[Peace-discuss] The Occupation and the Resistance (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The note below was posted to a national list by a guy at ISU. It seems to
me more or less right -- although it may be dangerous to say that the US
has "lost": the US looks like being in a position to realize its essential
war aims -- permanent bases in the heart of he oil-producing region and
effective control of much of world energy resources -- and it's capable of
producing vastly greater losses for others.  Discussion? --CGE]


Bring the Troops Home Now. No Conditions.

Is there anyone on [this list] who still believes the anti-war movement
should make any other demand than this?

The U.S. has lost. But it will continue to remain there for years, with
conditions growing steadily worse. Any multi-national force or any U.S.
force will be simply a guise under which the war continues as bloody as
before.

Before the Anti-war movement can have any significant impact on U.S.  
policy it must grow well beyond the strength it had reached before it was
destroyed by the desertion of its national leadership to the Democratic
party. Hence the agitational material we put out and the propaganda and
analysis which we put behind that material must focus on what will be
happening two or more years from now.

Nixon seriously considered extending the Vietnam war into China: disguise
a small defeat by wrapping it in a larger conflict. Hence the fact that
the U.S. is completely lacking in the military strength to defeat Iran
(except by mass terror bombing, of course) is not a guarantee against an
invasion of Iran. A growing anti-war movement _not_ muffled by delusions
of U.N. intervention (or other such delusions), and demanding more and
more shrilly the removal of all military forces, _might_ prevent an attack
on Iran and it _might_ hasten withdrawal from Iraq...

	###