There is no record in the history of the United States (or any other nation for that matter) of an anti-war movement _preventing_ a war that the power elite were set on having. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if this one managed to do what no prior anti-war movement could do, but my bets are not on this remote possibility. Besides, socialists are not opposed only to the war on Iraq to come. To take just one example, economic sanctions combined with steady bombings in the so-called "no-fly" zones have been just as bad as, nay even worse than, many wars, as far as impacts on civilian lives are concerned. I don't speak for Lou Paulsen or any other socialists (although I don't think any socialist would disagree with me in this respect), but confronted with a looming war, I think that US socialists should remember that (A) an anti-war movement cannot become big and militant enough to prevent a war that the power elite really want; and that (B) we need to think about a way to build a _mass_ movement (i.e. not a small bloc of militants) against capitalism and imperialism from within a movement against this war _and other wars and imperialist actions to come_. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>