In April, FPIF published an essay by historian Lawrence Wittner on the future of the U.S. peace movement. His call for a large, national peace organization generated a flurry of responses, which we published collectively in What’s Next for the Peace Movement. Here we publish three final comments from Robin Hahnel, Michael Foley, and Matt Meyer.
Foreign Policy In Focus invited a group of peace activists and scholars to respond to Lawrence Wittner’s proposal for a strong, national peace organization. Below you can read 11 responses to his essay How the Peace Movement Can Win.
The peace movement is a very important part of American life. Much like the labor movement, the racial justice movement, and the women’s movement, the peace movement is comprised of an array of organizations and millions of supporters. It maintains a visible public presence through meetings, demonstrations, vigils, leaflets, letters to the editor, newspaper ads, art, music, lobbying, and occasional civil disobedience actions. In addition, it inspires the loyalty of prominent cultural figures, intellectuals, and politicians. And many of its key goals—for example, ending the war in Iraq, fostering international cooperation, and securing nuclear disarmament—have broad popular support.
The recent U.S. election was an exercise in redemption. At a time when many throughout the world had written off the American electorate as lifeless putty in the hands of Karl Rove, the voters woke up to deliver the Republican Party its worst blow in the last quarter of a century. Not only independents and centrists voted to repudiate Republican candidates, but a third of evangelicalsÂBush’s fundamentalist Christian baseÂvoted for Democrats.
The images most Americans have of the recent war in Lebanon are of shattered cities, dead civilians, and terrified people bunkered down in basements or picking their way through blasted streets. The carnage of modern war draws the media as ancient battles called forth the Valkyries.
The Bush administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s attacks on Lebanon is emblematic of the profound tragedy of U.S. policy in the region over the past five years. The administration has relied largely on force rather than diplomacy. It has shown a willingness to violate international legal norms, a callousness regarding massive civilian casualties, a dismissive attitude toward our closest allies whose security interests we share, and blatant double standards on UN Security Council resolutions, non-proliferation issues, and human rights. A broad consensus of moderate Arabs, Middle East scholars, independent security analysts, European leaders, and others have recognized howÂeven putting important moral and legal issues asideÂsuch policies have been a disaster for the national security interests of the United States and other Western nations. These policies have only further radicalized the region and increased support for Hezbollah and other extremists and supporters of terrorism.
The U.S. Congress failed in recent weeks to take even symbolic steps to encourage a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, even though the majority of Americans support an end to the war. Many anti-war advocates are hoping that the mid-term U.S. elections in November will push Congress into Democratic hands and thereby increase the chances of ending the war. Don’t hold your breath.
Oil rich, politically turbulent Central Asia finds itself at the center of a new great game of power politics. Both China and Russia, the two dominant powers of mainland Asia, regard this subregion of transitional states as part of their “near abroad.” Since September 11 and the ensuing war on terrorism, Central Asia’s geopolitics have been further complicated by the new military presence of the United States, whose troops are now stationed in China’s and Russia’s backyard.
This past eight months of bloodletting between Israelis and Palestinians is no more than an additional, exhausting chapter in a decades old conflict that seems today more polarized than ever. When Israel invaded the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in 1967, the occupation of Palestine was born. With this birth came a second Palestinian Diaspora (the first was in 1948 when Israel was established) and the reality that an entire population–1.2 million Palestinians–would become totally controlled by the Israeli military. Over three decades later, no one expected to see the occupation enduring, or to see Palestinians still able to resist.