Sudhan@22:00 CET
You cannot win the peace unless you know the enemy at home and abroad.
– US Marine Colonel from Tennessee.
Everywhere I visit from Copenhagen to Istanbul, Patagonia to Mexico City, journalists and academics, trade unionists and businesspeople, as well as ordinary citizens, inevitably ask me why the US public tolerates the killing of over a million Iraqis over the last two decades, and thousands of Afghans since 2001? Why, they ask, is a public, which opinion polls reveal as over sixty percent in favor of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, so politically impotent? A journalist from a leading business journal in India asked me what is preventing the US government from ending its aggression against Iran, if almost all of the world’s major oil companies, including US multinationals are eager to strike oil deals with Tehran? Anti-war advocates in Europe, Asia and Latin America ask me at large public forums what has happened to the US peace movement in the face of the consensus between the Republican White House and the Democratic Party-dominated Congress to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, supporting Israeli starvation, killing and occupation of Palestine and destruction of Lebanon?
Absence of a Peace Movement?
Just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 over one million US citizens demonstrated against the war. Since then there have been few and smaller protests even as the slaughter of Iraqis escalates, US casualties mount and a new war with Iran looms on the horizon.
As someone who teaches college students, I will say that there will be no peace movement without them. I also know that it takes a lot to move them, and the only thing that would get them riled is the draft, which no one wants. I teach the Vietnam war: the literature, PTSD and the war. I say little to nothing about Iraq, but the parallels are obvious. The problem is that they have not been inconvenienced by the war, minus the cost of gas. I am not trying to sound cynical, nor say that this is true of all college students, but if they were ordered to Iraq, all hell would break loose. They know it’s a stupid war.
Hi Enemy of the Republic!
Welcome to the Suzie-Q blog!
Thank you for your insightful comments and I hope to see you again soon…