{"id":5618,"date":"2022-02-19T16:45:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T21:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=5618"},"modified":"2022-02-27T20:53:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T01:53:55","slug":"ukraine-shows-the-urgency-for-an-anti-war-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/02\/ukraine-shows-the-urgency-for-an-anti-war-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine shows the urgency for an anti-war movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>e haven\u2019t had an anti-war movement in the United States for so long it\u2019s hard to remember what one looks like. For those of us active in the Iraq anti-war movement it\u2019s easy to feel a bit nostalgic for it. After all, a month before the war began, up to ten million people across sixty countries gathered in protests over the weekend of February 15 and 16, 2003.\u00a0 Some social movement researchers considered<\/a> it, “the largest protest event in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next five years, anti-war activism meant regular demonstrations, protests against military recruiters and pro-war speakers, organizing educational forums, and defending Arabs and Muslims victimized by the racist hysteria whipped up by the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the war and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Labor activists for the first time in recent memory were even able to organize anti-war campaigning in our unions. But, there was a definite limit to it all. As I wrote<\/a> two years ago:<\/p>\n

The Iraq anti-war movement emerged out of the trauma of the September 11 attacks, but it was also shaped by the previous twenty-five years of a Left that had all but collapsed, the decimation of the trade unions, and the marginalization of most social movements. The largest demonstrations against the war took place before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not after.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nan Levinson\u2019s latest Tom Dispatch column The Antiwar Movement That Wasn\u2019t Enough<\/a> also reminds us: “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, interminable as they seemed, had little or no direct effect on most of my students or the lives they imagined having and that was reflected in their relative lack of attention to them.”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the collapse of the Bush administration\u2019s lies that justified the invasion of\u00a0 Iraq and the \u201cGlobal War on Terror\u201d, the spiraling costs of both occupations, the upsurge of armed resistance to the U.S.-led coalition occupation, the exploding sectarian violence, the growing casualty list of American dead and disabled, along with antiwar agitating in the United States dramatically shifted public opinion against the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

What happened to the anti-war movement that leaves us in such a marginal, if not irrelevant, position during the current brinkmanship over Ukraine?<\/p>\n

The Obama years<\/h4>\n

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 to the presidency was the most visible product of the crisis of Bush’s war policies. Obama was a young U.S. Senator with only a handful of years in federal office with few accomplishments but he gave a speech<\/a> at an antiwar rally in\u00a0 Chicago two weeks before Congress gave Bush authorization for military action against Iraq. It burnished his image as the antiwar candidate during the 2008 Democratic primaries and presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Opposition to the Bush presidency always had a strong partisan basis to it. Seen as an illegitimate president especially by Democratic voters because of the suppression of the black vote in Florida and his minority vote in the 2000 presidential election. Michael Moore\u2019s 2004 epic documentary Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/a>\u2014the highest-grossing documentary of all time\u2014expressed what half the population thought of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

Once in office, the strongly partisan-based opposition to the Bush presidency shifted to partisan-based support for Obama as he shifted U.S. war strategy towards drone strikes and the increased use of special forces. Meanwhile, U.S troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan fluctuated during the Obama years but the occupations nonetheless continued and were soon dubbed the \u201cForever Wars.\u201d After a disastrous intervention in Libya in 2011, the taste for \u201cregime change\u201d by large segments of\u00a0 the U.S. government waned.<\/p>\n

What happened to the anti-war movement? The Obama presidency killed off what remained of the Iraq anti-war movement. Ashley Smith wrote<\/a> back in 2014:<\/p>\n

The most important liberal antiwar coalition in the era of the “war on terror,” United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), effectively closed up shop in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama–because its leaders believed that Obama and the Democrats would bring an end to Bush’s wars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obama also unleashed<\/a> the Department of Justice on whistleblowers and journalists such as Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, who revealed horrific materials on U.S. military war crimes and widespread illegal surveillance, relying on the WWI-era Espionage Act.<\/p>\n

The Obama presidency was a disaster on many different levels from the anti-war movement to growing inequality to a resurgent far-right, despite the optimism that greeted him upon coming into office as the first African-American president, and the hope for a return of old fashioned liberalism<\/a> into mainstream politics.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile deeper changes were working their way through U.S. politics that would impact anti-war activism. In 2016, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton faced a surprisingly serious \u201cdemocratic socialist\u201d challenge for Democratic presidential nomination from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, while Donald Trump took down the Republican establishment with a lurid political message of xenophobia and authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

Trump also tapped into anti-war sentiment in a war-weary country. Trump exaggerated<\/a> his opposition to the Iraq War but he was perceived as the antiwar candidate because of his attacks on the Bush family\u2019s and Hilary Clinton\u2019s record of military intervention. In one memorable campaign speech, he declared<\/a> she wasn\u2019t fit to be president because: “She doesn\u2019t have the temperament to be president. She\u2019s got bad judgment. She\u2019s got horribly bad judgment. If you look at the war in Iraq, if you look at what she did with Libya, which was a total catastrophe.”<\/p>\n

Following the 2016 presidential election, researchers studied the relationship between U.S. military casualties and the vote for presidential candidates. It concluded<\/a> that those counties with higher casualty rates voted for Trump. University of Minnesota Law professor Francis Shen told<\/a> The Intercept:<\/p>\n

Those writing both in universities and in most of the media are not regularly experiencing the cost of war. It\u2019s not, again, on average their communities who are seeing as many deaths and it is more likely on average communities that are poorer, less educated, and are more rural. And I think it’s plausible, it\u2019s certainly plausible I think that the \u2026 rhetoric of Trump\u2019s campaign may have resonated with that group.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trump gave the U.S. ruling class and its closest allies continual heartburn on foreign policy issues. He attacked the great sacred cow of U.S. foreign policy NATO portraying European allies as freeloaders, along with having a very public sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump played brinkmanship with China over trade but came up empty, while having a series of failed meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. However, the one major provocative military action that Trump took during his presidency revealed the weakened state of the anti-war movement but also offered a glimmer of a potential future for it.<\/p>\n

Soleimani assassination<\/h4>\n

President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, while he was on an official state visit to Iraq on January 3, 2020. The shock of the assassination reverberated worldwide and produced widespread, if only momentary, panic among young people that WWIII was about to break out. Soleimani\u2019s assassination drew parallels with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand<\/a>, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in June 1914 that sparked the First World War.<\/p>\n

Several hashtags including #WWIII and #WorldWarThree started trending nationally, while the website of the Selective Service System (SSS)\u2014that compiles an ongoing list of young men for possible military service\u2014crashed. Selective Service was forced to issue a public statement<\/a>: “The Selective Service System is conducting business as usual. In the event that a national emergency necessitates a draft, Congress and the President would need to pass official legislation to authorize a draft.”<\/p>\n

Neither the U.S. nor Iran, however, wanted a full-scale war. Iran was prepared to absorb the assassination of its most celebrated general, in return for firing twenty-two missiles at two U.S. military bases in Iraq. \u201cThe fierce revenge by the Revolutionary Guards [over Soleimani] has begun,\u201d the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps declared.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
RAlly in Eugene, Oregon.\u00a0 Part of a nationwide response to Trump’s assassination of Iran’s top general. Photo<\/a> by David Geitgey Sierralupe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Trumped bragged<\/a> that the U.S. had \u201cno casualties\u201d as a result of the missile attacks\u2014the truth was very different. One hundred and nine U.S. military personnel suffered traumatic brain injuries. But, despite this, the U.S. didn\u2019t respond. This bit of political theater was one of the oddest episodes in recent U.S. diplomatic and military history.<\/p>\n

The lack of response revealed how much the U.S establishment was allergic to getting involved in another protracted war in the Middle East. The situation soon returned to \u201cnormal\u201d where the U.S. maintains crushing sanctions on the Iranian economy, while its Navy\u2019s Fifth Fleet patrols the Persian Gulf with a huge armada<\/a> ready to strike Iran at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n

Yet, the short-lived war scare revealed many things about the state of anti-war politics. Taking place at the beginning of the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries, all of the Democratic contenders attacked Trump for his \u201cprovocative action\u201d but they were all quick to attack<\/a> Soleimani. The most severe criticisms of Trump were leveled by Bernie Sanders. He called<\/a> Soleimani\u2019s killing an \u201cassassination\u201d when few others were prepared to do so. Trump\u2019s actions were, according to Sanders:<\/p>\n

A dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East, that could cost us countless lives and trillions of dollars. I have gone to too many funerals in my own state. I have talked to too many mothers who have lost their kids in war. I have talked to too many soldiers, men and women, who have come home with PTSD, or come home without arms and without legs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cNo War on Iran” protests were called for the weekend of January 4, and a surprisingly young crowd turned out, a heartening development after so many years of little anti-war campaigning. \u201cThough still modest in size, rallies and demonstrations took place in seventy<\/a> to ninety cities, ranging from a few dozen to five to six hundred people. Pre-planned canvasses for Bernie Sanders\u2019s presidential campaign were cut short so DSAers could attend,\u201d I wrote<\/a> back then.<\/p>\n

However, the down side of the protests revealed the sclerotic state of anti-war organizing. \u201cMost local and national anti-war groups such as ANSWER<\/a>, United for Peace and Justice<\/a>, and U.S. Labor Against the War<\/a> (USLAW) have devolved into largely website groups with few active members and resources, and haven\u2019t done anything significant or even met in years.\u201d Two years later these groups stumble on largely as ghost ships with no significant change in the character or organizing abilities.<\/p>\n

Micro-Stalinist groups like the Workers World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization have played an outsized role in what they call \u201canti-war\u201d organizing but were really mobilizations of support for their favored authoritarian regimes, whether they be China, North Korea or Syria<\/a>. But, this approach to imperialism extends beyond these tiny groups to the largest groups in the U.S., the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA). The DSA\u2019s International Committee statement<\/a> rightly attacks the U.S. and NATO but doesn\u2019t condemn Russian imperialism.<\/p>\n

It is one thing to call for stopping a U.S. attack on another country, it is another to call for political support of the authoritarian regimes that oppress their own people. The role of these micro-Stalinist groups has been one of the more visible signs of the crisis in anti-war activism for the past decade. Yet, the younger generation that came out to protests, and the wider anxiety produced by Trump ordering Soleimani\u2019s assassination, shows us that they are acutely aware of the possibility of global conflagration.<\/p>\n

Brinkmanship and Ukraine<\/h4>\n

Where does this leave us during the current crisis over Ukraine? Not in good shape to start with. Joe Biden ran against Trump on restoring credibility to the U.S. state and its political and military alliances that Trump largely trashed during his presidency, and that includes NATO, the most important U.S.-led military alliance in the world. NATO is not the defensive alliance that its advocates like to portray it as but instead a war-making alliance<\/a>. NATO\u2019s first Secretary-General British Lord Ismay famously declared<\/a> that the mission of the alliance was to \u201ckeep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.\u201d<\/p>\n

NATO, of course, has had to adjust to a unified and powerful Germany to absorb many of the former republics that once made up the USSR-led Warsaw Pact alliance. The collapse of the USSR had created\u00a0 a unipolar world under U.S. domination for three decades. The verbal agreement given by President George H.W. Bush to former Communist Party General-Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not extend its boundaries to the Russian border was broken. Russia\u2019s current push back over Ukraine with demands to remove troops and weapons from Eastern Europe and return NATO to its 1997 borders is fundamentally about it reasserting its own imperial \u201csphere of influence.\u201d Not just in Europe but also in Central Asia<\/a>.<\/p>\n