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Reject
Defeatism... Organize!
by Stephen R. Shalom and Michael Albert
March 20, 2003
The onset of war does not negate
the unprecedented antiwar activism in recent weeks and months, nor does it
provide reason to diminish our efforts. Quite the contrary.
Struggle
for change should not be apocalyptic. The task is to steadily amass growing
commitment to prevent U.S. imperial, anti-democratic, illegal, and immoral
assaults on defenseless third world nations. We must persist in our rejection
of war on Iraq, on Iran, on Syria, on Venezuela, on North Korea.
The FBI
has reported that "the intensity and scope of opposition to a U.S.-led war
against Saddam Hussein has grown to levels that far exceed any such opposition
that existed in 1991." (Wilgoren, New York Times, 3/19/03) We haven't
prevented this war, but that is not the key point in assessing our efforts. The
key point is that our efforts to prevent immoral wars are growing ever larger
and ever more effective, and are on a path -- a long path, to be sure -- toward
not only preventing such wars but then removing their institutional causes.
We should
not apply wrong standards to our efforts. We should not snatch defeat from the
jaws of victory.
The
assault on Iraq will be horrific. The risk to citizens there and to people
around the globe will be enormous. But, at the same time, the emergence of
massive, coordinated, and rapidly escalating and maturing movements against war
and corporate globalization across the planet is more than just hopeful,
exciting, and optimistic. It is the stuff of new worlds.
There are
now two super powers in the world, the New York Times told its readers, after
the February 15th demonstrations.
On one
side there is the U.S. military machine. On the other side, there is
international public opinion.
True, the
latter has not yet restrained the former. But we need to understand our
achievements and step up our efforts. We should not mourn our failure to
prevent war as if it means we are on a losing trajectory.
Objective
assessment is good but defeatism will reduce our potentials even when the
prospects for victory have never been nearer.
We hope
the following questions and answers will help activists deal with the
difficult, chaotic conditions likely to confront us in the immediate days and
weeks ahead.
(1) What
is the point of demonstrating and organizing? How can it win? When can it win?
We
demonstrate in order to win outcomes that we desire -- it could be higher
wages, it could be affirmative action, it could be a new law, or, as now, it
could be preventing or terminating a grotesque war.
Activism
does not rationally convince elites to change their policies. Nor does activism
massage their hearts and lead to a moral transformation.
Activism
wins when it creates conditions within which elites making critical decisions
feel they have no choice but to change their behavior. They change when they
decide that to pursue their policies and otherwise ignore popular demands, with
the risk that this will energize dissent, is a worse course of action for them
than not doing so.
In the
case of war in Iraq, subsequent occupation of Iraq, and then war against other
victims of the U.S. Empire, the U.S. government -- the "Asses of
Evil" -- is seeking to change the rules of international relations. They
want increased control over oil and the power to broker and coerce outcomes
that that control bestows. They want to demonstrate U.S. power to intimidate,
and they want to weaken and perhaps literally destroy international law so that
it cannot restrain their options and choices. But mostly it seems that they
want to create a unipolar world in which military might -- which Washington
monopolizes -- is the only currency, and thus which the U.S. rules.
Our
dissent must raise very substantial costs for elites, creating a situation in
which they decide that the pursuit of their aims is no longer advisable because
the dissent it engenders is too costly to their interests. Instead of gaining
greater power and sway as they desire from war, elites must face the prospect
that the war's side-effect creation of popular opposition actually threatens to
reduce their power and sway.
When can a
movement raising such a threat win? At any moment. It has, for example, already
convinced large sectors of owners and political leaders that war against Iraq
is too risky for what they value most: their authority. These elements,
including whole governments, now oppose war. When dissent convinces enough
elite elements that war risks their interests, the policies will be abandoned.
(2) What
are the right issues on which to focus in order to be most effective? Should
our efforts be single or multi-issue?
A movement
is effective to precisely the extent that it conveys to elites an indication
that continued rejection of the movement's demands will lead to growing costs
and risks for them. In our current case, the movement must convey that
continued pursuit of war and occupation in Iraq, and then subsequent war
against other targets, will produce an opposition that elites simply don't want
to bring into existence. This is the logic of dissent and of elite reactions to
it.
So, we
need only ask, what type of movement raises social costs and threatens to be a
continuing and growing problem for elites? Is it a movement that has a very
narrow focus on a single war or a single policy? Is it a movement which will
dissolve once that primary issue is no longer in the forefront? Or is it a
movement which certainly focuses on the opposed policy -- in this case war in
Iraq -- making it clear that continued pursuit of the war is enlarging the
movement, but which also stretches and grows to address other dimensions of
international relations and then of corporate and political power, thereby
making clear that if the movement is produced by continued pursuit of the war,
it will not just fade away with the war's conclusion, and that once it is brought
into being it will not only persist, but will function to obstruct and
challenge state policies on diverse fronts held in even higher priority by
elites than the war itself?
To ask the
question is to answer it. We need to continually reach out and enlarge the
movement if its trajectory of development is to effectively raise costs for
elites. But we also need to present clear evidence that the growing opposition
is extending beyond the immediate issue to basic defining relations and
institutions of society. This is what will cause elite constituencies served by
Bush to think to themselves "our war policy is threatening the fabric of
our rule over society, it is disrupting our capacity to undertake business as
usual, it is taking the next generation from us and making them our enemy, it
is putting at risk things we hold even more dear than the war policy -- our
power and wealth -- therefore, we must cease our support for war.
(3)
Regarding the war itself, what demands should we be raising?
We should call
for an immediate end to the war.
We should
particularly condemn violations of international humanitarian law, such as the
use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate weapons, and the targeting of
infrastructure needed by civilians.
We should
condemn the press censorship and demand access for independent media.
We should
denounce the grossly inadequate humanitarian preparations and demand that as
the occupying power the United States accept its legal responsibility to
provide for the welfare of the civilian population.
We should
push for democracy in Iraq, giving as little say to the invading forces as
possible (and this includes Turkey).
We should
insist that the U.S. is entitled to absolutely none of Iraq's oil. It is the
property of the Iraqi people.
As soon as
humanitarian supplies are assured, all U.S. troops should be withdrawn from
Iraq. Any military bases or U.S. occupation is an imperial imposition and
unacceptable.
(4) What's
the right tactic to use to be most effective? Should our movements be single or
multi-tactic and with what mix?
Imagine a
movement that keeps growing, but there is no diversification of approach, and
therefore no evidence of increasing depth of commitment and perseverance, or a
movement that shrinks but its diminishing numbers are evidently becoming more
committed, or a movement that is continually growing, and which has a growing
subset of members who display growing militancy and commitment and whose
involvement seems in time to be the destination point for all other members as
well.
Isn't it
clear that the last option presents a far more threatening prospect to elites?
If so, then isn't it obvious that the task is to combine diverse tactics
suitable for different sectors but without in any way curtailing the movement's
ability to reach out to new and less committed people and to engage their
participation as well?
What we
need to incorporate if we are to have the most effective movement is a
combination of consciousness-raising activities, demonstrations and marches,
strikes and civil disobedience, all of them mutually supportive, and none of
them pursued in a way that undermines the rest.
That
approach is what can simultaneously enlarge the movement, make the movement
congenial to its members, and raise the greatest threat of continued
development and danger for elites.
(5) What
happens and how do we respond if there is a terrorist attack on the U.S.?
The
prospects of a terrorist attack on the United States or American citizens
abroad is very real. And if any attack does occur it will likely be used by the
Bush administration just as 9-11 was used -- to mobilize public opinion behind
more repression at home and more aggression abroad. People's critical judgment
is often a major victim of terrorist attack and the Bush administration knows
this. Bush's approval rating jumped from 50 percent in late August 2001 to 89
percent a week and a half after 9-11. National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice asked her senior staff "how do you capitalize on these
opportunities?" (quoted in New Yorker, 4/1/02) And capitalize they did.
The Bush
administration will claim that any new terrorist attack proves the wisdom of
its having gone to war. But this argument is utterly illogical; it proves not
that Bush was right but that his critics were.
The
antiwar movement noted, for example, the likely affect of any U.S. war against
Iraq would be to "super charge" recruiting for al Qaeda type
organizations, to use the words of General Wesley Clark. And sure enough,
that's precisely what's been happening. (See Sebastian Rotella, "Threat of
war in Iraq is adding to the pool of potential recruits for Al Qaeda and others,"
Los Angeles Times, 3/2/03; Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, "Anger on
Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool," New York Times, 3/16/03.)
As for
Saddam Hussein, the CIA stated on October 7, 2002:
Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or C.B.W. chemical and biological weapons against the United States.
Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions. Such terrorism might involve conventional means, as with Iraq's unsuccessful attempt at a terrorist offensive in 1991, or C.B.W.
(http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-021007-cia01.htm)
U.S.
officials are well aware that their war increases the risks of terrorism
against the United States. "There is a certainty that terrorists will
attempt to launch multiple attacks" against the United States and its
allies, declared the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. The
FBI's Deputy Assistant Director told senators that there is some intelligence
about the Iraqis "indicating an interest in taking terrorist actions
against the U.S." (CNN, 3/18/03) (This is quite an intelligence coup,
given that suicide bomber squads have marched through the streets of Baghdad
and Saddam has warned that the invaders would be fought anywhere in the world.)
Hussein presumably hopes to "shock and awe" the U.S. population,
ignoring the clear lesson of history that terror tends to yield hatred and
resolve rather than capitulation. The U.S. counterpart may be immense enough to
induce an Iraqi surrender, but it surely won't lessen hatred for the United
States throughout the world.
So rather
than reducing anti-U.S. terrorism, U.S. policy has the effect -- the
predictable effect -- of increasing it. In Israel/Palestine we have often seen
this same pattern. When there is a lull in the violence, and peace proposals
are in the air, the Israeli government launches an assassination or a military
operation killing many civilians. There is then a Palestinian attack on
civilians, which Israel claims shows the need for the continued iron fist. There
is in fact a symbiotic relationship between the terrorists on both sides in
maintaining the cycle of violence.
The Bush
administration will no doubt try to use any terrorist incident to discredit and
silence the antiwar movement. In that fevered atmosphere, it will be hard for
us to speak up. But we need to do so. We need to make these points:
* We
condemn all attacks on civilians and we sympathize with the victims of all such
attacks.
* As the
CIA and the antiwar movement warned, the U.S. war policy led to anti-U.S.
terrorism.
* Real
measures to deal with the threat of terrorism against the United States have
long been urged by the antiwar movement, both long term (changing U.S. foreign
policy to reduce the level of anti-U.S. hatred in the world) and short term
(desisting from an unjust and unnecessary war, adequately funding
first-responders, providing financial aid to bankrupt cities, building ties to,
rather than alienating immigrant communities, and so on). To take just one
example, Congress required the Justice Department to submit a report by August
2002 on the vulnerabilities of U.S. chemical facilities. The report has still
not been prepared and there exists no legislation requiring chemical plants to
protect themselves and no federal agency monitors whether they have done so
voluntarily. (GAO-03-439) Instead of pursuing policies that might
actually have dealt with the terrorist threat, the administration, against all
advice, chose the course of war, with its predictable -- and horrible --
consequences.
(6) What
happens and how do we respond if the TV shows cheering in the streets of
Baghdad?
We need to
keep in mind how easy it is for the media to give a false picture of what is
going on. The Pentagon has been making every effort to exclude independent
journalists from the war zone, and with a compliant media it is not hard to
make a handful of supporters of the U.S. invasion appear to represent the
general Iraqi reaction.
In
Afghanistan the media broadcast scenes of cheering women throwing off their
burqas as if this were a widespread phenomenon. In fact, it was a scene
confined to Kabul, or parts of Kabul, and over the following months our
television screens did not focus on the warlordism outside the capital, or the
narrowing opportunities for women, or the growing number of people in need of
food (exceeding that under the Taliban), or the non-arrival of promised Western
aid.
Saddam
Hussein is rightly despised by many Iraqis and millions will be thrilled at his
ouster. We too ought to cheer his removal, though not the means by which it was
accomplished. (There's no contradiction here: the ends do not justify the
means. If the police catch a murderer, but kill several innocent bystanders in
the process, we're glad that the murderer has been apprehended, but we condemn
the way it was done.) That people may dance in the streets at Hussein's fall
does not tell us that they favored the U.S. war (and those lying under the
rubble of buildings struck by U.S. bombs are presumably not out celebrating.),
and certainly does not tell us what their attitude is to the coming U.S.
occupation. Recall that when Hussein released thousands of prisoners last
October, many people cheered, without necessarily supporting the dictator,
long-term or short-term. "'Saddam is our hero,' said one, before adding
quickly, 'for today.'" (Washington Post, Oct. 21, 2002)
(7) What
happens and how do we respond if Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons or if
U.S. forces discover prohibited weapons of mass destruction? Does that mean
Bush was right?
This is
certainly the spin that the Bush administration will try to put on it. Already,
administration officials have told the New York Times that discovery of weapons
of mass destruction "would vindicate the administration's decision to go
to war." (3/19/03) But this is unadulterated nonsense. The issue here is
not whether Iraq has WMD. Although the antiwar movement has pointed to
exaggerated charges and suppressed exculpatory evidence (such as the full
testimony of defector Hussein Kamel), its claim was not that Saddam Hussein had
no proscribed weapons. Most antiwar analysts had no illusions about Hussein and
knew that he was morally capable of producing and hiding WMD. Rather, the claim
has been that whatever weapons Hussein might have (1) they constitute a
negligible military threat to the United States or any one else beyond Iraq's
borders; and (2) the danger they posed was being reduced even further by the
inspections process.
Given the
Bush administration's record for pushing forgeries, plagiarized documents, and
photographic evidence of what Hans Blix tactfully noted "could just as
easily have been a routine activity," one should naturally be suspicious
of any "discovery" claimed by U.S. forces. But in any event, the only
way Bush will have been proven right is if evidence is found that Hussein had a
WMD capability that posed an imminent military threat that could neither be
deterred nor uncovered by the inspectors.
Nor would
Hussein's use of chemical weapons against the U.S. invasion prove Bush right.
On the contrary, it would confirm that the antiwar movement was right. Antiwar
activists had insisted all along -- citing the CIA -- that the only conceivable
circumstances under which Saddam Hussein would consider using any chemical
weapons he might have was precisely in the event of a U.S. attack. Such a use
of chemical weapons would be unconscionable and violate international law, but
it would not prove that the weapons would have been used in the absence of the
U.S. attack (which itself is more seriously unconscionable and contrary to
international law).
(8) How do
we respond to the entreaty to "support our troops" and the assertion
that opposing the war is treasonous?
Even
before the war began, the jingoists were proclaiming that anyone who isn't a
traitor needs to rally around Washington to "support our troops."
Opponents of the war have several possible replies.
We could
point out that our troops in Iraq are barely in danger at all because they are
assaulting a tenth-rate opponent that has no serious means to defend Iraq much
less to attack the world's sole superpower.
Or we
could point out that the lives of American troops are no more worthy of
compassionate support than the lives of Iraqis.
And of
course we could explain how unleashing a campaign to "shock and awe"
a country is unjust and immoral, and an archetype of the terrorism the U.S.
claims to be against.
But the
response we propose is a bit different. It is that we too "support our
troops."
We support
our troops coming home alive, but we also support our troops not having to kill
people in Iraq. We support our troops not dying in Iraq figuratively or
literally, physically or psychologically. We support our troops coming home
with their hearts not broken, retaining humanity and compassion essential to
feeling true solidarity with those who confront tyrannical behavior abroad, or
right here in the U.S. with its 30 million tyrannized poor.
So:
Support our troops, bring them home, provide them housing, provide them health
care, provide them socially valuable jobs.
Support
our troops and one day they will join the fight for justice for all.
(9) What
happens and how do we respond if there's a massive government crackdown on
dissent?
There are
two sides to this question. The first is how do we prevent the use of ever more
destructive and damaging policies of repression by the government. The second
is, to the extent that they do escalate their tactics, how do we reply.
What takes
options out of play for the government is a belief by them that to use those
options would do their efforts more harm than good. Why doesn't the government
drop bombs on demonstrators in the streets of Washington DC? Because it would
lead to a growth rather than diminution of the opposition; it would strengthen
rather than weaken resistance. What determines the government's choice of
tactics is their estimate of our response, and of the response of the
population at large to the tactic's use.
What will
protect the most militant dissenters is huge numbers of less militant
dissenters who would be horribly upset at the forceful repression of the
militants. What will protect huge numbers of less militant dissenters is a
population at large that would be horribly upset at the repression of the
dissidents.
If we
allow repression to silence us, our ability to protect ourselves will diminish
and the repression will grow. If we continually talk to our neighbors, our
classmates, our fellow workers, discuss the war with them, expose government
lies to them, point out how the liberties of all of us are in danger, we can
create an environment within which the government cannot get away with
repression. We must not induce paranoia by overstating the level of repression,
but nor should we minimize actual government repression.
In the
event that repressive policies are forthcoming, our response should be no
different than our response to war policies themselves. It is to enlarge the
movement, to increase the ties between the movement and the public -- and at
the same time to enlarge the more militant sectors of the movement and increase
the ties between them and other dissenters.
Nothing
else wards off repressive or even violent government response. Arrests will be
employed if they cripple dissent, avoided if they boost dissent. Repressive
force will be employed if it cripples dissent, avoided if it promotes dissent.
We will
have to react to repression but should do so in the context of continuing to
react to war...and the balance and mix of attention we should give to each
ought to be determined, for us, precisely by what enlarges and deepens overall
dissent. Whatever works more to that end, we should do. Whatever doesn't work
to that end, we should leave aside.
The exact
balance is often hard to know, and there is little gain in fighting about
alternative choices. Just explore them, apply energy to what seems wise and
worthy...and let others do likewise.
(10) What
happens and how do we respond if there's a massive crackdown on immigrants,
Muslims, Arabs, etc.?
Immigrants
are especially vulnerable and therefore we need to make special efforts to
protect them. The government goes after immigrants as part of its salami
tactics, cutting off one piece of the opposition at a time, hoping that
non-immigrants will not protest very much because it's "them" not
"us." Our response, therefore, is clear: we need to vigorously defend
the basic rights of immigrants.
Protecting
the rights of immigrants, particularly the Arabs and Muslims who are especially
singled out, must become an additional focus of our movement, along with the
war itself, and with raising broader consciousness.
This is
morally right and it is also strategically right. A movement that will not
stand up in solidarity with its own supporters is a movement which won't retain
its supporters. A movement that fails to protect the most vulnerable will find
that everyone is vulnerable.
(11) What
happens and how do we respond if Israel uses a war to escalate its repression
of Palestinians?
After the
Iraqi civilian population, the people most at risk as a result of a U.S. attack
on Iraq are the Palestinians. Ever since September 11, 2001, the Israeli
government has used the U.S. "war on terrorism" as a cover and
justification for increased repression against Palestinians.
Today
Israel is ruled by an extreme right-wing government. Headed by Ariel Sharon,
the person found responsible by an Israeli commission for the massacre of
thousands of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shitila refugee camps in Lebanon,
the cabinet includes Uzi Landau (who suggested doing to the Palestinians
"what the Iraqis did to the Kurds." [Ha'aretz, 2/20/02]); Gideon Ezra
(who said regarding a U.S. attack on Iraq "The more aggressive the attack
is, the more it will help Israel against the Palestinians. The understanding
would be that what is good to do in Iraq, is also good for here."
[Christian Science Monitor, 8/30/02]); and two members of the National Union
Party, which calls for the "transfer" of the Palestinian population
to neighboring Arab countries (one of the two, Benny Elon, told Evangelical
Christians in the U.S. "Let's turn to the Bible, which says very
clearly... we have to resettle them, to relocate them." (Forward,
10/18/02) Polls show that a fifth of the Israeli population supports the idea
of "transfer."
Three
circumstances are particularly worrisome: if Iraq strikes Israel with missiles,
if Palestinians display public support for Iraq, or if some Palestinian group
launches a large-scale terrorist attack -- it is possible that the Israeli
response might be mass expulsions of Palestinians. Even if the government does
not itself do this, if mobs of angry Israelis try to drive out Palestinians, it
is quite possible that the armed forces will not intervene -- just as they
recently allowed Jewish settlers to prevent Palestinians from harvesting their
olive crops.
Fortunately, the U.S. government, which in general shares the Israeli
government's strategic interests, does not want anything to happen that might
incite Arab opinion against the United States while the war with Iraq is going
on. Whereas Washington might be willing to permit all sorts of quiet atrocities
against the Palestinians, it would likely block any actions that threatened to
become the focus of world attention. The task of the U.S. antiwar movement then
is obvious: we must make sure that any stepped up Israeli attacks on the
Palestinians are widely known and hugely protested.
Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at
William Paterson University in New Jersey. Michael
Albert's latest book is PARECON: Life After Capitalism (Verso,
April 2003). Albert is an editor of Z Magazine and ZNET, where this article first
appeared.