The Iraqi My Lai?  Tragically, Only Half So
by Michael George Smith 
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 31, 2006



 

This week's revelations that Marines in Iraq brutally gunned down 24 unarmed civilians, many women and children, last November is a horrific, if somewhat unsurprising, reminder of the inhumanity inherent in imperialist war. It is a tragedy beyond tragedy, revolting and sickening.   

It has been described by several liberal and leftist bloggers and pundits as the “Iraqi My Lai,” referring to the 1968 massacre in Vietnam by US soldiers of 500 unarmed civilians. Of course, the scale is different, but the basic dynamic is the same -- an extreme form of the racism and dehumanization used by Bush and the military brass to sell the war and convince young men and women to fight and die in a war for the benefit of the rich and powerful.  
 
The significance of the My Lai massacre in the political arena was that it helped to galvanize antiwar opinion in the United States, turned millions more against the war and served as a springboard to a stronger antiwar movement. Unfortunately, given the politics of the leadership of the current antiwar movement, Americans' justifiable revulsion at November's events in Haditha is unlikely to produce a similar outcome this time around -- a tragedy that will prolong the occupation and only lead to more bloodshed.  
 
We have seen this before over the last three years. As the front pages of American newspapers have screamed the atrocities of the occupation -- from the torture at Abu Ghraib to the premeditated destruction of Fallujah -- the antiwar movement has been largely silent. The lack of response to the daily toll the occupation is taking on the people of Iraq is bad enough, but the failure to respond forcefully to these particularly vile events is downright criminal.  
 
Some blame this on the apathy of the American people themselves -- or even more ridiculously, that they somehow support gunning down innocent women and children because they see it as “payback” for September 11th. But this ignores the fact that Americans have now turned against the war in decided numbers, with 59% now saying the war was a mistake -- and that with essentially no visible antiwar movement.  
 
The problem is not that Americans don't care about the war, its costs or the horrendous damage being done to Iraq and its people. The problem is that the leadership of the antiwar movement -- most notably United for Peace and Justice, the largest national antiwar group -- has systematically destroyed any avenue of expression for people to voice their disgust with the war.  
 
In the name of lobbying Congress, electing (often pro-war) Democrats and appealing to those outside the antiwar movement “choir,” they have effectively abandoned the strategy of mass struggle. While the a protest they called in New York City on April 29th drew an estimated 350,000 people, it was deliberately set against the worldwide protests scheduled for March 20th (the third anniversary of the invasion) and served more as a pep rally for Democrats than a protest to bring the troops home now.  
 
On its website, UFPJ says that it will "Organize to make peace and justice issues the focal point of the election-year agenda, and to mobilize voters for peace." How? Whom are they to vote for? Democrats that will spread the war to Iran (Barack Obama, who favors missile strikes), Democrats that want to send more troops to Iraq (John Kerry, who infamously said during the 2004 campaign that Bush wasn't “tough enough” on Fallujah), or Democrats that will simply move troops from Iraq to Kuwait (John Murtha and his so-called “withdrawal” resolution)?  Which of these “peace candidates” should we support?  
 
UFPJ has also established a Legislative Action Network to push for support for “legislation to stop the war” in the Congress. This is difficult to fathom, given that the number of true antiwar bills in Congress -- bills that will actually bring American troops home, dismantle the military bases and leave Iraq for the Iraqis -- is zero. The bills UFPJ supports could be more accurately described as legislation to stop the antiwar movement, and with the criminal collaboration of UFPJ and their ilk, they may succeed in doing just that.  
 
One might be tempted to wonder what, exactly, a person is to do who sees the carnage of Haditha reported on the front pages and wants to do something to end this tragedy and bring the troops home. Unfortunately, the only answer seemingly on offer is to vote for warmongers, support “withdrawal” proposals from warmongers and beg for an end of the war, someday in the unforeseeable future, from warmongers.  
 
No wonder people don't see the point in protesting! 
 
In 1970, the revelation of the My Lai massacre was a turning point in antiwar sentiment and organizing in the US, but only because an independent antiwar movement had, however imperfect its politics, already been established. Indeed, part of the ultimate disintegration of the social movements of the 1960s and 70s was the failure to build not just an independent movement, but an independent political party to carry forth the movements into the electoral arena.   
 
It was this failure that allowed the Democratic Party to co-opt, demobilize and bring back into the mainstream political fold millions of Americans who had been radicalized by the civil rights, antiwar, and women's and gay rights movements. It is a lesson worth heeding today.  
Another lesson, no less valuable, is to be seen in how the earlier movements around desegregation and civil rights produced a core of activists able to apply the lessons of those struggles to the fight against the Vietnam War. The early leaders of the antiwar movement often came from the ranks of those who had worked in the South against legal segregation and in the North against racial discrimination.  
 
As one example, a June, 1965 statement of the Macomb, Mississippi branch of the anti-segregationist Freedom Democratic Party -- issued just two months after the first major antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC -- read, "No one has a right to ask us to risk our lives and kill other colored people in Santo Domingo and Vietnam, so that the white American can get richer."  
 
Historical parallels are no doubt troublesome, but we may be witnessing the beginning of another era in American history when the struggles of an oppressed and marginalized group of society, this time undocumented immigrants, will train a new generation of leaders in the movement against a war in a far off land. To do so, we will first need to abandon the notion that the second party of US imperialism is in any way an ally in that fight.  
 
Should we be successful, no massacre in Iraq will go unanswered by our side again. 
 
Michael George Smith is a student at the University of California, Berkeley. He can be reached at: michael.smith3@gmail.com.

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