The Peace Movement
The natural response to that title is: What peace movement?
With the exception of
an occasional appearance by the far-left group ANSWER
or the fringe individual Cindy Sheehan,
there doesn’t seem to be much of any peace movement
that gets much attention from the MSM.
But, in fact, there is the outline of a religion-based peace movement,
but it is hardly visible.
A new organization, Words not War,
has issued a statement saying, in part,
One might think that this would get prominent play in the media.
Think again.
The Washington Post’s only mention of this organization, or this statement,
was a tiny 122 word article
on page B9 (i.e., on the Religion page of the Saturday Metro section)
of the 2006-09-30 Post.
It seems not to be mentioned at all in the New York Times.
(But somehow the NYT and WP seem to have no trouble
finding plenty of room on page A1 for neocon pro-war propaganda.)
What is required
We, in the West, and in America in particular,
need to look at the broad range of ways
that we have given the Islamic world legitimate room
to, well, as the saying goes,
hate us.
The most unambiguous and undeniable grounds for grievance
that we have given the Muslims
are our various military interventions in the Muslim world.
From the Muslim point of view, and I believe they are mainly right on this,
these military interventions have been unprovoked by them.
In the strategic, geopolitical, sense,
they are indeed right to view the West,
most especially Israel and the United States,
as the aggressor
and the Muslim states as the victims.
We currently see this most clearly
in the West’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq clearly and unarguably
(but note the ravings of the warmonger Elie Wiesel)
was a case of American aggression, arrogance, and stupidity.
Afghanistan was justified as retaliation for the al Qaeda 9/11 attack on America,
but bin Laden has claimed that that attack was itself
retaliation for Israeli and American attacks on the umma.
So we need to stop giving the Muslim world these casus belli.
In particular, we need to be able to see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
not solely from the Israeli or Zionist point of view,
but from the Muslim side as well.
For a step toward seeing that view, so rarely given in American culture,
see two books by Norman Finkelstein,
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and Beyond Chutzpah.
By Philip Weiss
New York, 2005-09-26
The ghosts of Vietnam haunting the Iraq war
are also lurking over the movement against it.
Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown
By JOHN V. WALSH
Counterpunch.org, 2006-12-26
[An excerpt; emphasis is added.]
It is not hard to conclude from this that
American blood is being spilled in Iraq, in part because of Israeli rejectionism.
No wonder the neocons are so disturbed by Carter's book.
It is also remarkable, but not surprising, that
Carter has had so few champions of his important book
on the "Left."
[An excellent point.
What’s the matter, Left?
Are you as intimidated by the Jews as the Bush administration?
Or is it the massive influence of Christian Zionists on the Left
that is holding you back?]
...
The Globe did not cover the controversy in its news section
until the debate topic was broached (December 15),
ensuring that the content of the book receded far into the background.
(Excellent job of distraction, Boston Globe.)
The very next day after the news coverage the Globe ran an editorial,
charging that Carter,
unlike the neocons' much beloved war criminal, Harry Truman,
"can't take the heat."
Another put down by the Globe.
And the day after Carter's op-ed finally appeared on December 20,
the Globe ran an op-ed by Dershowitz,
again sliming Carter and ensuring that Dershowitz had the last word.
In fact the Globe, like the New York Times and other major papers,
has not given "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid,"
a best-selling book by a former president and Nobel Prize winner,
a legitimate review.
If that is not testimony to the power of the Israeli Lobby,
I do not know what is.
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2007-01-05
that appeared in the 2007-03-26 American Conservative.
He was writing in response to the article “Suburban Peaceniks”
(not available online) which appeared in the 2007-02-26 issue.
Here is his letter; emphasis is added.
In his commentary on the 2007-01-27 antiwar demonstration in Washington,
Michael Brendan Dougherty provides an answer
to why the peace movement is not larger and more influential.
Most of his article delights in stereotyping the Left,
from an earnest young Trotskyite
to a middle-aged couple trying to dance their way back to youth.
These are easy marks and well-worn tropes.
But Dougherty barely notices that there were
no Libertarians,
no traditional Conservatives, and
not even any Greens on the speakers platform.
The reason is that they were not invited.
I know because I worked hard to get Justin Raimondo and Ron Paul invitations.
What Dougherty saw, but did not understand, was
the takeover of United For Peace and Justice,
the center of the antiwar movement,
by the other War Party, the Democrats.
All attempts to get this “official” peace movement to include elements
stretching beyond the Democratic Party are rebuffed.
I am told that “those Libertarians are no more than a lot of selfish folks.”
[One wonders if Raimondo’s criticism of the Israel Lobby
(e.g.; for more examples search for Raimondo here)
might also be relevant.
Being a critic of the Israel Lobby does not, in our current environment,
seem helpful for political success.]
In other words, stereotypes—simply the flip side of Dougherty’s.
And if we do not abandon those stereotypes in favor of intelligent alliances,
we shall never defeat empire.
“Divide and conquer” works as well on us as it does on the Shia and Sunni.
John V. Walsh, M.D.
Worcester, Mass.
Can a Columbia Movement Rise Once More?
By Philip Weiss
New York, 2007-04-15
Amid echoes of 1968, a new kind of radicalism struggles to be born.
By JOHN WALSH
CounterPunch.org, 2007-04-17
by Cindy Sheehan
DailyKos.com, 2007-05-28
[This is her “resignation” from the peace movement.
Here is an excerpt:]
I was the darling of the so-called left
as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party....
However,
when I started to hold the Democratic Party
to the same standards that I held the Republican Party,
support for my cause started to erode and
the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used.
I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that
the issue of peace and people dying for no reason
is not a matter of “right or left”,
but “right and wrong.”
I am deemed a radical because I believe that
partisan politics should be left to the wayside
when hundreds of thousands of people are dying
for a war based on lies that is supported
by Democrats and Republican alike.
...
by Marc D. Joffe
Antiwar.com, 2007-11-07
[An excerpt; emphasis is added.]
Most activists participating in antiwar organizing
are also concerned with many other issues.
Among the most common are
holding Bush and Cheney to account through impeachment,
fighting racism against Arabs and other minority groups,
ensuring that adequate funds are available to help the disadvantaged,
preventing global warming, and
learning the truth about 9/11.
These other concerns are important and each can be readily linked to the war.
But focusing on these other issues during antiwar organizing has disadvantages.
A multi-issue platform may narrow
the number of individuals and groups available to support a given action.
It may also dilute the message being sent to the public via the media.
The question that peace activists should ask themselves is
whether ending the war in Iraq is, itself, a sufficient goal.
If so, they should participate in the broadest possible antiwar movement
and leave other issues aside when doing coalition organizing.
If they don’t think opposition to the war is a sufficient basis for protest,
I hope they organize outside the antiwar movement.
...
The question left in my mind is one of
whether ANSWER’s leadership really wants an early end to the war.
Marxist theory, as outlined on PSL’s Web site,
suggests that
the worker’s revolution will occur
amidst a crisis in the capitalist system.
U.S. wars in the Middle East, by
creating regional instability,
driving up oil prices, and
exacerbating deficits that reduce the dollar’s value
heighten (the extremely small chance) that
a revolution-provoking crisis might occur here.
If the war ends, support for protest and radical change will ebb,
so peace in our time
would seem contrary to the interests of a Marxist revolutionary.
...
[T]he peace movement must remain independent of
the Democratic Party establishment.
The Democrats have not only failed to end the Iraq War,
they have also financed the surge
and have done little to prevent an attack on Iran.
Even if failed Democratic “redeployment” legislation had passed,
tens of thousands of U.S. occupying troops
would have remained in Iraq indefinitely.
...
peace activists will assess recent events
and make their plans for protests
to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq next March.
If we have a good strategy and we execute it well,
there won’t be a need for sixth-anniversary protests in 2009
and we can all go about our other business.
In my view,
Random, unfocused actions should be opposed.
Political leaders who aren’t ending the war, like Nancy Pelosi,
should be challenged, as Cindy Sheehan is doing.
The goal of these challenges need not be to defeat the incumbent.
We win by simply forcing leaders like Pelosi
to explain their positions to their constituents,
as she has failed to do
by not holding a town hall meeting in her district since January 2006.
The neocons are a small group,
yet they have controlled U.S. military policy for the last seven years.
They obtained this control in part
because we who oppose the unjustified use of military force
have been unfocused, undisciplined, and un-united.
On Oct. 27, 2007, this began to change,
but we have a very, very long way to go.
By JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.org, 2008-02-12
[An excerpt; paragraph numbers and emphasis are added.]
[1]
There is an enormous antiwar majority in this country--upwards of 70%.
And yet the war goes on and on and on.
Who is to blame?
We could blame the denizens of the two war parties in Congress.
The leading Republican and Democrat presidential candidates have a record -
and without exception it is a prowar record.
McCain froths at the mouth at the prospect of more war.
Hillary was there from the beginning
and has voted yea on every prowar resolution in the Senate--
from authorizing the war
to voting for the trillions that have been used to fund the damned thing.
...
[5]
With such strong and varied antiwar sentiment,
is it not remarkable that the antiwar movement has come to nothing?
Our country is now embroiled
in Iraq, in Afghanistan,
in countries on Russia’s perimeter, in Iran,
in many parts of Africa and elsewhere.
And the war parties, Democrat and Republican,
are itching for a fight with China.
Altogether the situation is pretty miserable.
[6]
So why the great gap between popular sentiment and effective antiwar action?
I submit that the war parties, Democrat and Republican,
very effectively use a divide and conquer tactic--
and the antiwar forces play into it, usually quite eagerly.
So when some on the left have good things to say about Ron Paul,
the sterile lefty ideologues quickly change the subject.
If that does not work, those who speak favorably of Paul are excoriated
for being right wingers in our innermost thoughts,
which we ourselves cannot plumb,
we are told, although the psychoanalysts of the left can.
And if that does not work, the thought nannies tell us that
Ron Paul is a Nazi, another Hitler,
who is to be opposed at all costs.
That kind of stuff emanates especially strongly
from the precincts of the New Republic,
which has been calling for Paul’s head
ever since he dared say “AIPAC” in public.
In so doing the asps at TNR are merely repeating
the hate campaign against Pat Buchanan
whom they and their allies at the National Review labeled an anti-Semite.
And so the antiwar left is manipulated into avoiding alliances,
which might actually make some headway.
Thus we have the spectacle of progressives who eschew alliances
that might make--well, progress.
[7]
The same is true on the other side.
The Paleos and to a lesser degree the Libertarians
cannot put aside differences with Greens and other leftists
long enough to make headway against war and empire.
As soon as common cause begins to be made,
then the specter of increased social spending is raised by the Libertarians
and of creeping secularism by the Paleos.
Because everyone wants only allies that are in complete agreement,
no alliances are made.
And presto, the ruling war parties have divided and conquered.
[8]
Such behavior on the part of the antiwar movement is childish in the extreme.
For the sake of ideological purity,
we give up on making common cause with others who agree with us only in part.
For an impossibly long shot at gaining everything,
we sacrifice gaining the most important thing at the moment--
an end to war and empire.
That is not politics.
That is theology--
or perhaps more accurately the behavior of spoiled kids.
Or perhaps even more accurately
behavior unencumbered by the thought process.
And it is boring to boot.
The crowd one hangs with has all the answers to every question;
and no matter how much reality shifts, as with the end of the Cold War,
the answers remain the same.
[9]
So what is to be done?
It is time for the various antiwar groupings and ideologies to get together
and to do so in a way that can have an effect on the ‘08 elections.
First we have to begin a conversation to decide on a course of action.
And we must do it soon.
So far the only places that seem willing to host such a conversation
are CounterPunch.org, Antiwar.com and The American Conservative (TAC).
There are also lots of smaller grass roots groups
like AntiwarLeague.com and the Second Vermont Republic,
which have made strides at unifying the various antiwar factions.
It is clear, however, that The Nation and others will never serve this function.
They will put loyalty to the Democrat Party over all else.
Nor will the DemoGreens or
the inside the beltway Libertarians ensconced in their high-priced digs at Cato
act to break down barriers.
They too put party, whether Democrat or Republican, first.
[10]
Perhaps with more debate revolving around the question
of how we, the antiwar majority, are effectively marginalized,
we can move forward.
But to do so we all have to suspend
some of our ideological certainties and stereotypes of the other
and concede that there are more things in heaven and earth
than we have dreamed of--or at least embraced in our theories.
And we may find we have more in common than we thought.
Why not do this? We have nothing to lose and much to gain.
So let us hope that this discussion can begin in earnest.
And let’s move fast; 2008 is slipping away.
The Silence of the Antiwar Movement is Deafening
By JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.com, 2009-08-26
By JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.com, 2009-09-04
by Scott Horton
Antiwar.com Radio, 2009-09-04
John V. Walsh, frequent contributor to CounterPunch.org, discusses
Obama’s propagandized meeting with the Bizarro World Cindy Sheehan,
how the antiwar Left lacks the ideological passion and clarity of libertarians,
the permanent cold war mentality in Washington D.C. and
the widening divide between Democratic Party leaders
and rank and file activists.
Antiwar.com, 2009-10-08
Here Scott Horton interviews
the Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin after her recent trip to Afghanistan.
Both an MP3 audio and a transcript are available from that web page.
In terms of content,
both Horton and Benjamin are staunchly anti-war,
but it is interesting to hear them hash out the options.
Code Pink’s position [which in my opinion is unobtainable] is that
they want for the fighting to stop
but for Afghan women to be empowered.
(A semi-official Code Pink statement is claimed to be here.)
As an example, Benjamin said (emphasis is added):
“part of an exit strategy has to be peace talks,
that women are at the table, and
they have to figure out how people who have
joined the Taliban out of economic desperation and
joined the Taliban out of revenge
because their loved ones have been killed by foreign forces,
how they can be brought back into their villages and live productive lives.”
“They have to figure out”!
But what if they can’t, or don’t want to?
Another excerpt (emphasis is added):
Benjamin:
Yeah, in the case of Iraq I think it was a little bit different.
It was absolutely clear our troops should never been there beginning and
you didn’t have a Taliban like government…
Horton:
Yeah, but I mean Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped eight years ago.
They haven’t been in Afghanistan for eight years.
Benjamin: But you do have the Taliban in Afghanistan and you have…
Horton: Yeah, but what did the Taliban ever do?
Benjamin: Well the Taliban…
Horton: To us.
Benjamin: Huh?
Horton: What did they ever do to the United States?
Benjamin:
what people say is that if we allow the Taliban to take over Afghanistan
then that will be a safe haven for Al Qaeda.
Benjamin’s final statement:
Benjamin:
“... what we say is
we want a responsible pulling out of U.S. troops and
we certainly are against what McChrystal is calling for.
We’re against sending in more troops,
we’re against troops being visibly present in the villages
because we think their presence is more of a threat to people there
and puts them at risk.
And we want our troops to pull out.
We just want to do it in a way
that is not going to lead to a Taliban takeover
that will put women back inside the home.”
Questions for Medea:
Precisely what way will accomplish that final objective?
And what if there is none?
Then do you have a position, or do you abstain?
I think those are reasonable questions for Ms. Benjamin,
although I could understand it if she finds no palatable answer to them.
by Jodie Evans
CommonDreams.org, 2009-10-08
[This is an article by CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
It contains at its end a letter, actually a petition,
from women to Presient Obama.
Here is the letter, together with my reaction, for whatever it is worth.]
A Letter to President Obama
The delegation that went to Afghanistan
to sound out Afghan women on what they wanted from the United States
returned with an open letter to President Obama:
President Obama:
We, the women of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the United States,
implore you to
refrain from sending more United States military forces to Afghanistan.
[I agree.
But what about the international forces already there?]
Sending more military forces will only increase the violence
and will do further harm to women and children.
Instead, the funds should be redirected to
improving the health, education and welfare of the Afghan people.
[I agree, but why only the concern for women and children?]
We encourage you to work quickly for a political solution in Afghanistan
that will lead to a reconciliation process
in which women will fully participate
and a withdrawal of foreign military forces.
[What if the conjunction of those two objectives cannot be agreed upon?
Then what?]
The selling-out of the antiwar movement
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2009-10-09
[An excerpt.]
The old-style anti-imperialism of the traditional liberal
gives way all too easily to
the newfangled identity politics of the post-Marxist left –
especially when they’re often embodied in the same person.
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2009-11-25
...
The premier libertarian youth organization,
Young Americans for Liberty (YAL),
is the fastest-growing political group on campus, these days,
and no task would suit them better than
assuming the leadership of the moribund, leftist-dominated antiwar movement.
As Obama’s zombie-like cult follows him down the road to war –
a war on a scale the much-reviled Bush administration never dared attempt –
YAL can fill the vacuum, swell its own ranks, and, more importantly,
dramatize the moral and political bankruptcy of the current administration,
while drawing a clear and very dramatic line of demarcation between
libertarians and Sean Hannity-type conservatives.
...
Where has the anti-war movement gone?
by Ryan Jaroncyk
California Independent Voter Network, 2010-02-08
Can the Right and Left Work Together to Oppose War and Empire?
by Kevin B. Zeese
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-25
There has to be a better way to stop wars and reduce military spending.
Polls show U.S. voters at worst divided on current wars
and more often show majority opposition to them.
Yet, when Congress “debates” war
the widespread view of Americans is muffled, not usually heard.
[Our so-called “political scientists” really should examine the reasons for this.
I am not one of them, but even so I will suggest that
the answer is, at least in part,
a combination of Jewish and feminist influence.
While one can argue that, here is, I think, an indisputable fact:
The war protests against the U.S. 1965–73 war in Vietnam
were led by, especially, Jews, with the active support of radical women.
I had a reasonably good perch to observe this at the ground level
as a graduate student in the greater Boston area during most of that period,
at a university whose Jewish influence
even Abraham Foxman could hardly deny :-).
Further, regular participation in the
Harvard-MIT-UniveristyX AcademicDisciplineY Colloquium
(I am making an attempt to not mention the specific university nor academic discipline)
gave me regular exposure to both
the academic scholars at those estimable universities and also to
the world-class scientists who came to speak to them.
While the primary emphasis, of course, was on the academic research,
attitudes towards the war, and the on-going protest movement,
certainly came up in the social times.]
...
The neocons have taken over almost all significant conservative organizations.
[How can that be?
How did that happen?
One possible answer is:
The willingness of conservative Jews
to provide funds to those who support their interests (i.e., Israel),
combined with
the ability and willingness of the media
to demonize anyone who supports positions opposed by the Jewish consensus
(prominent examples being Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo,
both of whom have been subjected to
systematic demonization by large elements of the media,
e.g. Gerson 2010-02-19).]
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-07-28
A recent gathering of the remnants of the antiwar movement,
sponsored by something calling itself the United National Antiwar Conference,
underscores the reasons why there is almost no effective organized opposition to the present administration’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
One has only to look at the conference program to see why the antiwar movement remains marginal, at best:
a keynote address by perennial leftist icon Noam Chomsky,
who was paired with Donna Dewitt, a left-wing labor official,
and also featuring workshops – reflecting some of their primary concerns – on
“Health Care is a Human Right,”
“Deepening the Base & Building Bridges between
the Climate Change, Peace & Economic Justice Movements,”
and – most telling of all –
“The Rise of Right Wing Populism & the Tea Party:
Do We Need a Right-Left Coalition?”
That this question is in dispute tells us how misguided, and out of it,
these people are.
It also shows how immoral and narcissistic they are:
while Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis are being blown to bits,
they are wondering whether we ought to be building a broad-based movement
that transcends their petty sectarian concerns,
or whether what passes for the antiwar movement
should be their own personal sandbox.
The panelists were
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink;
Kevin Zeese, co-founder of Voters for Peace;
Chris Gauvreau of Connecticut United Against the War
and the National Assembly to End U.S. Wars and Occupations; and
Glen Ford, representing Black Agenda.
Now, I did not attend this conference,
and have no idea what the upshot of the discussion was;
however, Benjamin and Zeese have expressed their support for such a coalition
(the former somewhat tentatively, and the latter with more conviction).
On the other hand, one can easily imagine that Ford,
who has called the Ron Paul movement and the tea partiers
“racists,” and advocates of “white nationalism,”
and Gauvreau, a leftist who spent much of this speech
mouthing all the expected slogans,
see a left-right coalition as a deadly threat to
“their” movement....
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-08-20
[See the end of the article for Raimondo’s comments on the peace movement.
Here are the first two paragraphs:]
Along with having no real media,
we are burdened with an even more onerous condition:
the complete absence of a real antiwar movement.
Instead,
we have periodic peace crawls dominated by various professional lefties
whose main concern is not actually stopping the war
but advancing their own little political agendas,
whether it be freeing Mumia What’s-his-name,
advancing the cause of “the workers,”
or whatever.
These people are living fossils
seeking to reenact the best moments of their lives: the 1960s,
when mass demonstrations against the Vietnam war
forced the US government to withdraw.
[Point of information:
Those mass demonstrations, and in fact the whole "peace movement" back then,
were thoroughly led by Jews
(e.g.: three of the four Kent State students who died were Jews),
who felt a comradeship with the Commies, wherever they were.
(By the way, isn't it fascinating how the Jewish community forever highlights
the prominent, even principal, role Jews played in the civil rights movement,
but not
the corresponding lead role they played in the feminist and antiwar movement?)
Not only can you learn this from objective study of the record, if you care to,
but I personally experienced a share of this
as a graduate student in the Boston area circa 1970.
Yes, the SDS and its sister organizations were quite Jewish.
E.g. Mark Rudd, Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, et al.
What all this was really about was
a total attack on the values and power of the WASP establishment back then,
a point which has been acknowledged several times by Phil Weiss.
Consider, for example, the then common slogan pushed by many Jews:
“Never trust anyone over 30.”
The antiwar movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement
were all part and parcel of producing the rule by
the greedy, the needy, and the Zionists
that we have today.]
Back then, it was fashionable to be a commie [At least in elite colleges.],
and the only question was what flavor:
Maoist, Castroite/Guevarist, Third World Stalinist,
or – for lovers of the exotic – Trotskyist.
When the New Left crashed and burned,
self-destructing in an orgy of sectarianism and violence,
the fashionistas moved on to greener pastures
and only a few remnants persisted.
These were absorbed by the Old Left,
whose hollowed-out organizations survive to this day,
ghosts from the 1930s who haunt every antiwar conference and event,
selling their little newspapers and arguing mostly among themselves.
...
[Where are today's equivalents of
the Berrigan brothers, Father Drinan, Reverend Coffin, Bishop Pike?
Do they not exist, or do they exist without the media highlighting them,
as the media chose to highlight anti-Vietnam-war protests?]
The solution in Afghanistan: Get out
By James P. McGovern and Walter B. Jones
With the exception of
an occasional appearance by the far-left group ANSWER
or the fringe individual Cindy Sheehan,
there doesn’t seem to be much of any peace movement
that gets much attention from the MSM.
But, in fact, there is the outline of a religion-based peace movement,
but it is hardly visible.
A new organization, Words not War,
has issued a statement saying, in part,
[W]e come together as religious leaders to urge that
the U.S. engage in direct negotiations with Iran
as an alternative to military action
in resolving the crisis.
One might think that this would get prominent play in the media.
Think again.
The Washington Post’s only mention of this organization, or this statement,
was a tiny 122 word article
on page B9 (i.e., on the Religion page of the Saturday Metro section)
of the 2006-09-30 Post.
It seems not to be mentioned at all in the New York Times.
(But somehow the NYT and WP seem to have no trouble
finding plenty of room on page A1 for neocon pro-war propaganda.)
What is required
to end, or at least mitigate,
the de facto state of hostilities
between the West and sizable segments of the Muslim world?
We, in the West, and in America in particular,
need to look at the broad range of ways
that we have given the Islamic world legitimate room
to, well, as the saying goes,
hate us.
The most unambiguous and undeniable grounds for grievance
that we have given the Muslims
are our various military interventions in the Muslim world.
From the Muslim point of view, and I believe they are mainly right on this,
these military interventions have been unprovoked by them.
In the strategic, geopolitical, sense,
they are indeed right to view the West,
most especially Israel and the United States,
as the aggressor
and the Muslim states as the victims.
We currently see this most clearly
in the West’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq clearly and unarguably
(but note the ravings of the warmonger Elie Wiesel)
was a case of American aggression, arrogance, and stupidity.
Afghanistan was justified as retaliation for the al Qaeda 9/11 attack on America,
but bin Laden has claimed that that attack was itself
retaliation for Israeli and American attacks on the umma.
So we need to stop giving the Muslim world these casus belli.
In particular, we need to be able to see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
not solely from the Israeli or Zionist point of view,
but from the Muslim side as well.
For a step toward seeing that view, so rarely given in American culture,
see two books by Norman Finkelstein,
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and Beyond Chutzpah.
Selected Articles
2005
2005-09-26-Weiss
How the Antiwar Was WonBy Philip Weiss
New York, 2005-09-26
The ghosts of Vietnam haunting the Iraq war
are also lurking over the movement against it.
2006
2006-12-26-Walsh
Peace Movement is AWOL, AgainDershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown
By JOHN V. WALSH
Counterpunch.org, 2006-12-26
[An excerpt; emphasis is added.]
It is not hard to conclude from this that
American blood is being spilled in Iraq, in part because of Israeli rejectionism.
No wonder the neocons are so disturbed by Carter's book.
It is also remarkable, but not surprising, that
Carter has had so few champions of his important book
on the "Left."
[An excellent point.
What’s the matter, Left?
Are you as intimidated by the Jews as the Bush administration?
Or is it the massive influence of Christian Zionists on the Left
that is holding you back?]
...
The Globe did not cover the controversy in its news section
until the debate topic was broached (December 15),
ensuring that the content of the book receded far into the background.
(Excellent job of distraction, Boston Globe.)
The very next day after the news coverage the Globe ran an editorial,
charging that Carter,
unlike the neocons' much beloved war criminal, Harry Truman,
"can't take the heat."
Another put down by the Globe.
And the day after Carter's op-ed finally appeared on December 20,
the Globe ran an op-ed by Dershowitz,
again sliming Carter and ensuring that Dershowitz had the last word.
In fact the Globe, like the New York Times and other major papers,
has not given "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid,"
a best-selling book by a former president and Nobel Prize winner,
a legitimate review.
If that is not testimony to the power of the Israeli Lobby,
I do not know what is.
2007
2007-01-05-Raimondo
Confronting the Empireby Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2007-01-05
2007-03-26-Walsh
This is a “Letter to the Editor” from John V. Walsh, M.D.that appeared in the 2007-03-26 American Conservative.
He was writing in response to the article “Suburban Peaceniks”
(not available online) which appeared in the 2007-02-26 issue.
Here is his letter; emphasis is added.
In his commentary on the 2007-01-27 antiwar demonstration in Washington,
Michael Brendan Dougherty provides an answer
to why the peace movement is not larger and more influential.
Most of his article delights in stereotyping the Left,
from an earnest young Trotskyite
to a middle-aged couple trying to dance their way back to youth.
These are easy marks and well-worn tropes.
But Dougherty barely notices that there were
no Libertarians,
no traditional Conservatives, and
not even any Greens on the speakers platform.
The reason is that they were not invited.
I know because I worked hard to get Justin Raimondo and Ron Paul invitations.
What Dougherty saw, but did not understand, was
the takeover of United For Peace and Justice,
the center of the antiwar movement,
by the other War Party, the Democrats.
All attempts to get this “official” peace movement to include elements
stretching beyond the Democratic Party are rebuffed.
I am told that “those Libertarians are no more than a lot of selfish folks.”
[One wonders if Raimondo’s criticism of the Israel Lobby
(e.g.; for more examples search for Raimondo here)
might also be relevant.
Being a critic of the Israel Lobby does not, in our current environment,
seem helpful for political success.]
In other words, stereotypes—simply the flip side of Dougherty’s.
And if we do not abandon those stereotypes in favor of intelligent alliances,
we shall never defeat empire.
“Divide and conquer” works as well on us as it does on the Shia and Sunni.
John V. Walsh, M.D.
Worcester, Mass.
2007-04-15-Weiss
One, Two, Three, Four,Can a Columbia Movement Rise Once More?
By Philip Weiss
New York, 2007-04-15
Amid echoes of 1968, a new kind of radicalism struggles to be born.
2007-04-17-Walsh
Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC?By JOHN WALSH
CounterPunch.org, 2007-04-17
2007-05-28-Sheehan
“Good Riddance Attention Whore”by Cindy Sheehan
DailyKos.com, 2007-05-28
[This is her “resignation” from the peace movement.
Here is an excerpt:]
I was the darling of the so-called left
as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party....
However,
when I started to hold the Democratic Party
to the same standards that I held the Republican Party,
support for my cause started to erode and
the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used.
I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that
the issue of peace and people dying for no reason
is not a matter of “right or left”,
but “right and wrong.”
I am deemed a radical because I believe that
partisan politics should be left to the wayside
when hundreds of thousands of people are dying
for a war based on lies that is supported
by Democrats and Republican alike.
...
2007-11-07-Joffe
Turning Around the Antiwar Movementby Marc D. Joffe
Antiwar.com, 2007-11-07
[An excerpt; emphasis is added.]
Most activists participating in antiwar organizing
are also concerned with many other issues.
Among the most common are
holding Bush and Cheney to account through impeachment,
fighting racism against Arabs and other minority groups,
ensuring that adequate funds are available to help the disadvantaged,
preventing global warming, and
learning the truth about 9/11.
These other concerns are important and each can be readily linked to the war.
But focusing on these other issues during antiwar organizing has disadvantages.
A multi-issue platform may narrow
the number of individuals and groups available to support a given action.
It may also dilute the message being sent to the public via the media.
The question that peace activists should ask themselves is
whether ending the war in Iraq is, itself, a sufficient goal.
If so, they should participate in the broadest possible antiwar movement
and leave other issues aside when doing coalition organizing.
If they don’t think opposition to the war is a sufficient basis for protest,
I hope they organize outside the antiwar movement.
...
The question left in my mind is one of
whether ANSWER’s leadership really wants an early end to the war.
Marxist theory, as outlined on PSL’s Web site,
suggests that
the worker’s revolution will occur
amidst a crisis in the capitalist system.
U.S. wars in the Middle East, by
creating regional instability,
driving up oil prices, and
exacerbating deficits that reduce the dollar’s value
heighten (the extremely small chance) that
a revolution-provoking crisis might occur here.
If the war ends, support for protest and radical change will ebb,
so peace in our time
would seem contrary to the interests of a Marxist revolutionary.
...
[T]he peace movement must remain independent of
the Democratic Party establishment.
The Democrats have not only failed to end the Iraq War,
they have also financed the surge
and have done little to prevent an attack on Iran.
Even if failed Democratic “redeployment” legislation had passed,
tens of thousands of U.S. occupying troops
would have remained in Iraq indefinitely.
An antiwar movement that shills for the Democratic Party
would also exclude
the growing number of antiwar Republicans and Libertarians,
as well as
the Greens, Socialists, and Independents
who have been involved in peace activism for many years.
...
Conclusion
Between now and January [2008],peace activists will assess recent events
and make their plans for protests
to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq next March.
If we have a good strategy and we execute it well,
there won’t be a need for sixth-anniversary protests in 2009
and we can all go about our other business.
In my view,
the best strategy will be carried out by
a broad coalition
led by groups
that represent large slices of American public opinion.
Random, unfocused actions should be opposed.
Political leaders who aren’t ending the war, like Nancy Pelosi,
should be challenged, as Cindy Sheehan is doing.
The goal of these challenges need not be to defeat the incumbent.
We win by simply forcing leaders like Pelosi
to explain their positions to their constituents,
as she has failed to do
by not holding a town hall meeting in her district since January 2006.
The neocons are a small group,
yet they have controlled U.S. military policy for the last seven years.
They obtained this control in part
because we who oppose the unjustified use of military force
have been unfocused, undisciplined, and un-united.
On Oct. 27, 2007, this began to change,
but we have a very, very long way to go.
2008
2008-02-12-Walsh
Antiwarriors: Divided and ConqueredBy JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.org, 2008-02-12
[An excerpt; paragraph numbers and emphasis are added.]
[1]
There is an enormous antiwar majority in this country--upwards of 70%.
And yet the war goes on and on and on.
Who is to blame?
We could blame the denizens of the two war parties in Congress.
The leading Republican and Democrat presidential candidates have a record -
and without exception it is a prowar record.
McCain froths at the mouth at the prospect of more war.
Hillary was there from the beginning
and has voted yea on every prowar resolution in the Senate--
from authorizing the war
to voting for the trillions that have been used to fund the damned thing.
...
[5]
With such strong and varied antiwar sentiment,
is it not remarkable that the antiwar movement has come to nothing?
Our country is now embroiled
in Iraq, in Afghanistan,
in countries on Russia’s perimeter, in Iran,
in many parts of Africa and elsewhere.
And the war parties, Democrat and Republican,
are itching for a fight with China.
Altogether the situation is pretty miserable.
[6]
So why the great gap between popular sentiment and effective antiwar action?
I submit that the war parties, Democrat and Republican,
very effectively use a divide and conquer tactic--
and the antiwar forces play into it, usually quite eagerly.
So when some on the left have good things to say about Ron Paul,
the sterile lefty ideologues quickly change the subject.
If that does not work, those who speak favorably of Paul are excoriated
for being right wingers in our innermost thoughts,
which we ourselves cannot plumb,
we are told, although the psychoanalysts of the left can.
And if that does not work, the thought nannies tell us that
Ron Paul is a Nazi, another Hitler,
who is to be opposed at all costs.
That kind of stuff emanates especially strongly
from the precincts of the New Republic,
which has been calling for Paul’s head
ever since he dared say “AIPAC” in public.
In so doing the asps at TNR are merely repeating
the hate campaign against Pat Buchanan
whom they and their allies at the National Review labeled an anti-Semite.
And so the antiwar left is manipulated into avoiding alliances,
which might actually make some headway.
Thus we have the spectacle of progressives who eschew alliances
that might make--well, progress.
[7]
The same is true on the other side.
The Paleos and to a lesser degree the Libertarians
cannot put aside differences with Greens and other leftists
long enough to make headway against war and empire.
As soon as common cause begins to be made,
then the specter of increased social spending is raised by the Libertarians
and of creeping secularism by the Paleos.
Because everyone wants only allies that are in complete agreement,
no alliances are made.
And presto, the ruling war parties have divided and conquered.
[8]
Such behavior on the part of the antiwar movement is childish in the extreme.
For the sake of ideological purity,
we give up on making common cause with others who agree with us only in part.
For an impossibly long shot at gaining everything,
we sacrifice gaining the most important thing at the moment--
an end to war and empire.
That is not politics.
That is theology--
or perhaps more accurately the behavior of spoiled kids.
Or perhaps even more accurately
behavior unencumbered by the thought process.
And it is boring to boot.
The crowd one hangs with has all the answers to every question;
and no matter how much reality shifts, as with the end of the Cold War,
the answers remain the same.
[9]
So what is to be done?
It is time for the various antiwar groupings and ideologies to get together
and to do so in a way that can have an effect on the ‘08 elections.
First we have to begin a conversation to decide on a course of action.
And we must do it soon.
So far the only places that seem willing to host such a conversation
are CounterPunch.org, Antiwar.com and The American Conservative (TAC).
There are also lots of smaller grass roots groups
like AntiwarLeague.com and the Second Vermont Republic,
which have made strides at unifying the various antiwar factions.
It is clear, however, that The Nation and others will never serve this function.
They will put loyalty to the Democrat Party over all else.
Nor will the DemoGreens or
the inside the beltway Libertarians ensconced in their high-priced digs at Cato
act to break down barriers.
They too put party, whether Democrat or Republican, first.
[10]
Perhaps with more debate revolving around the question
of how we, the antiwar majority, are effectively marginalized,
we can move forward.
But to do so we all have to suspend
some of our ideological certainties and stereotypes of the other
and concede that there are more things in heaven and earth
than we have dreamed of--or at least embraced in our theories.
And we may find we have more in common than we thought.
Why not do this? We have nothing to lose and much to gain.
So let us hope that this discussion can begin in earnest.
And let’s move fast; 2008 is slipping away.
2009
2009-08-26-Walsh
Cindy Sheehan's Lonely Vigil in ObamalandThe Silence of the Antiwar Movement is Deafening
By JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.com, 2009-08-26
2009-09-04-Walsh
Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get LostBy JOHN V. WALSH
CounterPunch.com, 2009-09-04
2009-09-04-Walsh-Horton
Scott Horton Interviews John V. Walshby Scott Horton
Antiwar.com Radio, 2009-09-04
John V. Walsh, frequent contributor to CounterPunch.org, discusses
Obama’s propagandized meeting with the Bizarro World Cindy Sheehan,
how the antiwar Left lacks the ideological passion and clarity of libertarians,
the permanent cold war mentality in Washington D.C. and
the widening divide between Democratic Party leaders
and rank and file activists.
2009-10-08-Benjamin-Horton
Scott Horton Interviews Medea BenjaminAntiwar.com, 2009-10-08
Here Scott Horton interviews
the Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin after her recent trip to Afghanistan.
Both an MP3 audio and a transcript are available from that web page.
In terms of content,
both Horton and Benjamin are staunchly anti-war,
but it is interesting to hear them hash out the options.
Code Pink’s position [which in my opinion is unobtainable] is that
they want for the fighting to stop
but for Afghan women to be empowered.
(A semi-official Code Pink statement is claimed to be here.)
As an example, Benjamin said (emphasis is added):
“part of an exit strategy has to be peace talks,
that women are at the table, and
they have to figure out how people who have
joined the Taliban out of economic desperation and
joined the Taliban out of revenge
because their loved ones have been killed by foreign forces,
how they can be brought back into their villages and live productive lives.”
“They have to figure out”!
But what if they can’t, or don’t want to?
Another excerpt (emphasis is added):
Benjamin:
Yeah, in the case of Iraq I think it was a little bit different.
It was absolutely clear our troops should never been there beginning and
you didn’t have a Taliban like government…
Horton:
Yeah, but I mean Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped eight years ago.
They haven’t been in Afghanistan for eight years.
Benjamin: But you do have the Taliban in Afghanistan and you have…
Horton: Yeah, but what did the Taliban ever do?
Benjamin: Well the Taliban…
Horton: To us.
Benjamin: Huh?
Horton: What did they ever do to the United States?
Benjamin:
Well see, if your perspective is just from the United States.
My perspective is also
from what they did to the women of Afghanistan.
what people say is that if we allow the Taliban to take over Afghanistan
then that will be a safe haven for Al Qaeda.
Benjamin’s final statement:
Benjamin:
“... what we say is
we want a responsible pulling out of U.S. troops and
we certainly are against what McChrystal is calling for.
We’re against sending in more troops,
we’re against troops being visibly present in the villages
because we think their presence is more of a threat to people there
and puts them at risk.
And we want our troops to pull out.
We just want to do it in a way
that is not going to lead to a Taliban takeover
that will put women back inside the home.”
Questions for Medea:
Precisely what way will accomplish that final objective?
And what if there is none?
Then do you have a position, or do you abstain?
I think those are reasonable questions for Ms. Benjamin,
although I could understand it if she finds no palatable answer to them.
2009-10-08-Code-Pink-letter-to-Obama
Afghanistan: Will Obama Listen to the Women?by Jodie Evans
CommonDreams.org, 2009-10-08
[This is an article by CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
It contains at its end a letter, actually a petition,
from women to Presient Obama.
Here is the letter, together with my reaction, for whatever it is worth.]
A Letter to President Obama
The delegation that went to Afghanistan
to sound out Afghan women on what they wanted from the United States
returned with an open letter to President Obama:
President Obama:
We, the women of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the United States,
implore you to
refrain from sending more United States military forces to Afghanistan.
[I agree.
But what about the international forces already there?]
Sending more military forces will only increase the violence
and will do further harm to women and children.
Instead, the funds should be redirected to
improving the health, education and welfare of the Afghan people.
[I agree, but why only the concern for women and children?]
We encourage you to work quickly for a political solution in Afghanistan
that will lead to a reconciliation process
in which women will fully participate
and a withdrawal of foreign military forces.
[What if the conjunction of those two objectives cannot be agreed upon?
Then what?]
2009-10-09-Raimondo
Code YellowThe selling-out of the antiwar movement
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2009-10-09
[An excerpt.]
The old-style anti-imperialism of the traditional liberal
gives way all too easily to
the newfangled identity politics of the post-Marxist left –
especially when they’re often embodied in the same person.
2009-11-25-Raimondo
Who Will Protest Obama’s War?by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2009-11-25
...
The premier libertarian youth organization,
Young Americans for Liberty (YAL),
is the fastest-growing political group on campus, these days,
and no task would suit them better than
assuming the leadership of the moribund, leftist-dominated antiwar movement.
As Obama’s zombie-like cult follows him down the road to war –
a war on a scale the much-reviled Bush administration never dared attempt –
YAL can fill the vacuum, swell its own ranks, and, more importantly,
dramatize the moral and political bankruptcy of the current administration,
while drawing a clear and very dramatic line of demarcation between
libertarians and Sean Hannity-type conservatives.
...
2010
2010-02-08-Jaroncyk
Where has the anti-war movement gone?
by Ryan Jaroncyk
California Independent Voter Network, 2010-02-08
2010-02-25-Zeese
Time for a Broad-Based Antiwar MovementCan the Right and Left Work Together to Oppose War and Empire?
by Kevin B. Zeese
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-25
There has to be a better way to stop wars and reduce military spending.
Polls show U.S. voters at worst divided on current wars
and more often show majority opposition to them.
Yet, when Congress “debates” war
the widespread view of Americans is muffled, not usually heard.
[Our so-called “political scientists” really should examine the reasons for this.
I am not one of them, but even so I will suggest that
the answer is, at least in part,
a combination of Jewish and feminist influence.
While one can argue that, here is, I think, an indisputable fact:
The war protests against the U.S. 1965–73 war in Vietnam
were led by, especially, Jews, with the active support of radical women.
I had a reasonably good perch to observe this at the ground level
as a graduate student in the greater Boston area during most of that period,
at a university whose Jewish influence
even Abraham Foxman could hardly deny :-).
Further, regular participation in the
Harvard-MIT-UniveristyX AcademicDisciplineY Colloquium
(I am making an attempt to not mention the specific university nor academic discipline)
gave me regular exposure to both
the academic scholars at those estimable universities and also to
the world-class scientists who came to speak to them.
While the primary emphasis, of course, was on the academic research,
attitudes towards the war, and the on-going protest movement,
certainly came up in the social times.]
...
The neocons have taken over almost all significant conservative organizations.
[How can that be?
How did that happen?
One possible answer is:
The willingness of conservative Jews
to provide funds to those who support their interests (i.e., Israel),
combined with
the ability and willingness of the media
to demonize anyone who supports positions opposed by the Jewish consensus
(prominent examples being Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo,
both of whom have been subjected to
systematic demonization by large elements of the media,
e.g. Gerson 2010-02-19).]
2010-07-28-Raimondo
Why Is the Antiwar Movement Stalled?by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-07-28
A recent gathering of the remnants of the antiwar movement,
sponsored by something calling itself the United National Antiwar Conference,
underscores the reasons why there is almost no effective organized opposition to the present administration’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
One has only to look at the conference program to see why the antiwar movement remains marginal, at best:
a keynote address by perennial leftist icon Noam Chomsky,
who was paired with Donna Dewitt, a left-wing labor official,
and also featuring workshops – reflecting some of their primary concerns – on
“Health Care is a Human Right,”
“Deepening the Base & Building Bridges between
the Climate Change, Peace & Economic Justice Movements,”
and – most telling of all –
“The Rise of Right Wing Populism & the Tea Party:
Do We Need a Right-Left Coalition?”
That this question is in dispute tells us how misguided, and out of it,
these people are.
It also shows how immoral and narcissistic they are:
while Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis are being blown to bits,
they are wondering whether we ought to be building a broad-based movement
that transcends their petty sectarian concerns,
or whether what passes for the antiwar movement
should be their own personal sandbox.
The panelists were
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink;
Kevin Zeese, co-founder of Voters for Peace;
Chris Gauvreau of Connecticut United Against the War
and the National Assembly to End U.S. Wars and Occupations; and
Glen Ford, representing Black Agenda.
Now, I did not attend this conference,
and have no idea what the upshot of the discussion was;
however, Benjamin and Zeese have expressed their support for such a coalition
(the former somewhat tentatively, and the latter with more conviction).
On the other hand, one can easily imagine that Ford,
who has called the Ron Paul movement and the tea partiers
“racists,” and advocates of “white nationalism,”
and Gauvreau, a leftist who spent much of this speech
mouthing all the expected slogans,
see a left-right coalition as a deadly threat to
“their” movement....
2010-08-20-Raimondo
All Lies, All the Timeby Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-08-20
[See the end of the article for Raimondo’s comments on the peace movement.
Here are the first two paragraphs:]
Along with having no real media,
we are burdened with an even more onerous condition:
the complete absence of a real antiwar movement.
Instead,
we have periodic peace crawls dominated by various professional lefties
whose main concern is not actually stopping the war
but advancing their own little political agendas,
whether it be freeing Mumia What’s-his-name,
advancing the cause of “the workers,”
or whatever.
These people are living fossils
seeking to reenact the best moments of their lives: the 1960s,
when mass demonstrations against the Vietnam war
forced the US government to withdraw.
[Point of information:
Those mass demonstrations, and in fact the whole "peace movement" back then,
were thoroughly led by Jews
(e.g.: three of the four Kent State students who died were Jews),
who felt a comradeship with the Commies, wherever they were.
(By the way, isn't it fascinating how the Jewish community forever highlights
the prominent, even principal, role Jews played in the civil rights movement,
but not
the corresponding lead role they played in the feminist and antiwar movement?)
Not only can you learn this from objective study of the record, if you care to,
but I personally experienced a share of this
as a graduate student in the Boston area circa 1970.
Yes, the SDS and its sister organizations were quite Jewish.
E.g. Mark Rudd, Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, et al.
What all this was really about was
a total attack on the values and power of the WASP establishment back then,
a point which has been acknowledged several times by Phil Weiss.
Consider, for example, the then common slogan pushed by many Jews:
“Never trust anyone over 30.”
The antiwar movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement
were all part and parcel of producing the rule by
the greedy, the needy, and the Zionists
that we have today.]
Back then, it was fashionable to be a commie [At least in elite colleges.],
and the only question was what flavor:
Maoist, Castroite/Guevarist, Third World Stalinist,
or – for lovers of the exotic – Trotskyist.
When the New Left crashed and burned,
self-destructing in an orgy of sectarianism and violence,
the fashionistas moved on to greener pastures
and only a few remnants persisted.
These were absorbed by the Old Left,
whose hollowed-out organizations survive to this day,
ghosts from the 1930s who haunt every antiwar conference and event,
selling their little newspapers and arguing mostly among themselves.
...
[Where are today's equivalents of
the Berrigan brothers, Father Drinan, Reverend Coffin, Bishop Pike?
Do they not exist, or do they exist without the media highlighting them,
as the media chose to highlight anti-Vietnam-war protests?]
2011
The solution in Afghanistan: Get out
By James P. McGovern and Walter B. Jones
2012
Medea Benjamin interrupts John Brennan, 2012-05-01
posted by KHarbaugh at 02:00
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