"C. G. Estabrook" wrote:
>
> I think they've argued (and I would agree) that the demand should be
> immediate US withdrawal -- corporate and military -- without waiting for
> the US to arrange UN replacements or an international presence, because
> it's clear whose interests would be served under those circumstances. If
> the Iraqis want to arrange UN replacements or an international presence,
> they would of course be free to do so. The only matters left for the US
> would be trying the American war criminals (or, preferably, delivering
> them to an international tribunal, like Milosevic) and paying reparations.
>
"No UN replacements, no international presence" is misleading, and muddies or obliterates the distinction (emphasized above by Carl) between an academic or bureaucratic formulation and a political position expressed in mass action. Whether there is a UN "replacement" (i.e., front for continued u.s. occupation) or other international presence will be decided behind closed doors in endless political and diplomatic haggling, promising, threatening, etc. And no one behind those doors will pay any attention to the details of anti-war arguments, but they will work under the pressure of ongoing demands to STOP IT. GET OUT.
I don't know of anyone actively working on mobilizing opposition to the war who is going to organize around any other slogan. Participants in mass demos will have all sorts of ideas of what they want in "positive" terms -- but the leaflet to call out those participants will never be written and destributed except by those who accept as a given the slogan, "Bring the troops home NOW." So my first and last response (I'm willing to jabber in the middle) to anyone who doesn't like that slogan is "O.K., go out and mobilize some people. Best of Luck."
One simply can't organize people around a Ph.D. dissertation, which is what any policy other than Bring the Troops Home amounts to.*
Carrol
P.S. *In so far as actions etc. are organized to allow room for conversation, people mobilized around the Get Out Now slogan can become involved in other left or potentially left activities. That is how the left grows.
> --CGE
>
> On Sun, 30 May 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > At least two of our distinguished listmembers, Cdes Cox and Furuhashi,
> > repeatedly have said no UN replacements, no international presence -
> > leave it to the Iraqis.
>