Partial Peace, Looming War (By Tom Hayden) by Keith

This essay by Tom Hayden was published in  The Nation this week. His analysis of Obama's relationship to the military establishment is interesing. I ahev soem thoughts about what he says about the anti-war movement that I posted as a comment. 

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Partial Peace, Looming War. 

By Tom Hayden

President Obama has surprised the national security establishment, and not a few in the peace movement, with his Friday commitment to pull all American troops out of Iraq by 2011. 
The Washington Post's Thomas Ricks predicted in his recent authoritative history, The Gamble, that Obama would keep 25,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq as a "residual" force indefinitely. Ricks reports that generals like David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno were expecting at least that many troops, and predicts that the fighting will continue for decades. Obama's announced new policy must shock Ricks and the military leaders he extensively interviewed. Obama's official stance comes after many months of appearing to support the notion of residual forces, which many in the peace movement correctly believed could lead to low-visibility counterinsurgency and a permanent military occupation. Obama said nothing to dissuade the critics until Friday's speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 
In debates within the Obama camp, only John Podesta, transition adviser and head of the Center for American Progress (CAP) was publicly advocating that all troops, including trainers and advisers, be withdrawn within one year. 
Ricks' book is wrong on another related matter, the role of the antiwar movement in this process. Ricks celebrates Petraeus for having pacified Iraq in the face of considerable Democratic doubt, and for winning the political war at home in 2007-2008. Petraeus's stated goal was to speed up the Iraqi clock (the surge) while slowing down the American one (the electoral calendar). Ricks says he pulled it off. After Petraeus's appearance before Congress in September 2007, Rick says, domestic criticism faded away. News coverage of Iraq sharply declined, as networks began to withdraw from Iraq. The March 2008 antiwar demonstrations were "tiny," he writes, with fewer than 1,000 in Washington and 500 in San Francisco. 
Ricks is partly right. Democratic party leaders and big donors pulled back from the issue of Iraq after Petraeus's testimony, and after a MoveOn advertisement accusing the general of betrayal. The resulting crisis in the DC hub of antiwar advocates was never resolved, but the grassroots peace bloc in the Democratic primaries mushroomed anyway, giving Obama a needed edge in Iowa and a string of wins against Hillary Clinton. 
When there was a choice between supporting Barack Obama and attending rallies organized by various Maoists, Trotskyists and neo-anarchists opposed to Obama and electoral politics, the grassroots peace movement headed for the precincts by the thousands. What appeared to Ricks to be a failed antiwar rally in Washington was only evidence that the movement was moving on, becoming a voting force in and around the Obama campaign. 
That turned out to be the right strategy for the peace movement when John McCain was defeated in November, but many continued to wonder--with good reason--whether Obama was promising nothing more than partial peace under a new form of military occupation. Now it is clear that somewhere along the way Obama became persuaded that it made little sense to leave 50,000 troops in Iraq when the Pentagon couldn't win with 150,000, the American economy was collapsing and his hands were full in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
In Iraq the situation remains unpredictable. A brutal nationalist and authoritarian state, with sectarian police and thousands of detainees, looms as the result of a seven-year war. Under Odierno's command, according to Ricks, tens of thousands of military-aged Sunni males (called MAMs) were held in preventive detention. Bob Woodward's recent book goes further, crediting a top-secret US program of extrajudicial killings for imposing a peace of the dead in Baghdad. The Sunni insurgency decided in 2007 that an alliance with the Americans would thwart their Al Qaeda rivals while providing protection against the Shi'a majority. They were right, and 100,000 of the so-called Sons of Iraq were paid $20 million per month not to shoot at Americans. On the other hand, the Shi'a who already were installed in power by the Americans had no reason to fight their sponsors, especially when even the militias loyal to Moktada al-Sadr chose to take a political path to power, at least for the moment. The Iranians will be pleased to see the US troops depart on any schedule, and enjoy good relations with whichever Shi'a party prevails in Iraq. The festering Kurdish crisis could boil over, but is localized. Things could change, but most Iraqis have an interest in seeing the Americans implement the "withdrawal agreement." Who knows, they may even throw flowers to the retreating troops instead of shoes. 
The greater danger from Iraq for Obama may lie at home politically if Republicans and the generals, echoed by the mainstream media, protest Obama's withdrawal plan as naïve or worse. In Ricks's analysis, Obama would not want to risk a confrontation with the military early in his presidency: 
"Like Clinton, Obama would also face the prospect of a de facto alliance between the military and congressional Republicans to stop him from making any major changes. " 
Since Ricks was wrong about Obama's fortitude, he may be wrong on the danger of a backlash as well. The American people are in no mood for a "forever war" in Iraq, whatever the malcontents believe in Washington think tanks. 
That leaves Afghanistan and Pakistan, both in flames. In those places, the politics are reversed, with Obama having promised to defeat Al Qaeda by using Predators in Pakistan and more ground troops in Afghanistan. So far he is keeping his campaign pledges, while still proceeding cautiously in developing an overall plan. Neither the neoconservatives nor the generals are fully happy with Obama's early approach, which they see as pointed towards a diplomatic settlement instead of "winning" militarily. On this point, Secretary Gates seems to have the president's back, repeatedly warning that no military solution is possible. 
Nevertheless, Obama is beginning an escalation with 17,000 troops bringing the American total in Afghanistan to over 50,000. Except for its political rationale, this is a puzzling military gesture. By comparison: 
• In South Vietnam, the US deployed 500,000 troops on a battlefield of 67,000 square miles containing 19 million people
•n Iraq, we deployed 160,000 troops on a battlefield of 168,745 square miles, with 26 million people 
•n Afghanistan, Obama plans to deploy some 60,000 US troops on a battlefield of 250,001 sqare miles with 30 million people 
• And in Pakistan he has 100 special ops on the ground, with $400 million allocated for 85,000 tribal paramilitaries. 
The geography and demographics are staggering. Obama cannot possibly be considering a military solution while deploying fewer American troops on larger and larger battlefields. It is hard to imagine that he plans a Vietnam-style escalation either. At the current rate of Afghanistan spending, the costs will reach over $1 trillion by the end of Obama's first term, while he risks his presidency on economic recovery. 
Until a brave few in Congress begin to catch up, the critics of Afghanistan policy will have to launch a passionate and substantive debate over the "long war" ahead, oppose the 17,000 new troops as simply 17,000 more targets for the Taliban, sketch in the content of a diplomatic settlement and propose an exit strategy. The first arena for debate, recalling the 1965 Vietnam teach-ins on campuses, will be the blogosphere. The second will be Congressional hearings, with critics at the table. And the third phase is likely to be direct dialogue and engagement in the 2010 elections, district by district. At this point, however, the movement will have to engage MoveOn and many liberal Democrats who are mired in the lingering belief that Afghanistan is the "good war." (We might ask, what does that make Pakistan?) 
There are still more battlefields in the long war. Obama will have to be persuaded to say no to an Israeli strike on Iran while he tries to engage Tehran on stability in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately, Obama will also find ways to increase support for Palestinian aspirations, as the most effective approach to lessening Arab and Islamic support for jihad. It's a long way down the road, but his choices of George Mitchell as an envoy along with Charles Freeman to a high intelligence post are the most progressive and independent Middle East appointments in a generation. 

 

Student educate themselves at Rutgers Iraq War Teach-In (Tim) by X.

When Tent State University/Students for a Democratic Society held a Teach-In on the Iraq War, we attempted to make the form of the event correspond to our core principles. Previous teach-ins at Rutgers, dating back to the 1960s, were set up much like a typical college lecture: a variety of experts (often professors) would sit at a panel and explain their views about the war.

Most antiwar events on the Rutgers campus, even those held within the past few years, have followed a consistent pattern: organizers would pick and invite an "expert" on some aspect of Iraq, then raise the requisite amount of money the speaker demanded. The speaker would come to campus, lecture the students, often be feted on the organizers' tab, and then with a hearty thanks would be on his or her merry way.

This arrangement (of course, very convenient for those making their livings off the public speaking circuit!) was justified by the rationales that 1) only a speaker with celebrity status would attract student and/or media attention to the event, 2) students would only listen to speakers who had "authority", and 3) said speakers were speaking from a position of authority.

At some point, organizers with Tent State/SDS became aware that this arrangement was in apparent contradiction to our egalitarian and democratic principles. We sat down together and thought of how we could make our event more participatory, democratic and populist, and we arrived at a few innovative ideas:

The first element with which we sought to infuse revolutionary democracy into the Teach-In was through the use of surveys. The surveys asked students to prioritize what they most wanted to know about the conflict in Iraq, by asking open-ended questions such as: "In particular, what would you be most interested in learning about the history or economic motives about the invasion of Iraq?" Students' answers were then to be compiled and used as a guide to prioritize the research and the presentation to be done.

The use of the questionnaires was a highly successful way of engaging with students. Using the survey went hand-in-hand with our motto of "organize everywhere", which we took seriously, surveying students wherever we could find them: in the dorms, in the lecture halls, in the cafeteria, in the lounge – anywhere organizers could reach their classmates. We felt that we would be remiss in our duty if as student organizers we were not engaging with other students in discussions about the occupation of Iraq every single day. "After all," we thought, "organizing students is sort of what we're supposed to be doing!"

The questionnaires functioned as a useful organizing tool all of the following ways: 1) it gave organizers an excuse to engage students in a conversation about the war, 2) it allowed them to discuss the war in a very non-threatening, non-confrontational manner, 3) it created a perception of Tent State/SDS organizers as friendly, approachable, and actually concerned with the students' opinions, 4) it put to lie once and for all the hoary canard, a mantra of bad activists everywhere, that young people are apathetic.

Organizers followed up on the good will of the student body by taking into account the many different questions students asked, which were used to shape the content of the Teach-In. Using the questionnaires created a more participatory, responsive Teach-In as, 1) students who could not attend the Teach-In were still able to shape the content, 2) for those students who were able to attend, the information presented was geared toward their concerns, and 3) in the true spirit of democracy, it gave a voice to the opposition.

This was an object lesson in the concrete practice of revolutionary democracy – instead of taking the individualist approach and asking: "What can I do to end the war?", we posed the question from a socialist or collectivist point of view: "How do we involve as many people as possible in actively shaping the antiwar movement?"

As we analyzed questionnaires, we learned more about Rutgers students' perceptions of the war. We found respondents knowledgeable, willing to admit ignorance, and eager to learn more. This should have hardly surprised us, after all, these are (or ought to be) the hallmarks of good students everywhere!

Organizers met once a week to code the results of the surveys into a statistical form – tough work which was both onerous and tedious. However, using meeting times to actually get work accomplished was essential to the Teach-In happening. When we surveyed student responses, we found that the vast majority of students were opposed to the war.

Some examples of our findings were:

18% of respondents wanted to know more about the economic motives behind the war.

10% were curious about the role of Iran in the conflict.

20% wanted to know the effect a U.S. withdrawal would have on the stability of Iraq.

This sort of knowledge was useful not only in shaping the Teach-In, but by providing an empirical basis for our understanding of antiwar sentiments among the student body at Rutgers, will provide us with invaluable insight into the deep level of sympathy we can expect to encounter from students as we organize for the upcoming 2008 Rutgers Antiwar Walkout. It confirms our motto of "Assume support" which you can read more about in the Walkout Organizing Guide available at piratecaucus.blogspot.com.

Once we had figured out the questions students had, we had to go about figuring out the answers. When we started the school year and began organizing for the Teach-In, we realized that our team was made up of less than half a dozen activists with any experience organizing whatsoever. The majority of people who would research and present their findings at the Teach-In were first-year students and first-time organizers, the majority of whom were recruited in the run-up to the Teach-In.

In this situation it would have been much easier for us to raise some money, invite a guest lecturer and focus on agitating for the event. But while collective research and participatory planning made our event in line with our democratic principles, refusing to have outside speakers and focusing on the teach-in being student-researched and student-led made the event radically populist. We said we didn't need pundits, experts, administrators or politicians to educate us. In fact, these people had failed us, and we had to start taking matters into our own hands and practicing democracy ourselves. We told our fellow students that we don't have to feel powerless or passive when faced with circumstances not of their own choosing. We weren't experts. We were a group of ordinary students just like them, but together we came up with more than we could have on our own. We got together and started researching, taking action, and that taught us we had power collectively.

The route we had decided to pursue meant that in addition to raising money to book a cool space (we chose to take over our university's chapel, a beautiful nineteenth century building on campus) and agitating for the event, we would also be spending a lot of time surveying and talking with students, compiling their responses, researching about the occupation and synthesizing our findings into a flashy, gripping presentation, then practicing it and delivering it to our peers.

What we decided to do was to go ahead and do it the hard way. It is a testament to the gumption and collective confidence of our team, as well as to our revolutionary democratic ideals which told us to trust in the abilities of our newest organizers, which allowed us to succeed.

Needless to say, all our hard work paid off. Over a hundred people attended the Rutgers Iraq War Teach-In. We succeeded in gaining significant media attention (campus, local and regional), educating ourselves and empowering our fellow students. Half a dozen new organizers were recruited from the event, and soon got to work on the Antiwar Walkout as well as the many other campaigns we're running. Students were attracted to a message of mass empowerment through the practice of democracy, without relying on the use of outside authorities, which we hold to be the greatest lesson of the 2007 Rutgers Iraq War Teach-In.