiers home now -- before Washington decides to escalate
the size of the army of occupation dramatically.  Soldiers want to go
home, their families and friends want them home, and Iraqis want them out
of their country -- and yet, surprisingly, no major anti-war coalition is
currently focused on a campaign to bring them home now.  Why???  Get a
campaign started wherever you are, and call on all anti-war coalitions ...  
to initiate a coordinated campaign with a simple message: Bring Them Home
Now."

By now, my position has been adopted by the majority of rank-and-file
Democrats: "In an ABC/Washington Post survey released Monday, 53% of
Democrats said the U.S. 'should withdraw its military forces from Iraq ...
even if that means civil order is not restored there'"  (Ronald
Brownstein, "Kerry Feels Squeeze on Iraq Policy: While Bush Moves Ever
Closer to His Challenger's Ideas, More Democrats Are Calling for a
Pullout," Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2004):

***

"Recent polls have shown rising support among Democrats for withdrawal.
And Win Without War plans a nationwide series of demonstrations in late
June to push for a firm date.

"'We are going to be making that case as vigorously as we can to the
American people,' said Tom Andrews, Win Without War's national director
and a former Democratic House member from Maine.

"While the liberal coalition veers away from Kerry, Bush over the last
several weeks has crowded the Massachusetts senator by executing what many
analysts see as a major midcourse correction on Iraq ...

"'Kerry's position is being eroded,' said one top Democratic foreign
policy analyst who asked not to be named. 'Kerry is in a position where
the best he will be able to say is that Bush is finally doing what I said
to do all along.'

"Compounding Kerry's problem, doubts are growing among Democrats to the
open-ended commitment in Iraq that he echoes Bush in supporting.  In an
ABC/Washington Post survey released Monday, 53% of Democrats said the U.S.
'should withdraw its military forces from Iraq ... even if that means
civil order is not restored there.'

"Voices influential in Democratic circles are also promoting withdrawal.
In recent articles, James B. Steinberg, the deputy national security
advisor under President Clinton, and Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus
of the Council on Foreign Relations, have said the U.S. should set a 'date
certain' for the withdrawal of all American troops.

"Such a step, they argue, is critical to winning Iraqi backing for
maintaining the occupation long enough to build a reliable security force
for the country's new government.

"The withdrawal idea is certain to receive more attention now that Win
Without War, whose members include the influential liberal Internet
advocacy group, MoveOn.org, has endorsed it after extensive deliberations.

"Andrews, Win Without War's director, said that although the resolution
the group will announce today will call for setting a deadline for
withdrawal, it will not endorse a specific date.

"'To us, the mere presence of an unwelcome occupation force is ...  
fueling the insurgencies, and it means our soldiers have become vulnerable
targets unable to restore order,' he said.

"Kerry has said the U.S. could begin withdrawing troops once stability is
established in Iraq. Aides say he believes a more specific withdrawal
option would be both a policy and political mistake: an invitation to
chaos in Iraq and a backlash from swing voters in the U.S. ...

"'What Kerry's doing is stepping out of the line of fire and making the
issue George Bush's policy on Iraq,' Andrews said. 'But clearly the degree
to which [he] can be clear, specific and concrete about what . . . steps
he can take to get us out of this colossal mess is to the good.'"

***

Win Without War is calling for a date of withdrawal only in the interest
of "winning Iraqi backing for maintaining the occupation long enough to
build a reliable security force for the country's new government"
(Brownstein, May 27, 2004), to be sure, but its campaign, in addition to
actions of International ANSWER, United for Peace and Justice (whose
national coordinator Leslie Cagan says, "It's outrageous that the
so-called opposition party has provided so little opposition. We're
concerned that despite slight emphases, the Kerry agenda is basically the
same as Bush: a foreign policy based on what's best for big American
corporations" [Matthew Wells, "Poles Apart," The Guardian, May 6, 2004]),
and other anti-war coalitions and organizations nationwide, may serve to
hasten an end to the self-defeating self-censorship of activists to the
left of Kerry.

Then, if Kerry fails to respond to clamors for withdrawal, the question is
whether activists can draw the logical conclusion from their own
experience of the nature of the Democratic Party machine.

<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/toward-unsilent-majority.html>
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>...