(speech to Out of Iraq assembly, Hollywood United Methodist Church, Los Angeles, Jan. 17, 2006)
First, I want to pay tribute to the unknown soldiers of the peace movement. I know that many of you wonder if your countless acts of protest matter at all. You feel a constant pressure to show up at rallies lest the media announce that our numbers are in decline. Your bodies might be counted in demonstrations, but your voices don't seem to count at all, and are never quoted in the media.
This is not the first time. Even now, the Kennedy Library in Boston is planning a historic conference on Vietnam, featuring generals, journalists and politicians, but not a single voice from the anti-Vietnam war movement.
The media and politicians acknowledge something they call "public opinion" without ever associating it with the anti-war movement. For example, in explaining the shifting mood in Congress in January, the Washington Post made eight references to the factor of "public opinion", as if it was a magical floating balloon, without a single mention of organized lobbying, petitioning or protests.
A study of that same magic balloon in Foreign Affairs [December 2005] says that "the only thing remarkable about the current war in Iraq is how precipitously American public support has dropped off", but goes on to say that this decline of war support "has little to do with whether or not there is an active anti-war movement at home. There has not been much of one in the case of the Iraq war..."
This should make you feel angry and motivated, not meaningless and depressed. It is not in the nature of elites to recognize people in the streets, because that would be acknowledging that large numbers of people are fed up with the politics of proper channels. In this case, the largest numbers of any anti-war protests in American history: from one million in February 2003 to the 600,0000 at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Or in the campaigns of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich, which surpassed the 1968 insurgency of the late Senator Eugene McCarthy who passed away this week.
We must write ourselves into history, not to take credit, but to deny the forces of oblivion, those whose agenda is to keep us hopelessly in our place.
Just ask yourselves one simple question: if we are so powerless and unimportant, why are they spying on us? Why are they keeping so many secrets from us? You spy and keep secrets from people you fear, not people you dismiss. They don't trust you with information. They are afraid of your potential power.
Their agenda seems to resemble that of the Johnson and Nixon Administrations of old, which was, according to the Pentagon Papers, to remove "the issue of Vietnam from domestic political contention." Back in those days, the US stopped bombing North Vietnam above the twentieth parallel "while dropping a higher total tonnage than before". [see Ellsberg, p. 227]
And so the Bush Administration is creating credible rumors of significant though partial troop withdrawals, while intensifying the air war and use of death squads against the Iraqis who resist the occupation. They hope to take the war off television, and change the color of the casualties.
Our challenge is to resist these attempts to render the war invisible. We do that by applying people-pressure to the pillars of the power and policy.
The first pillar is public opinion. A slight majority of Americans are with us. We need to convince the unconvinced that it is time to implement an exit strategy.
The second pillar is Congress. We should publicly refuse to vote for any candidates unless they support swift withdrawal from Iraq. We can complicate the careers of many politicians by concentrating on close races. We now can show that the current cost is not only 6 billion per month, but up to a trillion in tax dollars if you include such costs as lifetime health care for disabled Iraqi vets.
The third pillar is military recruiting. They are failing to meet their quotas and feeling the pressure of community anti-war sentiment. Already 38 military recruiters have gone AWOL themselves.
The fourth pillar is one of reputation and morality. Americans do not want to pay taxes for torture.
The fifth pillar is international. The coalition of the willing has become unwilling, under pressure from peace movements in their own countries. It has declined from 50,000 troops from 38 countries in 2003 to 24,000 mostly-noncombat troops from 27 countries, with more to leave soon.
The most important of the falling pillars is public opinion in Iraq itself. A recent poll reported in Newsweek showed that 80 percent of Iraqis favor a US withdrawal, and 45 percent support violent resistance to the occupation. These are the facts on the ground we must help all Americans understand.
Last week I returned from meetings in Amman, Jordan, with Iraqis who had driven all the way from Baghdad. The source I spoke to was intimately familiar with the Iraqi resistance networks, and he offered these suggestions for a settlement:
- The immediate inclusion of opposition voices in the discussion of how to reform the constitution.
- A US timetable for troop withdrawals, as recently announced by the Arab League conference in Cairo.
- Formation of a transitional caretaker government including the opposition as well as the current parties in power.
- A deadline for new and inclusive elections to an independent parliament.
- A peacekeeping force, under the UN and Arab League, composed of troops from nations not involved in the occupation - from France and Germany to Pakistan and Algeria.
- Renewed economic reconstruction under Iraqi sovereignty, instead of the neo-liberal elimination of all subsidies for necessities. This venture would include contracts with qualified American contractors who have supported the occupation. We don't want to drink our oil, the Iraqis said, we want to sell it on the market.
- Restoration of most, not all, of the former Iraqi army to insure stability and protection in Sunni areas and parts of Baghdad.
My source made two other significant points. The first was that the majority of insurgent factions recognize the existence of the US as a superpower with economic interests and a stake in an orderly honorable troop withdrawal. The second was that once the end of occupation is negotiated politically, the al-Zarqawi group of foreign fighters will shrink and disappear, or be defeated within six months.
While in Amman, I also spoke with Prince Hassan, who said it is "time to change course" through a "sustained process of dialogue and negotiations to turn the rhetoric of Cairo into reality."
So far the Administration has resisted these peace overtures, and the Democratic leadership has ignored them. Their invitation to the Sunnis is to lay down their arms and join as junior partners in the occupation of their own country. It is time to shed our imperial mindset and begin thinking of an Iraqi for Iraqis. If 80 percent want us out, why are we there?
There are some in the American hierarchy, however, who are discussing the option of having the new Iraqi government request that we begin to leave. This is quietly called "the Philippine option", referring to the Philippine government asking for closure of US military bases. [see NY Times, Jan. 10]. If our Republicans and Democrats and mass media are afraid to call for withdrawal, the only option is for the Iraqis themselves to take the initiative.
As soon as the new government is installed in Baghdad, I propose that our Congress invite some of the new Iraqi parliamentarians who oppose the occupation to begin a process of citizens peace diplomacy, and that a delegation of Americans journey to the region to draft a common plan for ending this occupation once and for all.
With majorities in both our countries favoring a responsible plan for withdrawal and end of occupation, a great conflict soon will emerge between the values of democracy and those of empire. If we are united and focused, if our goal is to end the occupation and not just perpetually protest, we will prevail.