[Peace-discuss] Neocon triumph

[C. G. Estabrook]

Uh, what about the substantial Democratic party presence in the Oct. 27 
demo?  The organizers have cast a wide net, but it's more inclusive to 
the right: adherents of the second side are cheerfully included.

My point is not to conflate but distinguish the two.  The work of the 
media and political establishment is to co-opt the anti-war movement for
the "reasonable position."  That's what the Clinton, Obama and Edwards 
campaigns are about.  --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>  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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