[Peace-discuss] Neocon triumph

Thu Oct 25 11:03:38 CDT 2007

 From my perspective, the major parties [UFPJ, ANSWER, Peace-Action, 
…] in the real anti-war movement  do not include your second "side",  
which in fact now seems to include most of the American public. I do  
not consider the Dem leadership to be in the anti-war movement. It  
seems as if  your inclination is to conflate the two.

--mkb

On Oct 24, 2007, at 10:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> The important point about this article is that it properly  
> descries, from a pro-war viewpoint, the fundamental split in what  
> we far too hastily call the antiwar movement.
>
> On the one side are those who are saying (a) that the war is  
> fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake; (b) that the  
> resistance is justified; and (c) the US military (and mercenaries)  
> must be removed.  On the other are those (including most of the  
> Democrats) who say (a) the war was a blunder and was mismanaged,  
> but (b) we can't allow the terrorists a victory, and so (c) the US  
> military must withdraw only as some stability is achieved.
>
> These opinions are not diverse but contradictory.  The real  
> political argument in the country is over which one Americans will  
> come to believe.
>
> Ricky quite rightly writes, "Nobody asks a mass murderer if he is  
> 'winning' his killing spree. And nobody says, when someone breaks  
> into their house and starts smashing up things and hurting people,  
> well, he was dead wrong to invade, but now that he's there he can't  
> just leave. No, we want the troops out now, and we should not  
> support any candidate on the other side."  --CGE
>
>
> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>> ... The antiwar movement is aware of its weaknesses. Its diverse  
>> elements suggest diverse solutions, which cannot be readily  
>> effected. The "analysis" of the article is no help.
>>> ...
>>> This piece is intended to deflate the anti-war movement, and is  
>>> written from the perspective of those who support present  
>>> government policies. Its affirmations as to what the "people"  
>>> want, and would accept may, /or may not,/ be valid.
>>> On Oct 24, 2007, at 10:31 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>
>>> [The upmarket New York Sun assesses the antiwar movement.  --CGE]
>>>
>>>           End of a Movement
>>>           BY ELI LAKE
>>>           October 24, 2007
>>>           URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/65135
>>>
>>> The People. United. Can in fact be defeated. Well not exactly,  
>>> but this must be what America's anti-war movement is thinking as  
>>> Congress and the president iron out the funding for the war with  
>>> no danger of the Democrats attaching a withdrawal date to the  
>>> bill. The Dems don't have the votes.
>>>
>>> It's enough to deflate the spirits of our nation's most hardened  
>>> pacifists. Take Medea Benjamin, the leader of Code Pink, an  
>>> association of mainly senior citizen women who dress up and shout  
>>> slogans at Congressional war hearings. In an interview in the  
>>> current issue of Mother Jones, Ms. Benjamin said that she doubted  
>>> that the troops would be withdrawn even within a year's time.  
>>> "Well, I think it's kind of silly to talk about it because it's  
>>> just not going to happen," she said. Code Pink now is hoping to  
>>> end the war by the end of 2008.
>>>
>>> It's an extraordinary statement for the leader of an organization  
>>> that produced a YouTube ad last month featuring women in pink  
>>> jockey outfits riding Democratic leaders of Congress like they  
>>> were horses. The narrator tells the viewer: "With your help we  
>>> can dominate Congress with peacemakers and finally end this  
>>> illegal, immoral and unconstitutional occupation." Apparently the  
>>> plan for peacemaker domination has run into some snags.
>>>
>>> As the Hill newspaper reported on October 19, the legislative  
>>> representative of American Against Escalation in Iraq, John  
>>> Bruhns, a former Army Sergeant who participated in the 2003  
>>> invasion, has left the organization. "I feel I've done all I  
>>> can," he told the newspaper. "I can't continue to attack members  
>>> of Congress to pass legislation that isn't going to get passed."
>>>
>>> Mr. Bruhns had worked on something the anti-war movement called  
>>> "Iraq Summer," an initiative aimed at getting 50 Republicans to  
>>> break with the president on the war. That goal seemed plausible  
>>> in July when the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services  
>>> Committee, John Warner, was threatening to vote with Democrats on  
>>> withdrawal dates. But in September Mr. Warner said that arguing  
>>> for some troops to come home by Christmas barely changed the ayes  
>>> and nays in the senate.
>>>
>>> The anti-war movement has not even managed to get any of the big  
>>> three Democrats running for president to embrace their goal of an  
>>> immediate withdrawal. Gone are John Edwards' rhetorical excesses  
>>> of the spring, promising not to leave even Marines to guard the  
>>> new American embassy in Baghdad.
>>>
>>> Today Mr. Edwards, like Senators Obama and Clinton, concede that  
>>> in their administration there will still be some troops in Iraq  
>>> in 2009, probably between 50,000 and 70,000. Also, the Democratic  
>>> party's professional agitators must know that Mrs. Clinton will  
>>> sprout wings and talons and screech for the blood of every  
>>> Iranian terrorist as soon as she receives her party's nomination,  
>>> faster than you can say, "Sistah Souljah."
>>>
>>> The peaceniks need only blame themselves for their failures. They  
>>> are asking Americans to believe not that the war was a blunder,  
>>> so much that the war was a sin; that the decapitators and car  
>>> bombers of innocents are a resistance; that the army seeking to  
>>> prevent ethnic cleansing today is in fact responsible for it.  
>>> [That is what the "peaceniks" are saying, and they're right.  --CGE]
>>>
>>> In 2006, writing about how the antiwar movement was conducting  
>>> its own diplomacy in London and Amman to meet members of the  
>>> "Sunni Resistance," anti-war writer Robert Dreyfuss summed up the  
>>> moral equivalency that afflicts so many in his quarter.
>>>
>>> "Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in Iraq?" he  
>>> asked. "Are the good guys the U.S. troops fighting to impose  
>>> American hegemony in the Gulf? Are the good guys the American  
>>> forces who have installed a murderous Shiite theocracy in  
>>> Baghdad? Are the good guys the Marines who murdered children and  
>>> babies in Haditha in cold blood?"
>>>
>>> Leaving aside the deficient moral reasoning of the case the  
>>> protestors make, their story of the war also makes for terrible  
>>> politics. Most Americans do want to end a war they believe  
>>> America is losing, but they don't suffer from the delusion that  
>>> Iraqis would be better off if the Shiite and Sunni death cults  
>>> took power after our soldiers left.
>>>
>>> It is a prospect the activists for now would rather not broach.  
>>> Kevin Martin of Peace Action in Mother Jones said it wasn't even  
>>> for the "peace community" to come up with a contingency plan to  
>>> prevent competitive genocide after a withdrawal. "In my  
>>> organization and the umpteen antiwar coalitions that I am in,  
>>> this is in no way a priority that we think about or talk about,"  
>>> he said.
>>>
>>> Later on he added, "We are not responsible for dreaming up a  
>>> perfect world. We are responsible for trying to end the damn war  
>>> and putting the political pressure on our government, which is  
>>> extremely difficult when you have a feeble Congress and a  
>>> dictator president."
>>>
>>> He is right that his current struggle is "extremely difficult."  
>>> It is extremely difficult to expect most Americans to believe  
>>> that their president is a dictator and that their soldiers are no  
>>> different than terrorists. The fact that Congress is not buying  
>>> this pack of lies however is evidence not of the legislature's  
>>> feebleness, but of the nation's strength.
>>>
>>> elake at nysun.com <mailto:elake at nysun.com>
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