> Bring Them Home Now! Screw the Iraqis! Leave
> them to Starve! Protect Our Boys!
>
> Why not, Demand UN administration! Democracy
> for Iraq! or something that is not so faux-populist
> isolationist? This is all the brain-dead sloganeering
> that failed in the first place.
>
> And where is all the Afghanistan agitation now that
> the US is wimping out on promises to provide
> funding for the people there? Did the antiwar
> movement give a damn about the people of
> Afghanistan, or is it all just agitprop, where the
> attention span of the antiwar movement is the
> same as the government, each moving on restlessly
> to the next battle to score political points, not giving
> a shit about those countries left behind?
>
> I've been against both wars but can't really think
> of myself as part of the antiwar movement, because
> it is so morally bankrupt in its slogans. This is not
> a peace and justice movement-- it's an America First
> isolationist movement.
<blink> <blink> I love you too, Nathan.
Stability is a necessity for a free Iraq, certainly. An independent Iraq would be meaningless without it. But my objection to a continued or an expanded occupation is that what stability it brings, if any, would be _on the invading forces terms_. As in Afghanistan, it relies too much on a foreign military force, and too little on the development of domestic means for Iraqis to govern themselves. As a result, today the rule of Karzai does not extend beyond Kabul, and can scarcely has the funds to govern where it does reach.
Advocating withdrawal now is important not because it's the silver bullet solution, but because pushing for it aggressively is necessary to make it a real option. Making it an option is the beginning, not the end, of a serious anti-war movement's work at this point. Likewise, it argues against the legitimacy of the occupation. The Iraqis may not need convincing on this, but the American public does. I still view the democratic imperialist's position as one of "Give up your sovereignty, and we will make you free."
A campaign of withdrawal of US forces emphasizes occupation as an underlying problem, not the solution, just as in Gaza and the West Bank. The left challenge is how to, ultimately, bring about the withdrawal of the occupation. So long as the US has little to no legitimacy in Iraq, the US will have to resort to repression to maintain and further its rule.
How the anti-war movement answers this does require reflection, but does not require acceptance of US rule over Iraq. That was the grounds for many anti-imperialists' opposition to the war, and this entire vicious debacle is an example of why many of us are anti-imperialists.
At this point, an anti-war position could be elections -- not charades but the real thing -- to establish an *independent* provisional government. Perhaps, though I don't favor it, a UN "peacekeeping" operation, which would make Iraq a UN protectorate. Perhaps cede to the "governing council", which seems more an advisory council, real authority. Or call the bluff of the war's champions: call for a national Iraqi referendum on US statehood. If the cause is a free Iraq, and the means are to be US rule, then the answer is US statehood for Iraq. Anything less, even with a UN rubber stamp, would be hypocrisy as rank as it would be obvious. Whatever proposal made, the point should be: the less the legitimacy US rule has, the more severe the means necessary to press it upon Iraqis will have to be.
-- Shane
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