Wanted: an Anti-War Movement. It's Time to Put Peace Before Politicians

[Karmadillo]

http://counterpunch.org/benjamin06152011.html

It's Time to Put Peace Before Politicians
Wanted: an Anti-War Movement
By MEDEA BENJAMIN and CHARLES DAVIS

After campaigning as the candidate of change, the man awarded a Nobel Prize for peace has given the world nothing but more war. Yet despite Barack Obama's continuation – nay, escalation – of the worst aspects of George W. Bush's foreign policy, including his very own illegal war in Libya, you’d be hard-pressed to find the large-scale protests and outrage from the liberal establishment that characterized his predecessor's reign (and only seems to pop up when a Republican's the one dropping the bombs).

That's not for a lack of things to protest. Since taking office, Obama has doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan and now looks set to break his pledge to begin a significant withdrawal in July. He has unilaterally committed the nation to an unapologetically illegal war in Libya and in two years has authorized more drone strikes in Pakistan than his predecessor authorized in two terms, with one in three of their victims reportedly civilians. In Yemen, he has targeted a U.S. citizen for assassination and approved a cluster bomb strike that, according to Amnesty International, killed 35 innocent women and children.

But these war crimes, which ought to shock the consciences of the president's liberal supporters, haven't spurred the sort of popular protest we witnessed under Bush the Lesser. At a recent congressional hearing on the bloated war budget, a handful of CODEPINK activists were the sole dissenters. Thousands poured into the streets to cheer Osama bin Laden's death, but no Americans were in the streets decrying the drone attack that killed dozens of Pakistani civilians weeks earlier.

While die-hard grassroots peace activists continue to bravely protest U.S. militarism, with 52 people arrested last month protesting outside a nuclear weapons factory in Kansas City – if they'd been Tea Partiers protesting Obamacare, you may have heard of them – there's no denying that the peace movement has taken a beating.

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[spooked911]

1. unfortunately most people are too busy trying to get by in this economy

to worry about the wars, even though the wars are huge part of our overall economic problem and are immoral to boot.

[Scuba]

2. We're at war? Who knew?

[razorman]

5. Yeah. Four wars. Time to get the hell out of all of them.

[bahrbearian]

3. Meet the New Boss.........

[progressoid]

4. Start drafting kids.

That will get people motivated.

[Erose999]

6. Anti-war most certainly isn't synonomous with "Democrat" is it? Obama and the "circle D" democrats

definitely let me down on that regard.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. Thank you Medea!

I am proud to have cast a vote for you as my Senator, and I ma happy to someone still attempting to fight the good fight on these fucked wars. :applause:

[gratuitous]

8. Start with the premise that All War Is Sin

It's surprising how innovative and creative solutions to problems can be when violence is seen as a last resort, rather than as the preferred resort, the first resort, the last resort and every other resort.

One of the major obstacles in this effort (besides the obvious "publicity" one cited near the end of the excerpt) is that by advocating for non-violence, peace activists are bucking the national religion of the United States. While there may be endless pointless discussions about how "Christian" the United States is or isn't, there is no denying that we believe in the power of violence to redeem any situation. Despite the lousy track record that violence has in resolving difficulties, we turn to it with a fervor and a passion that would shame exemplars such as Moses, Mohammed, Jesus and Gandhi. We'll invoke violence for just about anything, but most particularly as a response to violence inflicted on us, for we believe deep down that violence will end violence, and that violence will drive out violence. We may say otherwise, as the precepts are nonsensical on their face, but our actions betray our words.

Advocates for peace, when they rise to the level of notice (ignoring them as hopeless dreamers seems the effective countermeasure), are attacked and derided with a ferocity reserved for heretics of the True Faith. For that is indeed what they are. Even - and perhaps especially - those who should make common cause with peace advocates are the ones pushed to lead the charge against them. Parents of military age young people, young people themselves (steeped in the Faith from their earliest days), and others who stand to lose the most from violence and militarism are such good acolytes that they make the arguments of the clerics for them. Defense contractors, captains of military industry, and the military generals themselves rarely have to be out front to advocate for the cause that puts so much money in their pockets despite the terrible cost. No, it's the persons who do the actual killing and dying who paradoxically wish to employ violence, violence that gets visited on them, but not on the ones who profit from it.

[opihimoimoi]

9. WAR is WASTE...we are fucking ourselves with old out moded systems

[drpepper67]

10. I wonder what's the longest the US has gone without military action of one sort

or another in the last 100 years?

A couple months maybe?

[ej510]

11. The Government won't respond unless it is minimum 50-100 million people in the streets.

[Blue Owl]

12. War has become Business

Business as usual...

:(