[Peace-discuss] Pleonastic Anti-War Peace Movement?

[C. G. Estabrook]

	January 25 2010
	The Anti-War Peace Movement Needs a Re-Start

America Needs a Patriotic, Broad-Based and Politically Independent Opposition to 
War. By Kevin Zeese

In his first year President Obama broke several war-making records of President 
George W. Bush. He passed the largest military budget in U.S. history, the 
largest one-year war supplementals and fired the most drone attacks on the most 
countries. He began 2010 asking for another $30 billion war supplemental and 
with the White House indicating that the next military budget will be $708 
billion, breaking Obama’s previous record.

While some commentators on MSNBC hailed Obama as the peace candidate, he has 
done more for war in a shorter time than many other commanders-in-chief. U.S. 
attacks on other countries are not challenged in any serious way even if they 
result in consistent loss of innocent civilian life. It is not healthy for 
American democracy to allow unquestioned militarism and put war budgets on a 
path of automatic growth despite the U.S. spending as much as the rest of the 
world combined on weapons and war.

Anti-war opposition has failed and needs to begin anew. The peace movement which 
atrophied during the election year now must re-make itself.

What would successful anti-war peace advocacy look like?

The vast majority of Americans widely opposes war and wants the U.S. to focus 
its resources at home. Their initial reaction to wars and escalations, before 
the corporate media spin propagandizes them in a different direction, is to 
oppose war. But, these views are not reflected in the body politic and certainly 
not in the DC discourse on war. Rather than anti-war opposition being 
broad-based, it has been a narrow. It is a leftish movement that does not 
include Middle America or conservatives who also see the tremendous waste of the 
bloated military budget and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy.

Being opposed to war is not considered mainsteam in American politics. 
Opposition to war and support for peace needs to become a perspective that is 
included in political debate on the media and in the Congress. It is currently 
excluded. Successful anti-war advocacy needs to be credible and well organized 
so it cannot be ignored. This begins by recognizing the broad, legitimate 
opposition to war and the long-term anti-war views of Americans across the 
political spectrum.

There is a long history of opposition to war among traditional conservatives. 
Their philosophy goes back to President Washington’s Farewell Address where he 
urged America to avoid “foreign entanglements.” It has showed itself throughout 
American history. The Anti-Imperialist League opposed the colonialism of the 
Philippines in the 1890s. The largest anti-war movement in history, the America 
First Committee, opposed World War II and had a strong middle America 
conservative foundation in its make-up. The strongest speech of an American 
president against militarism was President Eisenhower’s 1961 final speech from 
the White House warning America against the growing military-industrial complex.

In recent years the militarist neo-conservative movement has become dominate of 
conservatism in the United States. Perhaps none decry this more than traditional 
conservatives who oppose massive military budgets, militarism and the American 
empire. Anti-war conservatives continue to exist, speak out and organize. Much 
of their thinking can be seen in the American Conservative magazine which has 
been steadfastly anti-war since its founding in 2002 where their first cover 
story was entitled “Iraq Folly.”

Of course, the left also has a long history of opposition to war from the Civil 
War to early imperialism in the Philippines, World Wars I and II through 
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes socialists, Quakers, social justice 
Catholics and progressives. Indeed, the opposition to entry into World War I was 
led by the left including socialists, trade unionists, pacifists including 
people like union leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs, Nobel Peace 
Prize winner Jane Addams and author and political activist Helen Keller. This 
movement was so strong that Woodrow Wilson ran a campaign to keep the U.S. out 
of the Great War (but ended up getting the U.S. into the war despite his 
campaign promises). Opposition to Vietnam brought together peace advocates with 
the civil rights movement, highlighted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 
outspoken opposition to the war.

Uniting anti-war opposition is an urgent initial step to developing strong 
anti-war, peace advocacy. The cost of U.S. militarism in lives and dollars has 
become so great that Americans who oppose U.S. militarism need to join together 
to create an effective opposition to the military industrial complex that 
profits from war. Yes, there will be disagreements on other issues but when it 
comes to war and American empire there is broad agreement that needs to be built on.

A successful anti-war peace movement cannot give up the flag of patriotism. It 
needs to grab hold of America’s patriotic impulses and show the United States 
can be the nation many imagine us to be – leading by positive example, helping 
in crisis, being a force for good, rather than propagating military dominance 
and hegemony. A successful anti-war movement needs to be a place where veterans, 
from grunts to generals, can openly participate, share their stories and explain 
the lessons they learned from American militarism. While the left has been able 
to include the lower level grunts and officers, it has not been a safe haven for 
generals and admirals who have become opposed to extreme militarism. A safe 
place, a patriotic, broad-based anti-war movement, will allow more former 
military to speak out in a cohesive and effective manner.

And, a patriotic anti-war peace movement will also be able to attract the 
support of business leaders who recognize that war undermines the American 
economy as well as hurting national security, undermining national and 
international law and weakening the U.S. economy. When the United States is 
spending one million dollars per soldier in Afghanistan it is evident to anyone 
focused on the bottom line that a teetering U.S. economy cannot afford the cost 
of war.

Indeed, a well organized anti-war movement will have committees not only 
reaching out to military and business, but to academics, students, clergy, 
labor, nurses, doctors, teachers and a host of others. Outreach and organization 
needs to be an ongoing priority. And, organization must be designed around 
congressional districts so it can have a political impact. This demonstrates one 
reason for the need for a right left coalition; the anti-war movement cannot 
allow “red” states or districts to go unorganized.

Successful anti-war advocacy will also need new tactics. The government and 
media have adjusted to 1960s tactics. Mass marches and disruption of Congress 
reached all time highs during the build up and fighting of the Iraq war but with 
little effect. The government has learned how to handle these tactics and avoid 
media attention. There certainly will continue to be roles for these tactics but 
they cannot be central and more is needed.

Anti-war advocates need to use voter initiatives and referenda to raise issues 
that legislators will not confront. This strategy is a way to break though the 
power of the military industrial complex and bring issues to the people. It 
forces a public debate and pushes voters to confront how extreme militarism 
affects their lives. The U.S. has already spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan when care for the wounded and lost productivity is included the cost 
is more than doubled. In a decades long “Long War” military expenditures will 
cripple the U.S. economy. Effective opposition to war will show how the cost of 
war affects every American’s life.

Around the world other tactics have been successfully deployed on issues that 
U.S. advocates are not well organized enough to deploy. These include general 
strikes where people take off work for hours or days to send a message that the 
people are organized in opposition to government policy. Similarly slow downs in 
the nation’s capitol that bring the business of government to a halt demonstrate 
that the people will not let the business as usual go on without interruption. 
We can see the beginnings of such efforts in the U.S. peace movement in Cindy 
Sheehan’s “Peace of the Action” that recently protested drones at the CIA and 
seeks to block the business of Empire in the nation’s capitol in 2010.

Finally, and of critical importance, is for the anti-war peace movement to be 
truly non-partisan and politically independent. Recently peace activists have 
been drawn into silence when John “Anybody but Bush” Kerry ran a campaign where 
he called for escalation of the Iraq War and expansion of the military. And, 
when candidate Obama promised to escalate the Afghanistan war, attack Pakistan, 
only partially withdraw from Iraq and expand the U.S. military – many in the 
peace movement remained silent or criticized his policies but promised to 
support him anyway. The peace movement needs to protest candidates from any 
party who call for more militarism, larger military budgets and more U.S. troops 
and demand real anti-war positions for their votes.

Movements cannot stop and start for elections, nor allow party loyalty to divide 
them. They must continue to build through the election. Indeed, elections can be 
prime opportunities to build the movement and push candidates toward the 
anti-war peace perspective. Peace voters must be clear in their demands: end to 
the current wars, no more wars of aggression and dramatic reductions in the 
military budget so that it is really a defense budget not a war budget. This 
does not mean leaving the U.S. weak and unable to defend itself, but it should 
not be a budget that allows aggressive misuse of the U.S. military as the 
primary tool of foreign policy.

Developing an effective anti-war peace movement is a big task that will take 
years. U.S. Empire can be traced back to the late 1800s and President Eisenhower 
warned America of the military industrial complex fifty years ago. The U.S. is 
currently engaged in a “Long War” supported by neocons, neo-liberals and 
corporatist politicians. The pro-militarist establishment has deep roots in both 
major parties and undoing the military machine will take many years of work. 
Advocacy against war and militarism needs to be persistent; constantly educating 
the American public that war undermines national security, weakens the rule of 
law and contributes to the collapsing economy. We need to show how investment in 
militarism rather than civil society undermines livability of American 
communities, weakens the economy and puts basic necessities like education and 
health care financially out of reach.

The facts are on the side of the anti-war peace advocates, now we must build 
organizations that represent the patriotic, anti-militarist impulses of the 
American people.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace (www.VoterForPeace.US).







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