Along with millions of people around the globe, I have marched repeatedly against the war. Along with many of my loved ones, I have walked through the streets of Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and most recently, those of New York City. Individually, each of us is but one of the mass at such events. Yet together it is precisely that mass which has achieved something unprecedented in world history: An ongoing global protest against one nation’s attempt to dominate the world through military force.
According to our politicians and pundits, it’s now time to put aside our differences and rally behind the flag. Regardless of whether or not there was a compelling need for the war, we are now being told to step back and say nothing as bombs fall on Baghdad. For the bipartisan hawks to say this is one thing, but for those who disagree with the war to do so is quite another. Here, for example, is what The Nation’s Eric Alterman said the other day: “For me, the antiwar movement such as it was, is over. We lost. It’s time to wish the best for our soldiers and the victims of this war and focus on building a better future.”
No. Like the war (and occupation) itself, the antiwar movement has only just begun. The cause of peace doesn’t stop just because bombs have started dropping. “A better future” for all of us would be a world in which war was genuinely the option of last resort, rather than what it is here, a first strike against an already neutralized threat. So why should people of conscience not call for pulling back, rather than endorse the use of “overwhelming force” promised by General Tommy Franks? The safety of our troops on the battlefield is in no way threatened by people calling for them to come home. It is those who want the war to move on to Teheran, Damascus and beyond who really are putting American lives in harm’s way.
Like anyone in or around New York City on September 11th, I watched and smelled the horrors of burning buildings full of lives unnecessarily being extinguished. As the “shock and awe” campaign commences, I can only relive that experience, and wonder what gives us the right to destroy a place not directly connected to the damage done here. But simply watching the current horrors unfold on television is lonely and miserable, with one’s only power being to turn off Wolf Blitzer. On the streets, however, nobody is alone.
Speaking from a Jerry Bruckheimer-designed set the other day, General Franks described a strategy “characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility and by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen”— in short, “a campaign unlike any other in history.” Except for the munitions, let’s hope that the antiwar movement will continue to be similarly creative. Each and every time that we protest, we “shock” and “surprise” the world by reminding it that there are plenty of Americans for whom war is not a way of life.
