[Peace-discuss] AWARE flyer for Obama rally, 2005

[C. G. Estabrook]

Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973) was a notable social worker, a suffragist, 
a founding member of both the ACLU and WILPF, and a Republican member of 
the US House of Representatives from Montana.  She was the only member 
of Congress to vote against United States' entry into World War II, and 
one of fifty to vote against World War I. She lived long enough to work 
actively against the Vietnam War.

Late in her life she remarked, "If I had my life to live over, I would 
do it all again, but this time I would be nastier."  She didn't mean 
that she would have voted for war: she meant that she'd have been more 
vigorous in working for peace.  In 1967 she wrote, "It is unconscionable 
that 10,000 boys have died in Vietnam ... If 10,000 American women had 
mind enough they could end the war, if they were committed to the task, 
even if it meant going to jail."

Rankin contrasts rather sharply with a trimmer like Obama, but she came 
to mind as a model for us.  Looking back at what we said and did at the 
rally Obama conducted in Champaign two years ago, reading some of the 
email traffic from that time, and noting what has and hasn't happened 
since then -- I think we should have been nastier.

Here's the text of that flyer from August of 2005 (a formatted version 
is attached):

==========================================================

	*BRING ALL U.S. TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ --
	AND U.S. MERCENARIES AND CORPORATIONS AS WELL.*
	*PAY REPARATIONS FOR THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
	THAT WE'VE BROUGHT TO IRAQ.*
	*TELL SENATOR OBAMA TO WORK TO END THE WAR
	AND PUNISH THOSE WHO LIED US INTO IT.*

The junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, has done nothing to end 
the occupation of Iraq or to punish those who started this illegal war 
by deceiving us.  On the contrary, he has cooperated in the critical 
support that the Democratic party has given to the war and to US policy 
in the Greater Middle East -- a policy that has killed tens of thousands 
of people during this administration and may yet have even more 
catastrophic results.  Leading Democrats are now to the *right* of the 
Bush administration in calling for an expansion of the US military.

Obama, featured as the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention in 
2004, was celebrated as a progressive figure when he was elected to the 
Senate, against token Republican opposition.  (He also had an unfunded 
independent opponent who supported both withdrawal from Iraq and 
universal health care, positions that Obama rejected.)  But his 
performance belies that description.

	--The day before his convention speech, Obama told reporters, "There's 
not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position 
at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to 
execute."  In the speech Obama criticized Bush for invading Iraq 
"without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the 
respect of the world" -- which remains the general Democratic party 
position.

	--Obama voted twice (once in committee and once on the Senate floor) to 
confirm Condoleezza Rice, the national Security Adviser during the 
invasion of Iraq, as Secretary of State.

	--Like all but six of the Senate Democrats, Obama quite rightly voted 
against the confirmation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the 
promoter of the torture policy and the Patriot Act, but he said he did 
so "At a time when we are fighting for freedom in places like Iraq and 
Afghanistan ... the seeds of democracy began to take root in Iraq ... we 
are engaged in a deadly global struggle with those who would intimidate, 
torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms..." In 
short, he echoed the administration's account of the war.

	--When Illinois' senior senator, Richard Durbin, timorously raised the 
question of the administration's torture policy on the floor of the 
Senate, Obama failed to support him. Instead, he rather timidly 
observed, after Durbin's tearful apology for doing such a thing, "...he 
should have said what he said somewhat differently.''

	--Just two months ago Obama said, "It is a challenge now to try to fix 
the mess that has been made by this administration.  There aren't any 
easy answers. It would be irresponsible to just spout off without having 
thought through what all the alternatives -- and implications of those 
alternatives -- might be ...  "I believe the president must take a 
realistic look at our current strategy and reshape it into an 
*aggressive and workable plan that will ensure success in Iraq*" 
[emphasis added].

	--Paul Craig Roberts, a former Treasury undersecretary in the Reagan 
administration, writes this week, "With every poll showing majorities of 
Americans both fed up with Bush's war against Iraq and convinced that 
Bush's invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, the White House 
moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has 
already ordered the U.S. Strategic Command come up with plans to strike 
Iran with tactical nuclear weapons ... The Bush administration is 
insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush's 
impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon..."

Shockingly, during his senatorial campaign, Obama supported the Bush 
administration's policy on Iran in principle.  On 25 September 2004, the 
Chicago Tribune wrote, "U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested 
Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical 
missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting 
control of nuclear bombs ... the United States should not rule out 
military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran, Obama said."

We must demand that Senator Obama work to end the war and punish those 
who lied us into it.

==========================================================

Perhaps made uncomfortable by the simple fact pointed out by Cindy 
Sheehan -- that you're either for ending the war or you're for its 
continuation -- Obama responded indirectly to the anti-war protests at 
his "town meetings" in an oblique statement a month later:

"My colleague from Illinois, Dick Durbin, spoke out forcefully -- and 
voted against -- the Iraqi invasion.  He isn't somehow transformed into 
a 'war supporter' -- as I've heard some anti-war activists suggest -- 
just because he hasn't called for an immediate withdrawal of American 
troops. He may be simply trying to figure out, as I am, how to ensure 
that U.S. troop withdrawals occur in such a way that we avoid all-out 
Iraqi civil war, chaos in the Middle East, and much more costly and 
deadly interventions down the road."

Two years and many, many dead people later, Obama now leads the official 
Democratic candidates for president in calling for an increase in the 
military, beyond what the Bush administration plans.

--CGE
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