Resistance...

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            An ABC/Washington Post  poll at the end of last year found that while 56% of the those surveyed declared that the war has been a mistake, 58% believe that  US forces must remain in Iraq to restore stability.  This shows how successful the Bush and indeed Kerry campaigns have been in blinding the public from the fact that it is the presence of US troops that is the principal cause of the violence.  Although that violence is being increasingly directed by Iraqis against Iraqis, it is driven by anger at those who are regarded as collaborators of the US.  To be sure it is also driven by those Iraqis who are afraid of losing power in the impending elections—if they do occur.  But it has been the US invasion and occupation and the knowledge that the US intends to maintain control no matter who is elected that are the underlying reasons for the violence.  If not only our troops but also US contractors and investors were to leave and allow the Iraqis to work out their own fate together, they have 4,000 years of political experience (whereas we have only some 200 years) to know how to arrange their own affairs with a minimum of turmoil.

            Americans after all cannot claim to be experts in democracy enough to show the Iraqis how to do it.  Two fraudulent national elections demonstrate otherwise.  Both the Democrats and Republicans disenfranchised the citizenry by not fielding a peace candidate.  Those Democratic members of the Senate and House and other party members who earnestly were for peace nevertheless permitted the peace issue to be eliminated a year ago during the nominating season and when it came time to designing a party platform. Both Kerry and Bush were for pursuing the war in Iraq to a successful conclusion; Kerry only claimed that Bush mishandled the war, not that the war was wrong.  Kerry remains the titular head of the Democratic Party, and his policies for the time being remain its policies.  We can hope that the party will return to its better instincts, but for the time being it is of little help.

However, there are glimmers of hope.  Rep. Lynn Woolsey of the counties just north of San Francisco became the first person in Congress to call for an immediate pullout of US troops, when she spoke out publicly on January 3.  Hopefully, as vice-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, she can encourage some of her colleagues to similarly stand up and say “No!” to the war.  But even if they would, they would remain a minority even of Democrats, now more outnumbered in both houses than they were before.  Still they need to be encouraged to give public legitimacy to the position of the opponents of the war and become a nucleus of resistance in Congress that in time may become more outspoken and powerful.

            But now more than ever before, peace is in the hands of the people, ordinary citizens who share  moral outrage at the slaughter perpetrated in their names and with their hard-earned tax dollars.  We have marched and campaigned against this war for more than two years.  Millions of people have been in the streets, but this has been insufficient to prevent the assault on Iraq or to prevent the occupation.   We believe that marching and demonstrations are important to build the peace movement by showing to those who haven’t been in the streets but share the concerns of the marchers that they are not alone.  Bush need not be disturbed by the big colorful marches, if that is all his opposition does. While necessary, such demonstrations are not sufficient. 

We have to re-frame the peace movement to focus on obstructing the military-industrial complex.  We cannot count on  our representatives in Congress withholding the funds from the administration to prosecute its war.  We have to ratchet up  the peace movement and introduce to it techniques that have not been recently employed but have  proved their effectiveness in the past.  In particular we should employ the economic sanctions against the military-industrial that were effective during the Vietnam conflict, South African apartheid, farmworkers’ and the global sweatshopping struggles.   These would included boycotts of the consumer goods of major arms contractors like General Electric.  It would also involve the disinvestment by institutions like those of the faith community and universities as well as union pensions funds of their stocks in the military industrial.  Here parishioners, clergy, students and faculty could play important roles.  

Most powerful, there are work stoppages, whereby across the board in all lines of work, not just the military-industrial complex, working people would withdraw their services for periods of time.  To minimize risk it would be worth considering escalating stoppages, whereby one day a week, for instance a Wednesday, would be chosen and workers would lay off the job, say, for 15 minutes the first week and threaten to double that in subsequent weeks on the same day if the Bush administration did not change course.  This would make it easier for workers to begin when the layoff would be short, and as more workers learned about and were attracted to the tactic, numbers would provide security as the stoppages lengthened. In spite of the fact that many union contracts with the employer make it difficult to strike, there are a variety of means that they have developed to evade those constraints.

Each of these economic sanctions depends on working people recognizing that their principal power lies in their power as producers, consumers and investors.  When they withhold that power, the economy is brought to its knees.   Gandhi demonstrated that the power of non-cooperation and even defiance of government and business as usual can have decisive force. 

Already there have begun talks in activist circles, in the faith community and organized labor about these tactics.  Resolutions against the war and occupation in Iraq and to bring the troops home now have been adopted by a number of union and labor councils.  US Labor Against the War, which formed more than a year ago has urged such resolutions, as has the Million Worker March, that gathered before the Lincoln Memorial last October and continues to build progressive politics among labor rank-and-file .  The voters of San Francisco  on November 2 passed by over 60% Proposition N, which calls for a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, and the city’s board of supervisors voted similarly.

These economic sanctions would require widespread national support to succeed, and it might well begin with resolutions by local groups—trade unions, churches and synagogues, student bodies, boards of trustees, city and state councils to bring the troops home now and to back them up with economic sanctions. At some point the majority of Congress would get the message.  A strong showing by a peace movement using such tactics could not only force a pullout of US forces from Iraq;  it would change the political landscape of this country.

There are other tactics that the peace movement should pursue such as heightened counter-recruitment education and demos.  We want to solicit other ideas from those who read this for bringing non-violent pressure on the new Bush administration not only to withdraw troops from Iraq but also to abandon its National Security Strategy promulgated in 2002 that provides the rationale for US military supremacy as the means to global economic domination.  This means also formulating an alternative rationale for peace, justice and the sustainability of life on our planet.

–Alan Barnett