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Recent
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April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
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the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
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Geoffrey
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Steve
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of the Day
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9, 2003
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Lummis
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Susan
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The New York Times and the Peace Movement
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FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
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Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
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Gagne
Baghdad Babble
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Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
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War Web Log 4/7
April
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Alexander
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The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
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A Drowning in Salem
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William
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Gila
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Joanne
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War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
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Can You Hear the Silence?
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Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
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Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
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April 11,
2003
Where
Does the Anti-War Movement Go From Here?
Now
What?
by
MICHAEL NEUMANN
When the antiwar movement didn't prevent the war,
it failed. The movement's talking heads will deny it. Like the
CEO of a chronically unprofitable company, defeat incites them
to recycle the same old wishful thinking. They will talk about
how the struggle has just begun, how you, you out there, built
an incredible movement, how they had personally witnessed this
or that inspiring or heartwarming scene. More than likely, they
will tweak Dubya with some Bush/bush joke. Earnest plans will
be made to stop this war in its tracks, and yet again we will
hear about the web of lobbies, oil interests and Christian fundamentalists
who run things. Yet again we will be told that these people
are very bad in an astounding number of ways.
But we're not attending a children's
birthday party: it doesn't behoove us to think we're all winners.
If I try to prevent a murder, and the murder occurs, I'm not
supposed to congratulate myself on giving it the old college
try. The same goes for multiple murders conducted by nation states.
Guilt and shame, not pride in my 'achievement', would be a more
appropriate response. Yet on the left such responses, and even
the notion that you ought to attain your objectives, are almost
unknown.
Like many people, I half-thought the
protests just might turn the tide. Now, on reflection, I wonder
whether the protest movement was really trying to succeed. It
did try, very hard, to oppose the war, but that's not the same
thing.
This isn't splitting hairs. To their
organizers and participants, the antiwar protests were not part
of some imagined sequence of events leading to a reversal of
US policy. It was merely imagined that there might be
such a sequence. The protests, however inspiring, always looked
more plausible as mere opposition to war--"we say no"-- than as some phase of a strategy
to prevent it. Bush was set on his course, no one expected Congress
or the Republican party to revolt, and it wasn't as if the left
would bring America to a standstill. No one saw a road to victory.
No one had in mind some sequence of actions beginning with the
protests and ending with an order to send the troops home.
Now that the troops are actually fighting,
the left faces problems it barely recognizes. They have to do
with patriotism. This ain't the sixties. During the Vietnam war,
thousands of leftists openly wished for a communist victory and
an American defeat. The idea that we were all somehow good Americans,
guided by bittersweet passions through a tragic collective drama,
is a recent invention. And while there was sympathy on the left
for America's conscript cannon fodder, this certainly did not
extend to the volunteer special forces, or to the American pilots
to whom the North Vietnamese were so inexplicably unkind. The
left, frankly, looked on these people as murderous creeps.
These sentiments, if they exist today,
are murmurs. We have come a long way from the sixties in another
sense. We may be kinder, gentler leftists now, but we are also
cowed. We talked a lot of treason back then. Now, we wouldn't
dare. We do not expect to be indulged like the college kids of
yore; we expect to be imprisoned.
The left responds to this changed environment
with a vaguely plausible pretense to patriotism. It is said we
support the troops; we want to bring them home. And we are careful.
We crow about US 'setbacks' or 'miscalculations', but not about
US fatalities. We spare a tear for our dead and captured professional
soldiers; we tremble for the MIAs.
Or do we? The problem isn't just that
we're operating in a more repressive climate; it's also that,
with the start of fighting, a serious gap has opened up between
ourselves and the rest of America, one which we do not acknowledge.
Yes, we want to bring the troops home; so did the anti-Vietnam
war protestors. But this is a phoney objective. We know damn
well that one or both of two things will end the war: victory
or heavy US casualties. For all the sound and fury of the sixties,
it was the Vietnamese who brought 'our' troops home by killing
50,000 of them. If anyone will bring the troops home before the
US government is good and ready to do so, it will be the Iraqis,
not the protestors.
As well as a phoney objective, we have
phoney attitudes. Suppose we do prefer, like most Americans,
that all American troops return from Iraq without a scratch.
Does that mean we 'support' the troops? Let's see, which do you
prefer: the death of a hundred Iraqi civilians, or the death
of ten American soldiers? If you say you 'can't weigh one death
against another', that means you don't prefer one alternative
to the other, and vice versa. But that fits the classic definition
of indifference between the alternatives. No matter how you reject
weighing lives, the fact is that you do not prefer sparing the
American ones. And the questions have just begun. What if it
were 50 Iraqi civilians? or Iraqi soldiers? Or ten, or five or
one? Difficult questions, because we believe, don't we, that
the invading troops have no right to be there, that they are
violating international conventions and standards of justice?
that they serve a bad cause? We may tell ourselves that we are
basically on the same wavelength as the American people, but
we're wrong.
What are the strategic implications of
this? We seem to have a choice between dishonesty and suicidal
frankness. But our dishonesty is too obvious to be a viable option;
we will be found out. What the left needs is something to offer.
Since we can't in fact succeed in bringing the troops home, we
have nothing, unless you can keep a straight face when you hear
that we're going to build a just society. Sorry, I just don't
think we will. If we couldn't even stop a really quite unpopular
rush to war, how the hell are we going to accomplish this much
harder task?
So where are we? We had no concrete strategy
for preventing the war, and now we are its pawns. The anti-war
movement will grow and shrink in proportion to Iraqi victory
and defeat; we have become a mere effect rather than a cause.
Many people will be quite content with this status. It fits that
very popular leftist ethos according to which our task is to
talk and gesticulate. We protest, proclaim our opposition, bear
witness, stand up and be counted, denounce, speak out, send a
message, express solidarity, support, say no, but never actually
try to do something. But really, this is not good enough: the
purpose of having a conscience is not simply to tell the world
that you have one. Whether or not preventing the war was the
real goal, it ought to have been. And while stopping the war
is not a genuine objective, we can do better than trying to sell
painting-on-velvet visions of world peace and social justice.
It is still possible to turn US foreign policy around, just as
it was possible to do so before the war started.
This ambitious goal calls for an ambitious
strategy, and one hears the sarcasm rumbling just over the horizon:
are we to seize important highway junctions, airports and power
stations? do some suicide bombing, American style? smash the
state in a workers' revolution? But the left does not need dramatic
tactics; it needs a dramatic alternative. The left needs to propose
a way for America to achieve its basic objectives without incurring
hatred.
To come up with a proposal, the left
would have to get beyond its obsessive moralizing. No real change,
and therefore no good, can come of calling for moral redemption.
Americans do not lust to become morally good. They want instead
to be secure. To them, a left that distinguishes itself by incessant
sermons and disquisitions on international jurisprudence doesn't
quite seem to be the answer. Americans, being rational if not
very moral, would rather hear of something that will address
their concerns.
By now it could hardly be more obvious
what that something is. Before the war, it seemed as if international
pressure might deter the US from policies that lead to ever more
insecurity. This has proven a false hope. Only one fundamental
shift in US policy can both undo the damage being done, and rapidly
address America's security concerns. Proposing this shift is
the only way the left can address the real concerns of the American
people. The left needs to demand, as it should have demanded
a long time ago, that the US switch sides in the Israel/Palestine
conflict. This means that the US should ally itself with the
Palestinians and with the Muslim world, against Israel, to secure
prompt, unconditional and complete Israeli withdrawal from the
occupied territories.
"Against" means "against",
not "not with". It implies a commitment to meet Israeli
intransigence with increasingly severe responses, as severe as
the United Nations will endorse. A posture of benign neutrality
would hardly, in the post-911 sense, 'change everything', but
switching sides would undoubtedly do so. No one needs shout
"no war for oil": changing sides would bring no war
*and* oil. It would also instantly reconcile the US with
the UN and with its estranged European allies. The war on terror
would fight itself; anti-Americanism would go out of fashion
in Islam. The civil rights of Arabs and Muslims in America would
no longer be an issue. There would be no problem with the US
having an inconsistent position on weapons of mass destruction.
Even without pure intentions, even without consciousness-raising,
the US would recoup everything it has lost since 9-11. Last and
least, the clash of civilizations would become an illusion: suddenly
it would transpire that Muslims are not really that much more
upset about skin on MTV than half the American population.
It is not that the Israel-Palestine conflict
is the only important issue in the world; it is just that it
is the crucial one. Until the US reconciles with the Islamic
world on Palestine, it can never demonstrate a commitment to
international conventions, or change the tenor of its self-destructive
war on terror, or overcome the petulant bitterness that now poisons
any attempt to develop a fruitful foreign policy. Get on the
right side of this issue, and there is still much to do, but
the way is open to doing it.
How would such a proposal be received
by the American public? We don't know; it's never been tried.
But what would block its acceptance? This doesn't require sacrifices.
No one who wants America to be powerful, no one who wants America
protected against terrorism, no one who wants cheap gas for SUVs,
will find anything unpalatable here. Sure, there is the obstacle
of prejudice anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice, but this prejudice
does not run very deep. It has not prevented the US from allying
itself with the Gulf States, Pakistan, and Indonesia: why should
it prevent the US from forging more and stauncher alliances with
other Muslim societies? Americans are used to thinking of Israel
as their dear friend, but they are also used to thinking of Syria
as their mortal enemy. That didn't prevent the US and Syria
from forming a military alliance hardly more than ten years ago.
Of course there would be tremendous opposition from Jewish organizations,
neo-conservatives and others, but this would be a real fight
for a real objective, with a real chance of victory. At worst
it would greatly increase the pressure for peace in the Middle
East.
The biggest obstacle to the proposal,
however, is the left itself. Many leftists, with admirable moral
courage, have indeed put the Palestinian issue front and center.
But as what? One of those never-ending charitable campaigns?
Yet another example of US perfidy? The problem here is not insufficient
concern but, once again, a lack of ambition, an inability to
conceive of any strategy that could actually put an end to the
Israel/Palestine conflict. In the name of political realism,
the pro-Palestinian left promotes the most dangerous of illusions:
that the US could stop the killing merely by toying with the
Israel aid spigot.
Cutting off the aid will do nothing:
Israel is determined to stand pat. It will occasionally make
noises about a Palestinian state and negotiations, but we know
very well that its 'generous offers' consistently exclude vital
chunks of the West Bank and many of the settlements. We also
know that Israel's current notion of adequate security guarantees
includes retaining control over every strategically important
feature of the occupied territories, including the borders, major
roads, and airports. And we know that even this 'generosity'
would almost certainly be rejected by the Israeli electorate.
In other words, Israel has not the slightest
intention of making peace or agreeing to a Palestinian state.
It is not about to cave in when someone talks about cutting off
aid. It doesn't need the aid: it is already one of the world's
leading arms exporters, and it would make up for any aid shortfalls
by expanding that business to now-prohibited items. Should the
US make timid noises about reducing support, Israel will threaten
to sell cutting-edge weapons to US enemies and rattle a nuclear
sabre: keep arming us or the Arabs will attack, and we'll have
to nuke 'em. Israel could be restrained and isolated only by
what would form instantly were the US to switch sides: a coalition
of the whole world determined to call Israel's bluff. Not coincidentally,
a coalition of the whole world is just what the US needs right
now.
Meanwhile, as the left knows all too
well, the killing goes on. While leftists agonize about the problem,
they apparently cannot embrace the solution. Like the US itself,
they can't bring themselves to switch sides, to embrace the very
objective that would also solve America's security problems.
They can't manage to say: "I want the US to ally itself
with the Palestinians and the Muslim world. I want the US to
see Israel, not as a naughty child to be deprived of military
goodies, but as an adversary. Like the majority of people in
the Muslim world, perhaps in the world at large, I applaud, without
qualification, the resistance of the Palestinian people."
Whatever the causes of this reluctance to take sides, its effects
are fatal. It is fiddling while Palestinians burn, it is abandoning
the best chance to prevent more Iraqs, and it is a refusal to
bridge the gap between the left and the American people.
Morality aside, the left has a choice.
It can go on demonstrating in an atmosphere increasingly hostile
to dissent. This essentially reduces to waiting until rising
US casualties or world outrage does our work for us.(*) The alternative
is give Americans an actual alternative to current policy, and
that means working to turn the US against Israel. To promote
this, you don't have to scold or moralize, and you can offer
genuine hope for genuine change in the post 9-11 world. Opposing
Israel is no longer just a moral obligation; it is the only realistic
way to deflect America from its destructive and self-destructive
path. It was something not considered worthy of consideration
before the failure to stop the war. Perhaps that failure will
open minds to new ideas.
Michael Neumann
is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario,
Canada. Professor Neumann's views are not to be taken as those
of his university. His book What's
Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche has just
been republished by Broadview Press. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca.
(*) A perfect sample of the pathetic
arm-waving that comes from refusing to deal with the Israel issue
can be found in a letter, signed by everyone who's anyone on
the left from Michael Albert to Howard Zinn, which contains the
following profession of faith:
"I stand for peace and justice.
I stand for democracy and autonomy. I
don't think the U.S. or any other country should ignore the popular
will and violate and weaken international law, seeking to bully
and bribe votes in the Security Council.
I stand for internationalism. I oppose
any nation spreading an ever expanding network of military bases
around the world and producing an arsenal unparalleled in the
world.
I stand for equity. I don't think the
U.S. or any other country should seek empire. I don't think the
U.S. ought to control Middle Eastern oil on behalf of U.S. corporations
and as a wedge to gain political control over other countries.
I stand for freedom. I oppose brutal regimes in Iraq and elsewhere
but I also oppose the new doctrine of "preventive war,"
which guarantees permanent and very dangerous conflict, and is
the reason why the U.S. is now regarded as the major threat to
peace in much of the world. I stand for a democratic foreign
policy that supports popular opposition to imperialism, dictatorship,
and political fundamentalism in all its forms.
I stand for solidarity. I stand for and
with all the poor and the excluded. Despite massive disinformation
millions oppose unjust, illegal, immoral war, and I want to add
my voice to theirs. I stand with moral leaders all over the world,
with world labor, and with the huge majority of the populations
of countries throughout the world.
I stand for diversity. I stand for an
end to racism directed against immigrants and people of color.
I stand for an end to repression at home and abroad.
I stand for peace. I stand against this
war and against the conditions, mentalities, and institutions
that breed and nurture war and injustice.
I stand for sustainability. I stand against
the destruction of forests, soil, water, environmental resources,
and biodiversity on which all life depends.
I stand for justice. I stand against
economic, political, and cultural institutions that promote a
rat race mentality, huge economic and power inequalities, corporate
domination even unto sweatshop and slave labor, racism, and gender
and sexual hierarchies.
I stand for a policy which redirects
the money used for war and military spending to provide healthcare,
education, housing, and jobs.
I stand for a world whose political,
economic, and social institutions foster solidarity, promote
equity, maximize participation, celebrate diversity, and encourage
full democracy.
I stand for peace and justice and, more,
I pledge to work for peace and justice."
Iraqis and Palestinians will doubtless
thank the left for reciting this pious mantra over their dead.
Today's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
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