[Peace-discuss] Co-option continues

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Published on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 by The Nation
	Americans Against Escalation in Iraq
	by Katrina Vanden Heuvel & Greg Kaufmann

This summer, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq - a broad coalition of 
advocacy organizations and political action committees from across the 
political spectrum - has launched the Iraq Summer campaign to help end 
the war by making it politically toxic for Republicans to support it.

Tom Matzzie, Washington Director of MoveOn.org, is “on loan” to run 
Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. The national campaign has a staff 
of 100 people, a multimillion dollar budget, and a tall order as it 
embarks on this effort to unify opposition to the Iraq War in advance of 
the Petraeus report in September.

“The debate was set up in the spring as leading towards a September 
report,” Matzzie says, “so that gave us an organizing opportunity and an 
organizing momentum going into the summer. The goal is to cut the 
remaining support for the president’s Iraq policy out from underneath 
him. Give the Republicans a choice between helping to end the war or 
facing political extinction.”

With over 80 paid organizers deployed across the country, the Iraq 
Summer campaign - which organizers say is modeled after the Freedom 
Summer - is focused on 40 targeted districts where Matzzie says “there 
is a lot of opposition to the war but very little grassroots leadership 
supporting an end to the war…. Often in these suburban and exurban 
Republican districts there’s no institutional support for a campaign to 
end the war…. That’s what a lot of Iraq Summer is about is building a 
permanent apparatus to oppose the war policy in these targeted areas. ”

The organizers were trained at the Maritime Institute in Baltimore - a 
union training facility - and then assigned to 15 states across the 
country. Many organizers are veterans or their family members. Iowa 
State Director Sue Dinsdale is the mother of two Marines. Michigan State 
Director Tamarra Rosenleaf’s husband has been deployed to Iraq. There 
are also Iraq veterans on staff in New York, Illinois, Virginia, and 
Kentucky, and three full-time staff in Washington, DC including the 
chief lobbyist, John Bruhns. Finally, dozens of veterans and their 
family members are in the field as paid staff and volunteers.

In addition to the 40 districts where the Iraq Summer campaign has sent 
staff (a fairly up to date list of targets can be found here - it’s 
missing only Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Jean Schmidt), 
Americans Against Escalation in Iraq reaches another 30 House targets 
through grants to local organizations such as the Connecticut Citizen 
Action Group. In all of these districts the organizers, veterans and 
military families, and activists are using field operations, coalition 
building, paid and earned media strategies, volunteer events and cutting 
edge online organizing to turn up the heat on Republican members of 
Congress who are blocking a safe end to the Iraq war.

“I think since the war began, for over 4 years, we’ve done a great job 
as a movement of going out there and saying, ‘We oppose the War,’” 
Matzzie says. “But we haven’t always brought the responsibility back to 
the politicians who are allowing it to happen. So we’re changing the 
rhetoric from ‘I oppose the War’ to ‘I oppose, [for example], Senator 
Coleman because of his support on the War.’ And that politicization of 
the war policy helps put the fear into politicians, which is essential…. 
Ultimately the war ends because the politicians choose their own 
survival over sticking with Bush. That can be achieved only in the 
hometowns of these politicians where they count their votes.”

The impact the campaign is having is already evident in the hundreds of 
videos activists are shooting (such as footage of Representative Mark 
Kirk ignoring an Iraq Vet). Americans Against Escalation in Iraq gave 
organizers $125 reusable video cameras - called “ The Flip” camera - 
that plug into a USB port on a computer. The training of the organizers 
and activists is clear as they confront war supporters in an aggressive 
but normally courteous manner, and stay on message.

In addition to on-the-ground organizing, Matzzie says Americans Against 
Escalation in Iraq are countering the White House spin through the use 
of PR professionals. “We have for the first time a national, daily 
counterpoint to the White House and the media,” he says. “We have PR 
professionals across two public relations firms and on our own payroll 
who are working every day to provide a counterpoint to the Bush 
administration in the press.”

Iraq Summer will culminate with Take a Stand Day on August 28th. There 
will be about 60 town meetings held in targeted districts (the 
representatives are invited to attend - so far, no takers). In those 
communities where Representatives already support an end to the war 
there will be vigils to echo the message that it’s time for Congress to 
take a stand - over 2,000 such vigils are planned. Matzzie says that 
MoveOn, Working Assets and True Majority are among the groups that will 
get the word out about Take a Stand Day nationwide.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq doesn’t plan to close shop when 
Congress reconvenes. If its fundraising success continues, it plans to 
keep its staff through December, adjusting its targets as needed.

“Ultimately what we have to do is make sure that the Republicans know 
we’re not going away,” Matzzie says. “We’re gonna be in their faces 
until the war is over. If they still vote wrong, we’re gonna stay in 
their face… And the sooner the politicians know that the sooner the war 
will end…. [And] if the Democrats don’t hold Bush’s feet to the fire 
this fall there will be dozens of primary challenges next spring.”

There are some in the antiwar movement who think the Iraq Summer 
strategy isn’t doing enough to hold Democrats feet to the fire. 
CODEPINK, for example, has occupied the offices of Democratic 
legislators who voted for a timetable but failed to limit war funding to 
a fully funded troop redeployment only (as opposed to Bush’s 
escalation). In a recent article in The Hill, one CODEPINK activist 
called MoveOn “very conservative.”

Matzzie, however, suggests that there isn’t a problem with these diverse 
tactics. He notes that the partner organizations of Americans Against 
Escalation in Iraq usually take on the Democrats, but this apparatus 
takes on “mostly Republicans.”

“It’s gonna take a wall of opposition from the entire political spectrum 
[to end this war],” Matzzie says. “We’re facing down a determined and 
isolated president. We’re facing down the Republican Party, the entire 
foreign policy establishment, the military-industrial complex, Arab 
governments throughout the Middle East who don’t want us to leave mostly 
because they don’t want to deal with the problem, a Sunni insurgency, 
the Shia militias that are conducting ethnic cleansing…. There is a 
mosaic of people who are working to end the war. We saw work that was 
not being done, and we went to fill that vacuum. And that’s what we’re 
doing. And this apparatus is there, and it’s well exercised, and at 
necessary times it can turn against any target any where in the country, 
regardless of their party.”

Matzzie believes that the most important thing right now is “Outside the 
Beltway pressure on the politicians.”

“What’s most important now is that people know that there’s a big 
showdown on the war this fall,” Matzzie says. “We need people in their 
home districts to be marching and going to their town hall meetings, and 
making phone calls, and talking to their neighbors…. We have a genuine 
shot at bringing some troops home this fall. It might not be that we’re 
able to win complete redeployment before the next president is elected 
but if we can bring home 60,000 troops that’s 60,000 families who can 
sleep with a little more comfort.”

It will be up to the entire mosaic - the entire “wall of opposition” - 
to stay in the faces of every Republican and Democrat until every 
soldier comes home.

Greg Kaufmann is a freelance writer residing in his disenfranchised 
hometown of Washington, DC.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.

Comments--

    1. seriousprofessor August 15th, 2007 2:42 pm:

       This is bizarre.

       To be against escalation of the war clearly includes being for 
keeping things the same.

       To be against a politician for his support of the war, and not 
against the war itself, clearly includes the mealymouthed technocratic 
critiques that most Democrats rely on.

       Wars of aggression are wrong. Bombing the shit out of civilians 
is wrong. This is basic. How have these pundits become so bereft of 
their brains and humanity that they are incapable of saying so clearly 
and directly?

       “Against escalation.” Good f-ing grief!!

    2. Greg R August 15th, 2007 2:53 pm:

       The name “Americans Against Escalation in Iraq” has such a sad 
ring to it. It gives the impression that cutting down on troop numbers 
equals success. As long as we have a few men and planes to bomb and 
strafe, we remain in evil do-do. It appears that this is the plan of the 
majority of our politicains, sad to say. I guess we have to go for baby 
steps. So, ring-a-ding-ding, whoop-de-do, hurah, hurah.

    3. namvet67 August 15th, 2007 3:02 pm:

       This is all political doublespeak for, "I want to stay a player 
in the game -- I don’t want to really change anything."
       Hoa binh

    4. tj August 15th, 2007 3:12 pm:

       I have to second the SeriousProf and Greg R.

       Bizarre and sad are only a couple of words that describe the mush 
above.

       Even worse, these “baby step,” efforts distract from real 
attempts at change like working for complete withdrawal ASAP, stopping a 
new adventure against Iran, pushing for impeachment, carrying on the 
fights for national health insurance and a living wage, etc.

       Maybe Rove left the White House to consult with these “Against 
Escalation,” folks. He certainly couldn’t do much more destructive to 
the progressive movement.

       Oh, by the way, a top US military commander announced today that 
the “surge,” will begin winding down pretty soon. He implied that 
basically, the military is unable to logistically sustain the new level 
of violence it has created.

       Also, I worry very much that it could mean they need to re-deploy 
troops for an attack on Iran.

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