by Plutonium Page
The second anniversary of the Iraq war is March 19, 2005, and there's a new group that will be participating in the protests. Here's their mission statement:
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is a group of veterans who have served since September 11th, 2001 including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are committed to saving lives and ending the violence in Iraq by an immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces. We also believe that the governments that sponsored these wars are indebted to the men and women who were forced to fight them and must give their Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen the benefits that are owed to them upon their return home.
Karen Houppert of The Nation has written an excellent article about IVAW. Some excerpts are below the fold.
The article begins with the story one of IVAW's co-founders, and a description of how they will interact with other anti-war activists:
Until the summer of 2003, Michael Hoffman was a US Marine with the Tenth Regiment. Hoffman, who says he believed from the beginning that this was a war for oil, had been slated to get out of the service before his unit shipped out to Kuwait in February 2003. But two days before Hoffman's time was up, his sergeant called him to let him know that the Secretary of the Navy had instituted "stop loss," which meant that those soldiers deemed necessary to the war could not get out of the service when promised; Hoffman would be going to Iraq instead of home to Allentown, Pennsylvania. What Hoffman saw when his unit went into Iraq on March 20 only hardened his opposition to the war. "Seeing the civilian casualties and the horrible things that were done and the destruction we laid on that country, it seemed pretty clear to me that we never had the Iraqis' best interests in mind," he says.
Today, Hoffman is a co-founder of the fledgling organization Iraq Veterans Against the War and also a centerpiece of the peace movement's emerging strategy. Antiwar activists are determined to make the military a major pillar of the movement, both by homing in on one of the war effort's weak spots - the military's faltering campaign to recruit new soldiers - and by embracing antiwar troops. Perhaps recalling the late but powerful entrance of the voices of Vietnam vets in the protests of that era - like, say, the youthful Lieut. John Kerry, who once spoke eloquently about what he saw in Vietnam - today's 1960s-activist-stacked peace movement hopes to be more strategic about the military's role.
How the various groups hope to convince everyone (up to members of Congress) to take a stand:
The effort dovetails nicely with the rest of the peace movement's counter-recruiting efforts, which are newly focused on the National Guard. "This is just one part of the larger struggle to deny the government the troops it needs to fight the war," explains MFSO's [Military Families Speak Out] Richardson. Banding together with the American Friends Service Committee, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and United for Peace and Justice, MFSO intends to bring the war home by exposing the local impact of the war on soldiers, families, communities and states through a focus on the National Guard. Because as many as 50 percent of some states' National Guard troops are deployed at any given time, residents are left without the state-based emergency response teams they may need. "This is an issue that state legislatures can and must take on," insists Richardson. Not only do antiwar activists hope to expose this vulnerability and propel more states to adopt resolutions like Vermont's; they are ultimately going for a trickle-up effect. If grassroots activists can persuade a city councilor to support their cause, and then a state legislator, eventually members of Congress might feel they have a supportive base for taking a stand. To that end, peace activists are tying the cost of the war to local issues. Libraries and schools are under-funded, the argument goes, because money is going instead to fund military adventures. "We have to say that Bush's budgets are immoral and we are looking for moral ways to use our money," says Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, an organization of women for peace.
How will the soldiers' involvement affect the progressive movement? One possibility:
Ultimately, there is a danger that the soldier's perspective, so crucial to the peace movement now, may prove problematic to the larger progressive movement that activists hope this will spawn. After all, for many soldiers this is a one-platform plank, making their immediate asset their long-term flaw. "So many of the other activists at this United for Peace and Justice convention can be written off by Americans as crazy pinko commie lefties," Hoffman told me privately, after he had addressed the larger assembly of peace activists in the St. Louis convention hall. "But we're the vets who've been there and fought, and it seems it's hard for us to be dismissed. We've been to Iraq. We've seen it. We know it's wrong. We have to end it." He shrugs and raises his hands, palms up, as if he holds a tidy package. "It's very simple. There's not a lot of other issues we're talking about."
Definitely check out the rest of the IVAW website. Lots of good stuff there. Their collection of links to external sites includes links to the stories/organizations about GI objectors. Kevin Benderman isn't the only one.
Finally, Vietnam veteran and truthout.org contributor John Cory put together a Flash video tribute to the lost and wounded Iraq war veterans. Click here for the video.
Deja Vu All Over Again- Here's an op-ed I had printed in 4 CT papers last fall:
Kerry and Vets Against the War were Patriots
by James S. McKay
The announcement that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is attempting to broadcast an attack on John Kerry by former prisoners of war in Vietnam is intended to paint the Senator as a traitor. While it is understandable that these men felt betrayed, the actions of John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War helped me and thousands of other young Americans and young soldiers during the early 1970s and should be regarded as courageous.
In 1973 I became eligible for the draft. Fortunately, by that time the war was winding down and young men were no longer being shipped off to Vietnam. As a result, my peers and I didn't have to scramble for a deferment, join the National Guard or flee to Canada in order to avoid serving in a war that we believed was wrong. A year or two earlier, and thousands of us would have been on our way to combat.
Our good fortune was due to the relentless pressure of the antiwar movement, which was largely made up of middle class kids from families like mine who were scared and angry at the prospect of dying for an uncertain cause. Yet kids like us were easily dismissed as agitators, cowards, and "hippies." Our protests were derided as unpatriotic and we were accused of undermining our troops in the field. Our voices lacked credibility.
The Vietnam Veterans Against the War changed everything. They were a tiebreaker in the public debate. Here was a group of men who, unlike us children of privilege, knew what they were talking about and could not be easily dismissed. They knew the war from the inside out and had arrived at their views honestly. Their patriotism was beyond reproach, yet they had arrived at the same conclusions as the hippies. Maybe this antiwar talk wasn't just for cowards after all. Maybe they had a point. Maybe we should get out.
Tapes of Richard Nixon in the Oval Office confirm that the actions of John Kerry and the V.V.A.W. brought enormous pressure on the White House to end the war. Their efforts saved thousands of kids from having to go and hastened the safe return of thousands of others who were already there. Their bravery in pursuing the peace was a true act of patriotism.
Some generations are called to defend our nation by fighting great wars. John Kerry and the Vietnam Vets Against the War defended our nation by fighting for peace. Perhaps it is time for history to repeat itself.
Posted by: jsmckay | March 16, 2005 at 10:08
Deja Vu All Over Again- Here's an op-ed I had printed in 4 CT papers last fall:
Kerry and Vets Against the War were Patriots
by James S. McKay
The announcement that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is attempting to broadcast an attack on John Kerry by former prisoners of war in Vietnam is intended to paint the Senator as a traitor. While it is understandable that these men felt betrayed, the actions of John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War helped me and thousands of other young Americans and young soldiers during the early 1970s and should be regarded as courageous.
In 1973 I became eligible for the draft. Fortunately, by that time the war was winding down and young men were no longer being shipped off to Vietnam. As a result, my peers and I didn't have to scramble for a deferment, join the National Guard or flee to Canada in order to avoid serving in a war that we believed was wrong. A year or two earlier, and thousands of us would have been on our way to combat.
Our good fortune was due to the relentless pressure of the antiwar movement, which was largely made up of middle class kids from families like mine who were scared and angry at the prospect of dying for an uncertain cause. Yet kids like us were easily dismissed as agitators, cowards, and "hippies." Our protests were derided as unpatriotic and we were accused of undermining our troops in the field. Our voices lacked credibility.
The Vietnam Veterans Against the War changed everything. They were a tiebreaker in the public debate. Here was a group of men who, unlike us children of privilege, knew what they were talking about and could not be easily dismissed. They knew the war from the inside out and had arrived at their views honestly. Their patriotism was beyond reproach, yet they had arrived at the same conclusions as the hippies. Maybe this antiwar talk wasn't just for cowards after all. Maybe they had a point. Maybe we should get out.
Tapes of Richard Nixon in the Oval Office confirm that the actions of John Kerry and the V.V.A.W. brought enormous pressure on the White House to end the war. Their efforts saved thousands of kids from having to go and hastened the safe return of thousands of others who were already there. Their bravery in pursuing the peace was a true act of patriotism.
Some generations are called to defend our nation by fighting great wars. John Kerry and the Vietnam Vets Against the War defended our nation by fighting for peace. Perhaps it is time for history to repeat itself.
Posted by: jsmckay | March 16, 2005 at 10:09
Oops. Sorry about the double post.
Posted by: jsmckay | March 16, 2005 at 10:12
Whacha wanna bet the megamedia, if they notice at all, have a difficult time attaching "patriotic" to the IVAW? I most heartily applaud their efforts, but I hope they remember the history of the VVAW and watch their backs. Spies lurk. Infiltrators divert. Agents provocateurs lead astray.
Posted by: Meteor Blades | March 16, 2005 at 13:37