-That's pure conjecture, and a pretty dubious one at that. Given that some -depressingly high percentage of the populace thinks that Saddam Hussein was -involved with the WTC bombings, why not say that the fatal flaw of antiwar -organizing was the inability to disspell this misconception?
The latter was also no doubt a problem but since we were discussing why the warhawks managed to convey a clear message of why we should fight this war and there is no doubt that the "liberation of Iraq" has been a clear motive given for the war, it is hardly conjecture to focus on the antiwar movement's failure to posit an alternative method of liberation.
As I said, when so much of the left is saying it's none of our business whether Kurds are being gassed or human rights being violated, it's not surprising that a large chunk of even liberal-minded people could be convinced that war was the only option to help the Iraqi people. Many of those same people distrust Bush's motives but think that the objective results will still be better for the population than inaction. Hitchens and other liberal warhawks (Josh Marshall being another example) had largely been in that camp before the war, although his recent pronouncments have been shorn of that earlier healthier skepticism.
Lou Paulsen argues that there is no "example of an anti-war movement successfully preventing ANY U.S. imperialist war." It's hard to prove a negative but there is little question that the Reagan administration was looking to invade Central America. While it was able to significantly undermine the Nicaraguan revolution, partly because of mistakes by that regime itself that played into its hands, it was unable to launch a military invasion, largely because of successful grassroots education by a range of groups from CISPES to religious groups. I would argue that in the early 19th century, the antiwar movement that followed the Mexican-American war prevented further war with Mexico, a goal of many southern US leaders who wished to extend slavery there.
It is convenient for the left to assume their own incapcity for success, since it erases any responsibility to figure out what they did wrong and how they failed. But I would argue that the Central America solidarity movement, which articulated clear values on how to promote human rights throughout the region, was a far better model than the simplistic "no war" organizing that happened in both the first and second Gulf Wars.
The reality is that between those two wars, the antiwar movement failed to build a cohesive public education message in defense of Kurdish and Shia human rights and pressure for non-violent strategies that would have been seen as an effective alternative to war. That is a failure of both the groups like Workers World Party who had no human rights message at all and of various other peace groups that did not focus on the issue.
The difference between the modern Right and the modern Left is that the conservatives examine their political losses and modify their message for the next encounter. The Left seems to think that a simplistic "no war" message with the same marches and same chants as they've been using for thirty years are all they need to convince the public.
When a message has been used in the past and failed and the same tactic is used and fails again, the problem is not that failure is inevitable but that new messages and new tactics are needed.
-- Nathan Newman