[Marxism] Getting the US Out of Iraq ? Some Reasons for Optimism By Carole Seligman

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Getting the US Out of Iraq?
Some Reasons for Optimism
By Carole Seligman
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_09.html

The majority of the American people are now opposed to the war in Iraq and
want the U.S. to get out, to withdraw our troops. This was thought to be an
impossible situation just a year ago. People said that the American people
would never actively oppose the war unless there was a draft. But, the
people are already having an effect, despite the weaknesses of the organized
antiwar movement.

The power of the antiwar position is already showing some results. More and
more of the congressional representatives and senators, Democrats and
Republicans, who voted for the funds to support the war, are now speaking
out against it, now that they know that the people are against it. Not that
they are calling for the immediate unconditional withdrawal of the U.S. from
Iraq, far from it. But they are engaging in public relations activities that
make them seem antiwar and they¹re trying to do a public cleaning of their
blood stained hands.

Another indication of the growing antiwar movement is that the Army has
failed to meet its monthly recruitment goals for two months in a row. All
branches of the military are stepping up their recruitment campaigns and
pouring funds into recruitment. They need more meat for the war grinder,
more fodder for their cannons.

One reason for the military¹s problem in recruitment is what the news media
is calling ³The Mom Factor². This is simply that mothers discourage their
children from joining the military. Go moms!

I think we can credit Cindy Sheehan and other parents of soldiers who have
been killed, wounded, or are still serving in Iraq, who are bravely speaking
out and trying to keep other kids safe, despite a torrent of abuse from
organ-ized rightwing war mongers. Many other moms can¹t listen to a mother
mourning the loss of her son, blaming the president of the country and the
congress people who went along with the war and just voted to escalate it,
without thinking very seriously about their own children¹s safety. And the
mainstream media is acknowledging that mothers are harming recruitment!

There are also a growing number of active duty soldiers and Iraq war
veterans who are speaking out publicly and urging young people not to
enlist, not to go to Iraq. There is active organizing against the war within
the military services, including a petition for the redress of grievances
related to the administration¹s use of lies to justify the attack and
occupation of Iraq, efforts to encourage soldiers to resist deployment to
Iraq, soldiers attending antiwar demonstrations in uniform and otherwise
using their rights to free speech and assembly to oppose the war. Protest
and resistance has even reached into the ranks of military officers, such as
Ehren Watada, now facing a second trial for his opposition to the war on the
grounds of its illegality.

If you read the lists of soldiers killed in Iraq that are published in many
newspapers and on some nationally televised news programs, you will notice
that most of the American soldiers killed in Iraq come from small towns,
suburbs, and rural areas. I have a theory. I cannot prove it, but I think it
has merit. I think the reason for this unlikely phenomenon, that the most
casualties come from the least populated areas of the country, is actually a
negative a reflection of what the antiwar movement has been able to
accomplish so far. Let me explain. The internet makes news, pictures, and
casualty lists of this war more accessible to people all over the country
than any previous war this country has fought. But direct contact with
massive demonstrations of antiwar protesters has only occurred in the big
cities. That is because the biggest acts of opposition to the war have all
taken place in the big cities. This is not to say that important organizing
is not happening in small towns. It is. But, the antiwar demonstrations of
tens and hundreds of thousands represent a powerful pole of attraction, a
source of power, an alternative to the government and it lies.

They show young people, who are deciding what to do as they graduate from
high school, that enlistment in the military services is not a good choice
if you value your own life and safety, or if you care about your fellow
human beings in other countries. What I am saying is that people in the big
cities have been exposed to many massive street demonstrations that have
provided information and examples to potential military recruits. Most
importantly, they have shown that large numbers of their fellow workers and
students oppose the war.

What they do very concretely is show that there is strength in numbers. This
truism, strength in numbers, is a deep and powerful idea. It is the essence
of working class political action. After all, the war makers, the capitalist
class, who are only a tiny number of people, have a monopoly on weapons.
They have command of the financial resources of the country. They control
all branches of the military and the bases all around the world. And they
control the government, the state power, and the communications industry.
This ownership of wealth and control of the state is the source of their
power. They profit from war, from the manufacture of war materiel, the
destruction and re-building of bombs, bullets, tanks, and planes. And
because they profit from it, war is a constant fact of everyday life.

What do we have? We have ourselves and the fact that the overwhelming
majority of our fellow human beings, the working class, have real, material
interests in peace. That is the power of massive demonstrations. They can
demonstrate our power, which is in our numbers. They show in action people
vs. profit.

All the antiwar groups recognize the problem we are confronted with: How to
activate and mobilize the huge numbers of people who are now opposed to the
war? How can we bring the pressure of the majority to bear on the war
itself? Can the United States government be forced to get out of Iraq? I
believe that if the movement is able to overcome its artificial divisions
and come together to build gigantic mass demonstrations, this will engender
a chain of events that can stop the war. It can lead to worker action to
stop the movement of war materials. It can lead to organized, coordinated,
soldier action to come home.

This would not be the product of one demonstration, of course, but the
potential result of a growing mass movement that actively involves more and
more working people. It took ten years to build such a movement during the
Vietnam War, not that that will be the case now. After all, hundreds of
thousands of Americans do remember that their actions helped to end that
war.

Right now, all the major national antiwar organizations and coalitions
recognize this problem (of how to activate the antiwar majority) and are
taking steps to solve it. They are setting dates for important, unified,
massive actions. Dates to coincide with General Petraeus¹ report on the
³success² of the Iraq war escalation (the ³surge²) on September 15th (an
A.N.S.W.E.R. initiated coalition call); and Sept. 29th, (a Troops Out Now
initiated call); and October 27th, which both the United for Peace and
Justice Coalition and the Act Now to End War and Racism Coalition
(A.N.S.W.E.R.) have called for as massive regional demonstrations for
bringing the troops home now. There is no reason why these protests should
not be the largest antiwar actions in this country. All the pre-conditions
are there. All that is needed now is for everyone to pull together, unite in
action, to stop this war. This can be a first step. It can be done. We can
do it!


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