[Peace-discuss] An arguable analysis of the antiwar movement

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...our goal becomes building toward the day on which the House actually refuses 
any more funding for a war it opposes ... we have to stop thinking exclusively 
in terms of passing bills that then must pass the Senate and the President.  We 
have ... to think in terms of blocking the passage of bills.  For this we only 
need the House.  We can focus our attention on the House and stop petitioning 
the Senate and the President.  This gives us a lot more resources.  Plus, we 
don't have to antagonize president worshippers.  Instead we can focus our 
demands on House members.  And we can insist on other forms of action from 
Congress as well, such as oversight of wars involving subpoenas and their 
enforcement and the threat of high level impeachments.  The strongest message a 
Congress can send to a president is, with all due respect to many of my friends, 
not 'We wish you would end the war some day,' but 'We will expose any war 
crimes, and we hold the power of the purse.'"

	The Peace Movement's Progress
	By David Swanson
	http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/53735

The peace movement has made significant progress in the United States since its 
low point of late 2008, and just about everything anyone in it has done has been 
a contribution.  If everyone keeps doing what they're doing, and more of it, we 
might just end some wars, eventually.  But I think some techniques are working 
better than others, and that pursuing the most strategic approaches would make 
victory likelier sooner and longer-lasting when it comes.

I think the peace movement bottomed out in late 2008 for two reasons above all 
others.  One was the election of a Democratic president.  I wasn't around for 
Wilson, FDR, or LBJ, but my impression is that electing Democratic presidents is 
often bad news for both peace and, paradoxically, for the peace movement.  But 
both can eventually recover.  The other reason was the unconstitutional and 
uncertain treaty that Bush and Maliki created, requiring the complete end of the 
Iraq occupation following three more years of it.  The agreement actually made 
this delay a year and a half, rather than three years, by making the treaty 
breakable through a vote of the Iraqi people (the outcome of which could not be 
doubted).  However, that was denied to them.  While the US peace movement had 
always demanded an IMMEDIATE end to the war in Iraq, and might have been 
expected to go on doing so, the combination of a written deadline and the 
ascension of a Democrat to the throne proved deadly, even as the occupation of 
Iraq continued and that in Afghanistan escalated.

We now have a larger and more costly military, and larger and more costly wars 
-- costly in financial terms -- than when Bush was president.  We have more 
troops in the field, more mercenaries in the field, bases in more nations, a 
heightened use of drone strikes into additional countries, new secret military 
forces in still other nations, and greater war powers assumed by the president, 
including the power to assassinate Americans, the more firmly established powers 
to imprison without charge, rendition, and torture, and heightened powers of 
secrecy.

So, why do I say we've made progress?  Well, I said we've made progress from 
where we were in late 2008, at which point the downward trends I've just 
mentioned could be foreseen.  We'd just elected a president promising a larger 
military and an escalation in Afghanistan.  Since then, the U.S. public has 
turned dramatically from supporting to opposing the war in Afghanistan and the 
President's handling of it.  The planned escalation in Kandahar has failed to 
get off the ground.  Every official governmental and non-governmental study has 
deemed the effort in Afghanistan hopeless, pointless, catastrophic, or criminal. 
  High ranking whistleblowers have spoken out.  The Pentagon has resorted to 
wild claims of mineral wealth, as it flails about for new ways to justify the 
war.  And the blame game, surrounding the eventual withdrawal, has begun; the 
general in charge has been dismissed.  In addition, the withdrawal dates that 
people associate with Iraq and Afghanistan (out of Iraq by the end of 2011, 
beginning to get out of Afghanistan by July 2011) are closer, meaning that 
outrage at their violation is closer.

At the same time, counter-recruitment efforts in the United States have begun 
achieving real successes, forcing the closure of the Army Experience Center in 
Pennsylvania and denying recruiters students' test data in Maryland.  US troops 
have begun refusing illegal orders in greater numbers, and a culture of troop 
resistance coffee houses near US bases has been reborn.  The economic slide in 
the United States, while in no sense desirable, and hurting the ability of some 
of us to be engaged in the movement, is opening people's eyes to the impact of 
the war economy on the peace economy, and allowing coalitions to be formed of 
groups that want to defund wars and the military plus groups that want to fund 
everything else: healthcare, schools, jobs, green energy, etc.  Resolutions 
against war spending are being passed by political parties, towns, cities, and 
labor councils.  Cities are putting cost of war counters on city hall.  A 
coalition of peace and social justice groups has been holding monthly vigils at 
congress members' local offices, with significant local impact in dozens of 
districts, even if less noticeable nationally than big annual marches.

During the past year and a half, numerous activist organizations and somewhat 
independent media outlets have shifted from supporting the war in Afghanistan to 
opposing it.  By opposing it, they are not necessarily lobbying to defund it or 
taking any other steps to resist it or educate people about it, but they are 
officially opposed to it, meaning that they are our untapped potential waiting 
to be put into action.  And numerous other groups, old and news, have to various 
degrees and in various ways become active, opposing the wars, each in their own 
way, and contributing to these kinds of results:

May-June 2009 - 51 Democrats vote against war funding when it's guaranteed to 
pass; 32 vote against it when it might fail.

Late June 2009 - 131 Democrats vote for the Pentagon to produce an exit 
strategy, any exit strategy, for Afghanistan.

March 2010 - 65 Democrats vote to end the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2010.

July 1, 2010 - Well over 40, at least 51, and possibly 90 or more (up from 32) 
Democrats refuse to vote for Afghan war escalation funding, even with pleasant 
unrelated legislation attached, forcing House leadership to delay the bill for 
months and then maneuver it to passage without a vote.

July 1, 2010 - 38 Democrats (up from 32, but similarly limited to the number 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi would allow -- see below) vote against the Rule that 
effectively allows the funding bill to go forward toward becoming law.

July 1, 2010 - 25 congress members vote to cut off all funding for the war in 
Afghanistan.  100 vote to fund only withdrawal.  And 162 (up from 131, and for a 
strengthened amendment) vote to require the president to present Congress with a 
National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan and a withdrawal plan and 
completion date, and to require that Congress vote by July 2011 "if it wants to 
allow the obligation and expenditure of funds for Afghanistan in a manner that 
is not consistent with the president's announced policy of December 2009 to 
begin to drawdown troops by July 2011."

Two separate events in 2009 were combined into one in 2010.  First, the funding 
vote was held in 2009, and the peace movement pushed for No votes hard.  The 
White House and the House leadership were forced to bribe and threaten congress 
members for weeks to keep the Democratic No votes down to 32.  Had they reached 
39 the bill would have (at least in its current form) failed, due to all the 
Republicans voting No because of an unrelated measure packaged into it.  It was 
easy to see that we could get to 39 by the next "emergency" supplemental bill if 
we wanted to work at it.  The second event in 2009 was the vote on Congressman 
Jim McGovern's proposal for an exit timetable.  The peace movement worked hard 
for this and won 131 Yes votes.  This generated two separate stories, and the 
two agendas did not come into conflict with each other.

In 2010 it was a different story.  Congressman McGovern made his proposal for an 
exit timetable an amendment to the funding bill.  So, some peace groups promoted 
yes votes on that amendment, some pushed for No votes on the funding, and others 
did both.  And the pressure for No votes on the funding was felt by congress 
members whose constituents were organized and active.  Rep. Chellie Pingree was 
pressured hard in Maine, and began to speak out for stopping the funding.  She 
told General Petraeus in a hearing that he was making us all less safe (even if 
she did thank him three times for that "service").  And Congressman Alan 
Grayson, in a move I don't recall ever having seen before, set up a website for 
people to use in lobbying his colleagues to vote No on the funding.

If the amendments had been held back for a later date and a second event, then 
what happened on July 1, 2010, might have looked a little different. 
Progressive congress members might not have accepted a byzantine procedural 
maneuver that allowed the war escalation funding to be sent back to the Senate 
without the House actually voting on it.  Or if such a procedure was tried, more 
of them might have voted No on the Rule allowing it.  Instead, almost all the 
committed war opponents voted for the Rule that moved the funding along, with 
the double excuse that it was only a Rule vote, not a real true policy vote, and 
they were voting for it in order to have a chance to vote for good amendments.

And what would have happened next, if this procedure had been rejected?  I can't 
be sure, because I don't know every crazy trick to be found in House 
parliamentary precedents, but one distinct possibility is that the Democratic 
leadership would have been forced to pass the war escalation funding on its own 
with mostly Republican votes, and to pass useful peaceful spending on its own 
with mostly Democratic votes. The war funding would then have sailed through the 
Senate and been signed by the President.  The non-destructive spending would 
then have passed the Senate if its leadership had fought hard enough and been 
willing if necessary to throw out the filibuster rule.  McGovern's exit strategy 
bill could then have garnered its 162 votes the next week or next month instead 
of being buried in the news of late-night funding passage.

Why would this result have been any better than what we got?

Well, for one thing, it would have informed people that there was a war and that 
the war was being funded.  My local right-wing Democrat voted No on the Rule and 
Yes on McGovern's amendment, but he voted No on the Rule because of all sorts of 
other nonsense added into it.  The local media reported on his objection to the 
budgetary procedures involved and never reported in any way that there had been 
any vote in Congress related to the war.  As far as my neighbors know, the wars 
fund themselves.

Secondly, it would have identified who was pro-war and who was anti-war by their 
votes.  Local activists in my town spent months demanding that our 
representative take a position on the war.  He has yet to do so, and if he can 
avoid it he never will.  We can't hold people accountable unless we know what 
they've done.  Right now some congress members are claiming they opposed the war 
by voting against the Rule while others are claiming they opposed the war by 
voting for it.

Thirdly, forcing the Democratic leadership to line up with the Republican caucus 
and against most of the Democrats on war votes would be educational for people 
who are unaware that their chief opponent when lobbying their local Democrat for 
peace and justice is the leadership of his or her party.

Fourth, the demand to stop funding the war comes from people.  It's a demand we 
take to Congress, not one we pick up from Congress and try to explain to others. 
  We can form huge coalitions with economic justice groups around the demand to 
shift our spending from wars to jobs and housing.  We can't organize two kids 
and a dog from outside the peace movement to join a coalition for an unspecified 
non-binding exit timetable or a new National Intelligence Estimate.  That 
doesn't mean these are counterproductive demands.  I would certainly support 
them on any day of the year other than the day Congress is voting to fund the 
wars.  The problem is when one useful campaign unnecessarily interferes with 
another.

Fifth, if we think of Congress as sending messages to the president who will 
make all the decisions as "the decider," I would rather have two events and send 
two messages.  And the strongest message I can imagine is this: "A growing 
number of House members have committed to voting against any more war funding, 
no matter how much lipstick is applied to it, and this group includes the 
majority of your party's caucus, and people are organizing to keep these members 
in office and vote the others out".  Other, weaker messages could still be sent, 
and sent more strongly, on another day.

Sixth, if we think of Congress as potentially resembling the creature defined in 
Article I of the U.S. Constitution, as capable of actual action, not just 
rhetoric, then our goal becomes building toward the day on which the House 
actually refuses any more funding for a war it opposes.  In order to think this 
way, we have to stop thinking exclusively in terms of passing bills that then 
must pass the Senate and the President.  We have to also be able to think in 
terms of blocking the passage of bills.  For this we only need the House.  We 
can focus our attention on the House and stop petitioning the Senate and the 
President.  This gives us a lot more resources.  Plus, we don't have to 
antagonize president worshippers.  Instead we can focus our demands on House 
members.  And we can insist on other forms of action from Congress as well, such 
as oversight of wars involving subpoenas and their enforcement and the threat of 
high level impeachments.  The strongest message a Congress can send to a 
president is, with all due respect to many of my friends, not "We wish you would 
end the war some day," but "We will expose any war crimes, and we hold the power 
of the purse."

Seventh, while our ideal must be ending the current wars in whatever combination 
of approaches is most likely to succeed the fastest, we should also take an 
interest in ending wars in a manner that helps prevent the next ones from 
beginning immediately.  This means focusing on the funding, and moving from the 
defunding of wars to the defunding of the military and the empire of foreign 
bases, shrinking the machine that creates the wars.  And it means taking the 
power to initiate or escalate or indefinitely continue wars away from presidents.

The peace movement in the US, organizationally, and much to its disadvantage, 
has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.  We are, consequently, often instructed 
in the need to relate to congress members on their terms, using their language, 
etc.  One good friend of mine is quite energized with the need to instruct us 
that the recent vote on a Rule did not technically fund the war escalation, even 
while readily admitting that the only way to stop that particular bill that day 
(at least momentarily) was to vote No on the Rule.  But there is also a value to 
forcing congress members to speak our language.  It is not, after all, our job 
to represent them.  Peace activists in Maine made themselves so clear to Rep. 
Chellie Pingree that she was compelled to vote against the Rule and understood 
immediately that its being merely a Rule vote would constitute no excuse 
whatsoever.  Peace activists in some parts of Tennessee and Pennsylvania (who 
may have a harder base to work with) did not do as well, as illustrated by this 
passage from the Hill describing the July 1, 2010, vote on the Rule:

"Party leaders were forced to hold open the vote for several minutes, and 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could be seen huddling with Reps. Steve Cohen 
(Tenn.) and Paul Kanjorski (Penn.), the last Democratic holdouts. Both cast 
'yes' votes to push the motion over the top. When it was clear the measure had 
passed, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) switched her vote from 'yes' to 'no.' 
The final total was 215-210, with 8 lawmakers not voting. Cohen told The Hill 
earlier in the week that he was disinclined to support a war funding bill after 
bowing to pressure from party leaders who needed him to switch his vote from 
'no' to 'yes' a year ago."

Almost no one in Maine, including the leading activists had any idea what a 
self-executing Rule is.  But Congresswoman Pingree had a good idea what was 
expected of her.  We have to take our message to Congress, not the reverse.  Our 
message, the one that comes from our people, the one that builds coalitions with 
our allies in the broader justice movement is: Stop the funding!


-- 

David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial 
Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press.  You can 
order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.

To receive updates from After Downing Street register at

http://afterdowningstreet.org/user/register