-But unto what end? One can't oppose the war -- a particular -war or the everlasting war of class -- by pretending to support -it, regardless of how repugnant one's position is to the -vengeful, the fearful, the aggressive and the greedy -- the -overwhelming majority, in short. See Matthew 5:13.
But I don't oppose "war" or any other particular means-- I take positions on various ends and determine whether those means are the effective and morally justified ones to attain those ends. The problem is that ends are often mixed as are means, so the argument that needs to be made is not binary -- yes or no -- but one of broader strategic viewpoints to change peoples minds.
>I think you're right about the failure of the anti-war
>movement of the '60s and '70s, but my diagnosis is that it
>was too compromised, too anti-intellectual, too popular to
>have any center or message. Hence many of its youthful
>participants are now, in middle age, enthusiasts for war
>and imperialism, and many of them were so well in advance of
>September 11th.
Well we differ on whether Vietnam is equivalent to Afghanistan; I think it is quite possible to be intellectually and morally consistent and to have opposed Vietnam and support war in Afghanistan. I don't agree with it, but I recognize the different ends and means used in each, so a different calculation than mine could advance it. Barney Frank was asked about his position change and without blinking an eye, he noted that the US was morally wrong in Vietnam and deserved to lose the war, but is the morally right actor compared to Bin Laden and the Taliban.
As for imperialism-- why is that bad? Some people have historically supported imperialism done for moral purposes, so merely repeating the word like a swear word is not going to convince anyone. What is happening in the world because of US military actions that would be better without its actions? If you cannot convince people that the world would be better without US action, then why should they listen? And in a world where the alternative seems to be Saddam Hussein, Milosevic and Bin Laden, the US begins to look like the better alternative.
Now, that's the simple dichotomy, but the anti-war movement has fed into under the umbrella of IAC-style politics in defending such folks as THE opponents of US "imperialism." The antiglobalization movement was articulating an alternative approach to critiquing US economic and political power, but that seems to have disappeared into the maw of old-style antiwar rhetoric that makes heros of mass murderers.
-- Nathan Newman