Two Lessons From An Anti-War'rior
For three years I led big efforts to end the war in Iraq with MoveOn.org and also freestanding campaigns on the war known as Iraq Summer and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.
In the end, with collaborators like Nita Chaudhary, Tara McGuinness, Eli Pariser and others, we probably organized more than 30,000 candle vigils, thousands of protests, millions of calls to Congress, dozens of TV ads, millions of signs and stickers, town hall meetings, emails, blog posts, prayers and more from the White House to Crawford, Texas and in hundreds of cities and towns across America.
We knew through all this work that if there was no way to quickly end the war with George W. Bush in office, we needed to change the country hoping they would change our political leadership. That is exactly what happened. Americans responded and, since 2004, Democratic candidates opposed to the war in Iraq replaced more than 60 pro-war Republicans in Washington.
For me, on this tragic anniversary of the war, there are two things to reflect on.
First, the task of ending the war is not complete yet. President Obama is endeavoring on a plan to withdraw U.S. troops. I believe he is doing so in good faith and I am proud that America elected our first president opposed to the war we were in on Election Day. This is reaffirming of the wisdom and decency of the American people.
But while we are leaving Iraq, and after we leave, there will be an unmet burden both for millions of Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors and their families who carry wounds both seen and unseen.
It will be easy to thrust responsibility on to the hawks and warmongers, but those of us who opposed the war--and the politicians we supported--are essentially running the country now. This is our challenge. We have obligations both to our veterans and to the Iraqi war victims. It will continue to cost tens of billions in the years ahead but that is the necessary cost of our irresponsibility as a country getting into Iraq.
And while we focus on healing those in the war we should also seek to heal the first casualty of this and every war--the truth. There are still questions that haven't been answered about how we got into the war and what happened once we were in it. We deserve answers.
I especially believe that we need to focus on how U.S. policy fanned the flames of sectarian violence and cleansing (called ethnic cleansing in other wars) that turned Baghdad from a mixed city into a majority Shiite city. This is an often-neglected area with profound moral implications.
Did we train and arm sectarian Iraqi Army brigades who by day provided security and by night led death squads? The evidence suggests we did.
The Iraqi refugee crisis remains one of the largest in the world--larger than Darfur last time I checked. Shouldn't there be a truth commission to investigate all of this? The goal of the commission wouldn't necessarily be to seek criminal convictions. What is most important is that we learn the truth lest history repeat itself.
And while the process of ending the war will continue for years, the second big lesson I hope we take from Iraq--as a country and as human beings--is that wars are terribly hard to stop once they start. If we learn nothing else from the war in Iraq it should be that the task of staying out of wars should be a critical activity of human civilization. In this regard, the project that President Obama laid out during the campaign of revitalizing U.S. diplomacy and rebuilding our image is central. We also need to match that with a vision for non-violent forms of conflict resolution.
The human, economic and psychic damage of the war will be felt for decades. There is little that we can do about that except hope that we don't fall into the trap of repeating these errors again.
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Hopefully this doesn't end up a repost, but while my profile shows it as being posted it's seems
to have disappeared into thin air. I was impressed by your post, and would strongly recommend
that everyone read a book by William Blum called "Killing Hope", that details every CIA and
military involvement since WWII. It will not make you proud to be an American, and I truly despise
the people that have caused me to feel that way.
I was impressed by your post, and would strongly recommend that everyone read a book by
William Blum called "Killing Hope", that details every CIA and military involvement since WWII.
It will not make you proud to be an American, and I truly despise the people that have caused
me to feel that way.
I find it interesting that you say you elected an anti-war administration. In his first two weeks in office, Obama authorized night time missle strikes in Pakistan against the Taliban leadership, and killed several little girls asleep in their beds. It doesn't sound very anti-war to kill sleeping children.
While you're searching for vilains rsponsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people, you might want to look toward Iran, Syria, and the influx of fighters and weapons financed and supplied by those countries. You might also recall Saddam Hussain who used poison gas on the Kurds, whose sons raped with impunity, and the revolutionary guard who slaughtered at will.
On our side, the policy of throwing out every low level bureacrat and military member certainly created a vast source of poor and disaffected people with the skills to create havoc.
Bush invaded Iraq to stop the financing of terrorism by making an example of the most extreme dictatorship forcing lessor villians to be more circumspect, and install a democracy in the middle east to help destablize the other dictator led countries controlling a large chunk of the world's energy resources. I believe the goal was more stable future energy supplies and less economic disruption in the US. Many on the left were diametrically oppossed to successful prosecution of the war. Thankfully they were ignored and we now have an operating democracy in the middle east. People died, but that doesn't make the war unjust, nor less necessary. If OPEC were to cut off supplies to the US and endangered our populace, do you really think we would just roll over and let them destroy us? No, we will take it by force, at far higher blood costs. Pacifism is wonderful until you will starve if you don't fight.
Damn right! It's our oil, wherever it's located.
I'm scared of you, sir or madam. I've always been baffled by people who bluntly assume they have a right to slaughter people if they want their stuff. There's no moral code in that. There's no crime or moral rot behind starving to death or running out of oil but it's morally grotesque to guzzle more than one's share of the earth's resources and to kill to get your way. As for what you call "roll over and let them destroy (you)", nobody can destroy you by controlling their own stuff. You destroy yourself by losing your moral centre. The US is encroaching upon a lot of peoples' basic rights in the world to keep feeding their craving for more, more, more. Do you think that's fair or sustainable?
Your post if mostly a tissue of lies promulgated by Cheney, and seconded by George W. Bush,
I actually find it a bit upsetting that anyone still still buys into this nonsense. Remove your head
from where you have been storing it, and enjoy the sunshine. P.S. the air smells better.
"If we learn nothing else from the war in Iraq it should be that the task of staying out of wars should be a critical activity of human civilization."
Aw c'mon. That's what we learned in 1945 (and before) with all that nato and UN stuff. WW1 was the war to end all wars. Then WW2... 60 years later, this one-sided massacre killed over 1,000,000 innocent people, without so much as a single "we interrupt this broadcast"... yawn. Yesterdays news is 1.2 trillion MORE inflationary dollars to be print. Unprecedented in history of civilization, whatever that means. Yawn. Who's the next top model?
Watch "Idiocracy".
If you want to understand and deal with the war, there is one issue far more important than all the others. Did we start this war for oil? I think we did. We invaded Afganistan to capture Bin Laden, but when we had him pinned down we let him go and moved our army into the region and redirected them into Iraq. The first order of business there was to construct the largest, strongest fort in history. It was designed as a base to occupy the country for decades and protect access to oil fields for whatever multinationals ended up with the oil rights after the government we set up and protected with our army signed them away. When it became clear political forces would prevent this plan from being followed, we started to pretend the Iraq war was about other things. If you want to discuss the Iraq war, start there. We invaded Iraq to steal oil.
Bush started making plans to leave Iraq after it was certain the democrats would get us out when he left office. As long as the democrats are in power, the plan will remain find a way out of Iraq. If the Republicans return to power they will pretend to be finding the way out while they do what they can to remain.
Proof enough for me: I was on a bus in the Green Zone in Baghdad in 2003 (the Green Zone is far to0 big to walk out of) and I couldn't help but overhear a US business woman there as a consultant because she talked the whole time to the bus driver in a very loud and proud voice. She said flat out that she was there to help recreate Iraq into a "tourist destination" (as if the fertile crescent, Babylon, the Tigris etc haven't been honoured locations since long before the US was ever imagined). She kept referring to "Our oil. We won it." It makes my blood boil recalling this woman's arrogance and abject lack of honour but there was so much injustice going on in Baghdad at the time that made one's blood boil, this one was just another moment in a huge display if imperial hubris.
I don't know what planet you are from, but the "politicians you supported" are not anit-war. In January of 2009 almost every U. S. congress person voted to support the illegal Israeli war in Palestine a war which killed 1300 Palestinians, the majority of which were civilians.
The U. S. and Israel have joined together to form a Zionist Imperialist Nation threatening every nation in the middle east, and threatening U. S. politicians and citizens who oppose them. Israel has essentially bought most politicians in the U. S. through political contributions those who support them and through the Israeli owned media, destroying those who oppose them. They also have placed Rahm Emanuel, a citizen of Israel, as chief of staff.
When I read Tom saying this, I immediately realized his definition of war is rather limited.
Please stop calling Republicans Hawks!!! These people are pretending to be Hawks and really don't care any more about the Security of America than they care about Religion or Patriotism. These are simply tools they use to Dupe people into thinking they care, in hopes of getting their Votes. They claim to be great Patriots while they comit acts of Treason against the country by outing Top-Secret, CIA Agents. They claim to be great Christians as they walk down onto the floor of the Congress and vote against every Bill that goes to help the poor, the Handicapped, and the Elderly....directly against the teachings of Jesus Christ. They claim to be big on Security, yet, they do absolutely nothing that was recommended by the 911 commission to secure America. Calling them Hawks is just another LIE!!!
There is no proper word for them, at least not in English. We can only hope their "breed" dies out and becomes extinct. Time for a real Republican party, but there are no signs of it's life .... yet.
Let wimmin run the world for.......oh say, 200 hundred years. Let's see how many wars we have then. See what kind of bond we can reform with the earth while we're at it.
We sure wouldn't have all this testosterone poison posturing and grabbing for power.....I've decided it's some kind of mating ritual.
Condoleeza Rice did her part and is a big proponent of all the US invasions. Women have a lot to do with raising warriors and egging them on in war. Also, there is an increasing population of women combat soldiers. I don't understand how having women run the world would change anything. Like Margaret Thatcher who butchered the humanitarian tradition of UK social programs? Like Bodacea? In most western countries we have more women in all professions including political office and we're as war-mongering as ever.....
Well said and I agree that our current leaders are making honest attempts to move us past this dark period in American history.
While I applaud your efforts for leading several anti-war groups, let's be honest about what turned the tide of public opinion on the war. Nothing changes the minds of citizens on a war quicker than soldiers dying in steadily increasing numbers. Until you have that and the media focuses on it, you don't have traction for anything else. Sad, but true.
>>Did we train and arm sectarian Iraqi Army brigades who by day provided security and by night led death squads? The evidence suggests we did.
That's a salacious accusation to make offhandedly. I'd be interested to see the evidence that supports this.
See Tom Matzzie's Profile
I agree. The war dead and also then the crushing economic cost of the war. Our campaign tried to keep both of those things front and center in the media. The three biggest swings in public opinion were first, Abu Ghraib which busted a lot of myths people had. Second, Hurricane Katrina which reminded people of neglected needs at home. And, finally, leaders in Congress and the Democratic presidential candidates endorsing Iraq exit plans. Just like in Vietnam, the public moved even farther against the war when they saw prominent American leaders doing the same thing. There is a lesson here about the importance of early opposition to wars from American leaders.
You know, I got to thinking about what you said. I think you are right. The steady stream of casualties had the same impact on us as it did during the Vietnam war. And it's a theory of mine that the combatants fighting our presence there were well aware of that. They knew, for instance, not to launch some major offensive that would kill hundreds. We assume it's because they couldn't. But what if - what if mind you - they simply chose not to. Rather, they killed one or two a day, knowing that it would turn the tide. If so, then I would say we have just shown the world a perfectly efficient way of hamstringing any future US military endeavors. Don't attack on the field. Go into the shadows of guerilla warfare, and kill no more than one or two soldiers at a time, and within a year, America will be folding. In hindsight, I don't know if Bush even considered that possibility. In hindsight, I don't know exactly what Bush did consider. But I do know that, based on history, a civilization can't keep losing wars, or it will eventually catch up with us. So if this was a strategy, and not a necessity on the part of those fighting our soldiers, then it is something to think about.
That is the precise strategy of guerrilla warfare: when an enemy, powerful though he may be, is far from his home with reducing home support, simply chip away at his resolve. There is no need for the terrorist / insurgent / freedom fighter (depending on your point of view) to engage in a 'set-piece' battle. And there is no reward for them either in that respect.
Thus sooner or later, the US Administration will talk with the terrorist / insurgent / freedom fighter to allow the various US forces to withdraw in a sensible organised manner whilst enabling the US administration to call 'victory' (or some such term).
That is always the fate of the conventional military forces in a situation that requires a political solution. It happened to the British in Kenya, Malaya, Aden, Cyprus and of course Northern Ireland (as well as lots of other more historical conflicts e.g. the Boer War, the Afghan Wars etc). The French also had Algeria.
It happened to the US in Vietnam, is happening in Iraq and will happen in Afghanistan.
For a look at American funded, trained and probably led death squads, do some googling on the Iraqi Interior Ministry's "Wolf Brigade" special police commandos. It is manned largely by veterans of Saddam's army and Republican Guard and is notorious for having its own secret and public prisons in which prisoners are tortured before being murdered and dumped. One of the trainers is James J. Steele, a former US Army lt. colonel who trained death squads in El Salvador during the Reagan Administration and helped run Ollie North's Iran-Contra criminal network. I believe Mr. Steele continues to work as a "security consultant" out of Washington DC. American soldiers have been implicated in the crimes of the Wolf Brigade, not least for assassinating journalists investigating the Wolf Brigade's crimes.
"In the end, with collaborators like Nita Chaudhary, Tara McGuinness, Eli Pariser and others, we probably organized more than 30,000 candle vigils"
Did you plant some trees to offset the carbon footprint from all this burning?
See Tom Matzzie's Profile
Ha, good point. I think though the carbon footprint of this Internet-powered organizing was probably a lot lower than organizing in history.
Tom, tell me, where is Saddam? And his two creepy sons?
They ded...or weren't you watching the glorious day the US hung Saddam, who we put in as puppet dictator to counter Iran?
It worked well, too, until enormous OIL decided they wanted the Iraq oil fields.......to "develop" them. Well, now I hear they've gotten the contracts so, I guess, the 50,000 troops will remain to protect their "interests"
Oh, and al Quaida? A CIA operation set up to help the Afghans fight the Russians. Whoops! (or not, they've been an awfully convenient scapegoat )
They are dead, loads of other rather unpleasant people are dead, even more rather innocent people are dead, thousands of children are dead and millions of them have had their entire lives totally brutalised and demolished.
I assume you want to have a celebration now as at least three of them you were not all that keen on right? Nothing like a few thousand good deaths to get you in the party mood eh?
All said and done what must be done is to bring criminal charges up against the perpetraitors of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, namely Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz etc...
If they are allowed to remain free of charges and responsibility than this will occur in the next generation with different players in a different country. I have already seen this with the Vietnam war, or otherwise know to Vietnamese, my wife being one of them the "American war". In that American war we destroyed the country, bombed the forrests indiscriminately with Agent Orange poison defoliage, that still to this day causes all types of birth defects in children. Then went into Cambodia to bomb them for a while at what cost? Then in 1975 we up and left, leaving 10's of thousands who helped us to fend for themselves as the communists invaded S. Vietnam and slaughtered them. The same thing happened in the 1st Gulf war. Bush told the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam and we will stand behind you and instead we bailed and they too were slaughtered. George Clooney's "Three Kings" depics this perfectly. Who are the real criminals?
$13 BILLION every month to endless waste brought to you the American taxpayer, compliments of self serving politicians to line their own pockets from the blood of US service people, and the 100,000' of innoscent people slaughtered who were just "Collateral Damage"..
The real criminals: Bush, The senators and Congress that voted for war.
Part of the reason we're still in Iraq and will be into the indefinite future (50,000 combat troops who have been renamed "non-combat" troops is not even close to a full withdrawal of all troops and contractors) and escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the anti-war movement supports both wars. Mr. Mattzie's article is proof of the pudding. He's willing to call a warmongering President's continuation of war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan anti-war.
Americans, including so-called anti-war Americans, support gunboat diplomacy and rule by massive firepower. They believe they can whine while the firepower is wiping out the "enemy" and then call a resulting semi-peace a successful tactic that quelled the violence -- even when the overwhelming proof is that Iran won the war.
Someone else said it -- a good exit strategy is to exit -- safely, immediately and completely. Otherwise it's a war strategy.
See Tom Matzzie's Profile
We are not in Iraq into the indefinite future. Even the 50,000 combat troops in Iraq in August 2010 have to leave a year later per the status of forces agreement. There is a hard exit date from Iraq.
Regarding Afghanistan, I believe we need an exit strategy for that country too. I also think we will hear more from Barack Obama soon on the strategy. The president himself has admitted that sending more troops to Afghanistan is not a strategy that will bring an end to the conflict. I never heard that from George W. Bush and didn't event expect to hear it from Obama but he is being forthright, I believe.
bho:
day 1, i will pull all troops out of iraq.
well, maybe not.
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