As the US election approached, Meredith Kolodner looked at the state of the anti-war struggle in the US for Socialist Worker, the paper of the US International socialist Organization.
As the media focuses on questions of judgment, and politicians debate the finer points of how to "win the peace" in Iraq, the horror that continues to unfold in Iraq remains muted in US society. It is reality TV without the reality — as if Iraqi children don't bleed and scream when they die, as if US soldiers do not have coffins and their families don't hold funerals.
But in fact, during the span of a few days at the beginning of October, 110 people died and more than 300 were injured in Baghdad alone, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi. She wrote in a private e-mail, "The numbers [of Iraqi dead] are so shocking that the ministry of health — which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers — has now stopped disclosing them."
Added to the fog of war is the opaque filter of election-year politics. It is striking that as the crisis in Iraq intensifies to its highest pitch since "Mission Accomplished" — and the candidates are forced to at least discuss the issue — the anti-war movement is quiet.
There are important, courageous exceptions to this state of affairs — a rally by veterans and military families in Bush's so-called hometown in Texas; a memorial procession from Arlington Cemetery to the Pentagon; to name a few.
But it would be dishonest to say that the bulk of the groups who make up the national anti-war movement have their eyes glued on events in Iraq and Palestine, not to mention Afghanistan. Instead, the efforts of most individuals and officially nonpartisan organisations are focused on getting President George Bush out of office. These efforts may be couched in the form of "voter education" or "preventing voter fraud", but to speak candidly, the majority of the movement believes that defeating Bush is our central priority now.
Central to the current low profile of the anti-ar movement is the belief that ending the occupation of Iraq under Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry would be an easier task. The effect has been building for months. Where is the urgency in building a movement if the most effective place to exert power is at the ballot box?
The deafening silence after revelations of the torture at Abu Ghraib was the first sign. Then came the decision by most to forgo protesting the Democratic National Convention and instead focus on the Republican National Convention. No doubt the half-million-person march at the RNC was spectacular, and should indeed have been a central focus. But even there, the decision to simply unite behind the slogan "We Say No to the Bush Agenda" and issue no informational leaflets, put forward no demands, and print no new anti-war signs muted its political impact.
Now, the central effort of groups around the country is getting out the vote and "voter education", with activists being shipped off to "swing states" to "talk about the issues".
Anti-war forces in the US are hitting the streets to elect a candidate who promises to "lead the troops to victory" in Iraq.
The presidential debates were hailed by some as proof of John Kerry's right to claim the antiwar vote. But a closer examination shows just the opposite.
To be sure, the candidates said different things and even proposed different strategies for dealing with Iraq (as well as a variety of other countries now simply assumed to be "the enemy"). But the difference was one of how best to fight and win — not whether the US military should be deployed to defend so-called "American interests" around the world.
Kerry finished that first debate by looking straight into the camera and telling us, "I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."
Kerry wants to "finish the job" in Iraq so he can focus on the real problem. "I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence", Kerry declared.
Kerry wants us to focus again on Afghanistan — sounding eerily like the Vietnam War revisionists, as he claims that Bush didn't fight the war well enough, with enough US troops, enough bombs and enough Special Forces.
But Kerry didn't stop with Afghanistan. He argued for his plan to add "two active-duty divisions to the US Army, not for Iraq, but for our general demands across the globe". He even floated the idea of the use of military troop deployment and/or pre-emptive strikes aimed at North Korea, Iran and Sudan.
Most in the anti-war movement would agree that it is our job to object to all of these attacks. But this task has been made nearly impossible if we are instead out in the streets trying to convince people to vote for a man who is laying out his own "improved" war plan.
Imagine a different scenario. Imagine if the anti-war movement was busy exposing the complete and utter failure of the occupation in Iraq. Imagine if we were "educating voters" about the fact that neither of the candidates will bring the troops home, and that only by building a movement at home and in the armed services will we ever succeed. Imagine if we dropped banners around the country that took up the latest slogan from Not In Our Name, "We say no to the Bush agenda, no matter who Kerry's it out".
This isn't a matter of saying that the movement should be doing more — that can always be said. It is a matter of what the movement is doing — and how the great sucking sound of the Democratic Party has demobilised the anti-war movement. It is the job of the anti-war movement to undo illusions that Kerry will stop the war, so that if Kerry is elected, there is not yet another lull as we "give him a chance".
[Abridged from US Socialist Worker <http://www.socalistworker.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 3, 2004.
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