Is the Antiwar Movement Back?
In this puff piece on the protests over Israel's incursion into Lebanon, the author claims that recent events have reignited the antiwar movement. According to the article,
"[i]n the past three weeks alone, 3,000 new people have registered on ANSWER's website, and the group has helped plan a five-city protest against Israeli aggression that will occur on August 12."
The article also notes that groups that have generally stayed home, like Lebanese-Americans, are coming out, and that there is greater cooperation between Muslim and Arab organizations on the one hand, and umbrella organizations like ANSWER on the other.
Lost amidst the bubbly excitement of the piece, however, is any reflection over why the antiwar movement should need reinvigoration. Unlike Vietnam, where protest was nonexistent to start and then mounted to widespread, sustained, and intense displays by the late 1960s, here it has been nearly the opposite. The largest protests occured mainly before the war began, protest has been sporadic, and it has not improved in its organization.
The article ends where it should have begun - not with heady excitement that another outrage has provoked a momentary response, but with reflection about how to sustain political interest and expand political perspectives. The move from reaction to action is what the antiwar movement has failed to achieve. It seems, instead, to prefer to move from crisis to crisis.
"[i]n the past three weeks alone, 3,000 new people have registered on ANSWER's website, and the group has helped plan a five-city protest against Israeli aggression that will occur on August 12."
The article also notes that groups that have generally stayed home, like Lebanese-Americans, are coming out, and that there is greater cooperation between Muslim and Arab organizations on the one hand, and umbrella organizations like ANSWER on the other.
Lost amidst the bubbly excitement of the piece, however, is any reflection over why the antiwar movement should need reinvigoration. Unlike Vietnam, where protest was nonexistent to start and then mounted to widespread, sustained, and intense displays by the late 1960s, here it has been nearly the opposite. The largest protests occured mainly before the war began, protest has been sporadic, and it has not improved in its organization.
The article ends where it should have begun - not with heady excitement that another outrage has provoked a momentary response, but with reflection about how to sustain political interest and expand political perspectives. The move from reaction to action is what the antiwar movement has failed to achieve. It seems, instead, to prefer to move from crisis to crisis.
2 Comments:
I think you are ignoring a key motivator for the antiwar protestors in the Vietnam war that is absent in the Iraq war even though popular sentiment turned much, much more quickly against the Iraq war. One of the key issues I see is the absence of a draft in this war. An all volunteer army means that most Americans are not directly at risk themselves (or their sons and daughters). If risk is transferred to someone else, it is harder to get people out to resist, selfish as it might seem. On the other hand, the inability of the military to adequately recruit more troops is having the effect of starving the beast. The US can't increase troops on the ground and can't afford to expand into other military acts of aggression. So it can be argued that anti-war sentiment (especially anti-draft sentiment), is putting the brakes on the empire building exercises of this administration because they know they will be unable to initiate a draft without completely destroying any remaining support they might have. Anti-war attitudes are winning by making wars more difficult to wage, they just havn't won (yet).
I think you are ignoring a key motivator for the antiwar protestors in the Vietnam war that is absent in the Iraq war even though popular sentiment turned much, much more quickly against the Iraq war. One of the key issues I see is the absence of a draft in this war. An all volunteer army means that most Americans are not directly at risk themselves (or their sons and daughters). If risk is transferred to someone else, it is harder to get people out to resist, selfish as it might seem. On the other hand, the inability of the military to adequately recruit more troops is having the effect of starving the beast. The US can't increase troops on the ground and can't afford to expand into other military acts of aggression. So it can be argued that anti-war sentiment (especially anti-draft sentiment), is putting the brakes on the empire building exercises of this administration because they know they will be unable to initiate a draft without completely destroying any remaining support they might have. Anti-war attitudes are winning by making wars more difficult to wage, they just havn't won (yet).
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