More tempations to headbanging

Headbanging in the Tollhaus, Passau, Germany

It's not only politicians that give me that old headbanging urge.

Several years ago, I took a course in Genesis taught by a professor who was also a rabbi. She illustrated some theological point with a humorous line, "The Jews are the people who can't take 'yes' for an answer."

I thought of that when I read this TomDispatch.com article by Tom Engelhardt, The Bureaucracy, the March, and the War: American Disengagement 10/28/07. Don't get me wrong. Engelhardt has been one of the best commentators on the Iraq War, and he has provided us access to a wealth of solid analysis from his guest commentators at TomDispatch.com. I normally agree with him on most issues, bless his heart. (To use that Deep South pre-criticism phrase.)

But this piece really is a case of someone not being able to take "yes" for an answer. Short version of Engelhardt's article: Sure, 70% or so of the American people are opposed to the Iraq War and want to get out as soon as possible; but where's the antiwar movement?

My short answer is, the antiwar movement is the 70% of the people that oppose the war.

Taking it in a bit more detail, Engelhardt recalls the demonstrations against the Vietnam War back in the day, and he thinks those were way cool. And the anti-Iraq War demonstrations of 2002-3 reminded him of that, and he's bummed that he's not seeing those mass demonstrations any more.

This is where I find Tom Hayden's perspective from his long experience in both electoral politics and popular protest to be particularly helpful. In his book Ending the War in Iraq (2007), he devotes a full chapter (58 pages) to looking at the real existing antiwar movement, which neither the Establishment press nor those looking at today's world through a haze of excessive '60s nostalgia seem to be able to recognize. The chapter is titled, "What Noble Cause? The Rise of the Antiwar Movement, 2001-2007".

Best of all, Hayden in his book rags repeatedly on John Mueller, the political scientist whose very flawed analysis of what generates opposition to wars in the United States is a staple of both those who want to debunk the power of antiwar movements and of air power zealots who use his findings to justify maximizing civilian casualties in a target country in order to supposedly minimize American military casualties.

Hayden does cite Mueller's article The Iraq Syndrome in Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 2005 for its factual information on public opinion on the Iraq War. But he also makes clear that the "conservative" John Mueller is off the tracks in his notion of what a "movement" really is in the real world of politics. Hayden writes:

[T]he question is how, not whether, the peace movement participated in shaping antiwar opinion between 2003-07. The numbers of anti-Iraq War protesters in the streets - 100,000-500,000 at least eight times in five years, plus ten million globally on one occasion—are comparable to the numbers during the 1965-68 period of Vietnam. Mueller, [Mike] Davis, and others arbitrarily exclude electoral campaigns from their definition of movements; but if one considers the grassroots participation in the Dean, Kerry, Kucinich, Lamont, and other local campaigns, plus antiwar ballot initiatives in San Francisco, Chicago, and Vermont; and if one adds 165 city council resolutions passed against this war within a broader definition of "movement," then this has been a movement of historic proportions. (my emphasis in bold)

No one who is seriously concerned about how damaging the Iraq War is to the United States and the Middle East is likely to think that even a majority antiwar movement like we have today is going to be good enough until the US is out of that war. And we're are a long way from that point still. But it is important to recognize progress when it occurs, and the shift in public opinion against this war is real progress in more ways than one.

Amazingly, Engelhardt cites both Mueller's faulty theory about what drives American public opinion on war and Mueller's statement of why that theory is hosed, though neither Engelhardt nor Mueller seem to recognize it:

As John Mueller, an expert on public opinion and American wars, pointed out back in November 2005, Americans turned against the Iraq War in a pattern recognizable from the Vietnam era (as well as the Korean one) - initial, broad post-invasion support that eroded irreversibly as American casualties rose. "The only thing remarkable about the current war in Iraq," Mueller wrote, "is how precipitously American public support has dropped off. Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War." He added, quite correctly, as it turned out: "And if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline." (my emphasis)

Mueller's argument is that American casualties and only American casualties make the US public turn against a war. The only reason he finds it "remarkable" that "support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War" is that he was proceeding from the false assumption that American casualties and only American casualties make the US public turn against a war.

I've commented on Mueller's detailed argument on this point in the post linked above, and also about how the polling data on the Second World War also don't fit his assumption.

Mueller was correct about support for the war not springing back. Mueller has a better handle on what drive public support for a war than Dick Cheney and George Bush seem to have. But talk about setting the bar low...

Hayden summarizes his argument about the nature of the real existing antiwar movement as follows:

...[W]hile the new post-'60s antiwar movement is given little credit as a factor in turning public opinion against the war, it is a powerful force. On eight occasions the movement has produced over 100,000 protesters in the streets, including three in which more than a half-million turned out to demonstrate. Public opinion has shifted against this conflict more rapidly than it did during the Vietnam War. At least 165 city councils and state legislatures have passed referendums against the war. Internet activism far surpasses the membership drives of antiwar groups in the '60s. The 2003-04 Howard Dean presidential campaign was in many ways similar to Eugene McCarthy's unsuccessful bid for the White House in 1967-68. And in November 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, American voters resolutely marched to the polls to reject an ongoing war.

Yet to many people, including activists, this war seems unstoppable and the opposition movement marginal or irrelevant. This is in part due to the media, but also to the Pentagon's strategy of lessening the direct impact of Iraq on the lives of most American citizens. There is no draft, we pay no direct taxes, the casualty rate of U.S. troops is one-fifteenth that of Vietnam. The perception of political impotence is also affected by anachronistic paradigms that contain romantic images of clashes in the streets of Chicago and the like. Bloggers against the war simply are not as dashing and photogenic as young men burning their draft cards in Central Park.

But this argument should be turned upside down: It is remarkable that the antiwar movement has become a catalyst of public opinion given all the resources expended on selling the Iraq War as cheap, easy, and non-intrusive in the lives of most Americans. It is a mistake to define the antiwar movement as narrowly confined to the streets, as political activism since the 1960s has opened up a space for working within a previously closed system. Bloggers and "netroots" have further developed this space, in a literal sense, through online activism.

It is necessary to write the antiwar movement into the history of this time. (my emphasis)

Shoot, I think us bloggers are pretty "dashing", but that's a topic for another day.

Tags: antiwar movement, antiwar protest, iraq war, john mueller, tom engelhardt, tom hayden