1. The invasion is over.
The war, we are told, is over. Bullshit!
The invasion of Iraq is over. It lasted maybe six weeks.
The occupation of Iraq has just begun. It will last for years.
And the "War on Terror," as the Bush administration styles its drive for global military domination, is far from over. Every week a new target floats to the top of their hit list—Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Colombia, the Philippines… It's no accident that the targeted countries are home to non-white peoples. White supremacy has always been a defining feature of the US political economy.
The massive anti-war movement that rattled this country and was part of an unprecedented global upsurge is at a turning point. Most of us who were active in the anti-war movement have a strong intuitive sense of the need to continue, but our tasks today are not as clear-cut as they were in the months when Bush and Co. were driving to war.
The accomplishments of the global anti-war movement were huge. The Bush administration was isolated in the world. While thousands of Iraqis died needlessly in this unprovoked "preventive war," the casualties were far lower than they would have been had not the anti-war movement made the political price of large civilian death tolls so high.
New tasks lie before us. To start with, simply shoring up and strengthening the anti-war pole in US society. This process has already begun. Activists have maintained the foundation of activity and organizational forms which we developed since
9/11 and especially over the last six months. Some are very new like the Black Solidarity against the War coalition. Local coalitions and important national forces like United for Peace and Justice have conferences planned to sum up what's been accomplished so far and figure out the next steps for the movement. Special emphasis is being placed in most of these meetings on building stronger ties in communities of color.
This document is a contribution to the current discussions among movement activists analyzing the period and strategizing about our tasks. We welcome responses and suggestions, especially about ways to structure the kind of deep discussions many of us sense the need for at this time.
2. Where people in the US are at
The beginning of the actual invasion did not dramatically shrink the anti-war forces among the people. "Day Of" and "Day After" actions were widespread, and frequently marked by direct action. San Francisco in particular was shut down for a couple of days by mobile tactics. In New York City, a hastily-called march on March 22 attracted a quarter of a million people, much more multi-national than some of the preceding mass marches and overwhelmingly from the metropolitan area.
Even more significant was the fact that neighborhood, suburban and rural groups maintained the local weekly anti-war vigils begun in the tense months as the administration drove to war. Some vigils may have shrunk a little, the honks of support maybe came a bit less frequently and the yells of "fuck you, traitor" rang a little louder, but folks stood their ground.
What happened was that the intermediate, the great middle section of the US people who had been unenthusiastic about the prospect of the war, were tugged toward a more pro-war position once combat began and the red, white and blue media barrage started in earnest. For their part, the backward, the pro-war yahoos, felt empowered and upped the level of venom directed at Arabs, the French, anti-war entertainers and our movement.
In fact, a deep split has developed in US society, a schism which runs through all regions, all age groups, all sections of the people. It is not yet as intense as the split that developed during the Vietnam era and tore the social fabric of the US apart. (For one thing, the incredibly powerful cultural component of the movement which arose in the '60s so far has no parallel today.) Still this split has created a new set of conditions which will shape people's movements in the US for a long time to come.
The African American community remains the section of the population most strongly opposed to the war. There has been considerable discussion in the anti-war movement on why more African Americans didn't play an active role in the demonstrations. This is an important and complex question, one many Black activists have tried to tackle in theory and practice both. One piece of the answer is that many African American activists have been focused on the Bush "war at home" – the cuts in domestic programs that disproportionately target people of color. Another piece, one less commented on, is that the overwhelming opposition to the war within the Black nation permitted African American politicians to speak against the war for their constituents without worrying that attacks on their patriotism will cost them next year's elections.
The fault-line in US society developed in spite of how horrific the media has been. Encouraged by the Bush administration and learning from the reactionary Murdoch media cartel, especially the Fox Network, television news has abandoned even the pretext of objectivity (and only a glancing concern for the facts) to cheerlead the war. The Jessica Lynch story stands out. The media has effectively set the boundaries on what perceptions of global reality the majority of US residents receive and what the terms of public discussion are. This is why 42% of US citizens, alone in the world, believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with al Qa'eda and the September 11 attacks.
(One feature of the anti-war movement we need to sum up is how the actively anti-war minority in this society has been able to use the Internet and the World Wide Web not merely to coordinate and mobilize demonstrations, but to access information quickly and to frame and promote an alternate view of the world from that presented by the tame corporate media.)
3. The struggle for summation
There is a battle for summation going on in the US right now. On the one hand, the US media and pro-war public figures argue that the speed and "efficiency" of the US military victory proves that we were wrong to oppose the war. This is typical American pragmatism and it influences a lot of people: "It may not really have been justified, but it got the job done, so it's okay."
We have to remind people that we were not against the invasion of Iraq because the US might have lost or because the invasion might have been difficult. We were against it because our government was set on launching an unjust and unprovoked war which violated bedrock principles of international law, denied the right of nations to self determination, caused needless death and suffering and legitimized armed aggression as a norm in international relations.
Nothing we said has been disproved by the invasion. The frightful weapons of mass destruction whose existence we questioned turn out to have been imaginary. The danger we cited of fueling new terrorist attacks against US citizens and other targets has been confirmed by the attacks in Riyadh. The damage to the United Nations and international law is a major cause of concern in capitals around the world. We were right on all the major issues, and the situation in Iraq is confirming that every day.
4. Iraq itself
While the aftershocks of the invasion continue to damage the material and social infrastructure of Iraq, anarchy doesn't last. People want structures that will protect them and their families, will provide public services and a way to make a living. Social order will be taking shape in Iraq and there will be intense struggle over who runs that social order.
The Bush administration finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. They have proclaimed to the world that the US mission is to liberate the people of Iraq. At the same time, control of Iraq's oil (and the construction of four planned US military bases in Iraq to facilitate domination of the Middle East) demands clear US control over the country. Ideally, this would take the form of a compliant regime headed by indigenous Iraqis—puppets, to be blunt. The US is casting about for some structure which can contain the mutually exclusive aspirations of Iraq's battling social groups and searching for suitable candidates for a reliable local front man—from fraudster exile Ahmed Chalabi to recycled Ba'ath Party bureaucrats.
On the ground though, in the non-Kurdish sections of the country, the main contenders to lead in the construction of a new social order are the Muslim and especially Shi'ite clergy. They are providing order, food and other relief (much of it shipped across the border from co-religionists in Shi'ite Iran) and, of equal importance, a voice for the national sentiments of the Iraqi people and their rejection of the prospect of prolonged US occupation.
In the North, contradictions between the Kurds, Turcomen and Iraqis are extremely sharp with a whiff of ethnic cleansing in the air. Without a powerful central state, these contradictions are simply not going to fade away.
So for the foreseeable future, this is an occupation. It is an occupation which requires hundreds of thousands of troops and hundreds of billions of dollars. It is an occupation that so far has proved ill-equipped to resolve the many contradictions of reconstructing the war-damaged country and replacing the Ba'ath regime. It is an occupation that millions of ordinary Iraqis are clearly saying they don't want.
5. End the Occupation!
What the Iraqi people do want is the US military out, pronto.
Among the US troops, too, there is a considerable sentiment that the war is now over and it's time to head home. News story after news story highlights the problems and contradictions inevitably faced by the soldiers. They are trained for combat, not policing. They face growing hostility from the populace. They do not speak the language or understand the culture. If they are eager to come home now, imagine how they'll feel in two months.
As these two trends coincide and become clearer, the mass line for the anti-war movement also becomes clearer. Our main immediate demand has to be End the Occupation – bring home the troops and dismantle the predatory occupation infrastructure headed by L. Paul Bremer III that is turning over Iraq to favored US-based multinationals.
As the Iraqi struggle against occupation and for self-determination grows, we support the national aspirations and just struggles of the Iraqi people. This support won't be automatic, even in the movement. The Bush administration will make a big deal of claims that opposition to the occupation is being led by fundamentalist Islamic clerics who want to return Iraqi society to the Middle Ages. This argument may draw support from liberals and anti-war elements in the ruling class. In fact, it is just another pro-imperialist, white supremacist argument—we in the US know better than the people of Iraq how their country should be run. (Oh, the burdens of empire!)
The United States government does not have the right to determine who will lead Iraq, what religious beliefs its people will have, what will be taught in its schools or anything else. Similarly, as Iraqi resistance comes to include guerrilla attacks and possibly suicide assaults against the occupation, it will all be called "terrorism." We will have to be ready to take this on too, reminding folks that when people are resisting a more powerful occupying army from our country, we should be very careful indeed about denying them their choice of tactics.
6. Stand against empire!
The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are taking place in a very particular context, the intense drive by the US ruling class to consolidate its position as the sole and unchallengeable Big Dog in the world. The only term for what the Bush administration is trying to build is Empire. There is even a flock of neo-conservative pundits eager to explain why imperialism has gotten a bad rap.
We have to target the injustice and the dangers of that broader drive to open empire, and to educate wider and wider sections of the American people about it. To do so will also mean deeper analysis of what underlying economic and geopolitical trends are behind this drive by the Bush administration—how much is necessity, how much the seizing of perceived opportunities?
It will also mean moving the targets of potential US aggression closer to the center of the anti-war movement's focus. Bush's advisors are panting to press the momentum of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. This means exposing and opposing steps to demonize potential targets of a new military intervention. It is up to us to point out the white supremacist aspects to this targeting.
North Korea and Cuba have both been pointedly discussed as potential candidates for invasion. Some of this is just bluster, but the countries named cannot be sure and must prepare for combat, creating economic distortions which affect the masses of people there. And smaller scale US intervention continues in other fronts in the global "War On Terror." 1200 US troops recently entered the Philippines for joint training exercises with the Filipino armed forces. Despite a firestorm of protest from all levels of Philippine society, the government there wants maximum US aid to help it fight the guerrillas of the Red-led New People's Army which has a large following among urban workers and peasants.
Overall, though, the renewed attacks on US and other targets in Saudi Arabia and Morocco by al Qu'eda-linked suicide bombers (only weeks after Bush declared that the group is "on the run") have put the Middle East front and center, and put Iran and Syria back in the crosshairs. The Bush administration's line is chillingly familiar—they have weapons of mass destruction, they harbor terrorists, they oppress their own people.
How likely is an invasion of Iran or Syria in the coming months? Not very. The military brass know that their own capacity to fight another war has been degraded and that they have to rebuild the resources burnt up in Iraq. The State Department knows that another war would be a nightmare, inflaming the Arab world and Muslims world-wide and consolidating world public opinion against the US. Plus which, Syria has no substantial oil reserves.
7. Support Palestine!
The targeting of Syria in particular is closely tied to a US/British initiative to tamp down the struggle of the Palestinian people with an imposed settlement (the so-called "road map") which would, at best, leave powerful and dominant Israel standing astride a series of Palestinian bantustans. Syria is being bullied to withdraw its longstanding support for Palestinian organizations and the Shi'ite Hezbollah militia based in Lebanon. Hezbollah was responsible for the protracted military campaign that finally drove Israel out of Southern Lebanon after years of combat.
The crippling of forces which can challenge the Israeli regime's murderous occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is a crucial part of the US-led bid to arrange a "permanent peace" in Palestine. The Palestinian national struggle will continue to impinge on the Bush administration's designs to control the Middle East. Activists in the anti-war movement who understand this must make sure that the movement remains committed to ending the Israeli occupation and defending Palestinian rights. This is not an "outside issue," as some would like it to be seen. US military and economic aid are Israel's lifeblood. Without the US, Israel could not survive. And Israel is the linchpin of US strategy for dominating the region.
8. Expose the costs of war here
The people of Iraq have a much clearer sense of how much the invasion of their country is costing them in social and economic terms than people in the US do of the damage it is wreaking here. The hundreds of billions—the White House refuses to even provide Congress with an estimate—the invasion and occupation will cost are only the start. Riding his post-9/11 ratings surge, Bush forged ahead on his plans to remake the US, a domestic parallel to the drive to empire on a world scale.
First, he has forced through an unbelievable tax cut which unabashedly favors the rich at the expense of the poor and the working class. This combination of military spending and giveaways to the rich comes at a time when unemployment is rising and budget cuts at the state and local level are shredding social services of every kind. As Bush & Co. intend, this will enable the gutting or termination of government services, especially those that benefit poor and working people in any way—on the model of the Reagan years. There is no shame or attempt to hide the white supremacist aspect of these eliminations. The second effort is to reorganize government. There is an intensive de-unionization campaign underway in the public sector. One path is to privatize anything that can be privatized, even if it is not profitable. The second path is to directly deny unionization to entire categories of public employees for "security" reasons. While the union movement has taken some of this on, it will be left to us to show how this assault impacts people of color, especially African Americans who through the civil rights struggle gained access to public employment.
Again using the same triumphalism and flagwaving US chauvinism, the Bush administration is moving to strip away traditional and more recently won civil liberties and to greatly expand state surveillance and repression. The current project has two parts. The first is to remove the 2005 "sunset" provisions in the USA PATRIOT law passed by Congress in the aftermath of 9/11 which will cause many provisions of the act to lapse in 2005 unless explicitly reaffirmed by Congress.
Part two of the planned offensive is a new USA PATRIOT Act, a version of which was leaked last year. Under this one, a national DNA database will be set up and US citizenship could be stripped from anyone who has given "material support" to terrorists. Such support, which could be something as innocuous as a donation to a charity later declared to be a "terrorist front,' would be considered proof that someone had in practice renounced his or her citizenship. And who will decide this? Why, John Ashcroft, of course. And as a non-citizen, a person being jailed or deported would not even have recourse to the courts to fight it. As with some of last year's outrages, an alliance of liberal civil liberties advocates and right wing libertarians is taking shape to block new assaults on the Bill of Rights.
How does the anti-war movement tackle these economic and political attacks? Our analysis can help to link the movement with its natural allies, especially those sections of the population affected by the damage caused at home by the never-to-end 'War on Terror." While we are made to bear the brunt of the war costs, the Bush administration awards fat "reconstruction" contracts to corrupt, White House-connected outfits like Bechtel and Halliburton. This is a useful stick to beat them with.
A promising model of this linkage occurred on April 29 in New York City. Trade union officials called a rally to protest layoffs and other attacks on city workers and the community, and they made a point of inviting United for Peace and Justice to participate as a contingent and to speak from the platform.
Similarly, the anti-war movement has to weigh in more strongly on Patriot Act and other domestic repression. Increasingly our own movement has been victimized by what appears to be centrally encouraged attacks and jailings designed to weaken our movement and absorb our resources. On this front the defense of immigrants is still key. Non-citizens are facing legal assaults like we haven't seen in decades. These are of two types. One is the shotgun targeting of whole communities, like the anti-Muslim registration just concluded. The other is more like sharpshooting, aimed at jailing, exiling or intimidating particular activists within immigrant communities.
At the same time, war, meaning both the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the larger "War on Terror," must remain at the center of the movement. This might seem obvious—we are talking about an anti-war movement, after all—but some anti-war activists believe that because the war is over and has been "won," now is the time to shift the anti-war movement to focus primarily on the domestic economy and the budget, or the crushing of civil liberties. Both these issues have become part and parcel of the anti-war movement—just look at the home-made signs at any demonstration over the last six months—but those who have been protesting have wisely orbited these other issues around the main contradiction, the war drive and empire building.
9. A final word on the menace of elections
Though it may sound strange, the biggest threat facing the anti-war movement now is the 2004 elections. To be more exact, we face the possibility of a premature split over electoral strategy.
Important organized forces in the movement, including liberal Democrats, anti-war labor officials and some socialists identify the Bush administration as a uniquely horrible force and/or representatives of an "ultra-right" or fascist section of the ruling class. This is a position with enormous resonance among large sections of the anti-war movement and even more broadly among millions of men and women in this country, particularly in the Black community. In its simplest form, the argument goes: suppose Bush hadn't stolen the Florida electoral vote. True, Gore would probably have attacked Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, but he would most likely have continued or tightened sanctions on Iraq, rather than launch a unilateral, unprovoked invasion and re-orient foreign policy overall toward "preventive" strikes and invasions.
These forces think that the real task facing progressives is to defeat Bush in the 2004 elections. The influential email-based outfit MoveOn.org has already opened a campaign to "throw out Bush and the Republicans using every means available." Despite the familiar language, their "every means" equals "by registering a wave of new voters, by organizing to make sure they get to the polls on election day, by raising enough money to compete with the President's mountain of special interest money, and by volunteering for political campaigns." Not exactly the same as Malcolm X's "any means necessary."
One big problem with all this is that Democratic Party strategists and liberal pundits will argue that the best way to defeat Bush is by keeping the focus on domestic economic issues and by nominating a pro-war Democrat, preferably one from the South. The last thing they want is to have the invasion of Iraq and the unending "War on Terrorism" front and center.
There are others in the anti-war movement who reject out of hand the idea of working with Democrats on principle and feel that the upcoming elections will be a fine time to expose the Democrats as treacherous and pro-imperialist to the masses of people in the US. Among this wing are many of those who place a different approach to elections at the center of any strategy for radical change in the US—the creation of a Labor Party or the building up of another progressive third party, such as the Greens, which is not wholly owned by the capitalist class.
At this time the biggest setback would be for the movement to lose all those, organizers and anti-war rank & filers alike, who are increasingly turning their attention to the electoral defeat of Bush next year. The approach should not be to hurry these sisters and brothers to the exit with noisy denunciations of the Democrats, which will be all too easy to formulate.
Rather, our approach must be to keep the maximum range of forces from our remarkable movement focused on the war, on both the immediate occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader dangers to the world posed by the new "National Security Policy" of the Bush administration. One way to do this is to make sure that Democratic Party politicians who have come out against the war are invited and welcomed to anti-war platforms. (In truth, The Rev. Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley-Brown, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Governor Howard Dean and others will do more for the anti-war movement as prominent voices against US aggression than the support of the anti-war movement will do for their political aspirations.) This changes the dynamics of the Democratic primary process and makes it easier, not harder, for the anti-war movement to continue to target those Democrats who have come out in support of US aggression in Iraq.
One reason any split in the anti-war movement would be premature is that the serious analysis and discussion of the issue have just begun. We need a broad, thoughtful, non-rabid exchange of views on the relation of electoral politics to the anti-war movement. This will have to be based on significant position papers, but should also include forums and meetings.
By keeping the political spotlight in this country on the war as long as possible, we maximize our forces, keep the heat on the enemy and keep the fundamental questions before the people of this country: Is war in our interests? Is empire a righteous goal for this country?
National Executive Committee,
Freedom Road Socialist Organization /
Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad
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