Are we doing this yet? Ell
.
How to End the War
By Naomi Klein - May 5, 2005
www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2103/
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<The first paragraph is a paraphrasing.>
After Bush's first lies about the reason for invading Iraq were disproven, his
next lie, that the reason was to bring democracy to Iraq and the world, turns
out to be a useful lie. It's useful because the greatest faction of the antiwar
movement is in Iraq itself and that movement does want democracy and was
responsible for putting on enough pressure to get the elections held last year.
But the U.S. continues to shackle the new government and the antiwar movement
in the U.S. should be cooperating with the Iraqi movement by putting pressure
on our government to remove our shackles from Iraq. As it is the U.S. has made
agreements with the IMF and World Bank on behalf of Iraq, which allow them to
require in return for debt relief and loans that Iraq end its food rationing
program, on which 60% of the population depend for survival. Iraqis want to rip
up such genocidal agreements. They want to be allowed to form their own news
media, to let Iraqi businesses participate in reconstruction
of Iraq, to form trade unions, end privatization, prohibit permanent U.S.
military bases etc.
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<The following are direct excerpts.>
A pro-democracy movement
The future of the anti-war movement requires that it become a pro-democracy
movement. Our marching orders have been given to us by the people of Iraq. Its
important to understand that the most powerful movement against this war and
this occupation is within Iraq itself. Our anti-war movement must not just be
in verbal solidarity but in active and tangible solidarity with the
overwhelming majority of Iraqis fighting to end the occupation of their
country. We need to take our direction from them.
.So what is our role here? We need to support the people of Iraq and their
clear demands for an end to both military and corporate occupation. That means
being the resistance ourselves in our country, demanding that the troops come
home, that U.S. corporations come home, that Iraqis be free of Saddams debt
and the IMF and World Bank agreements signed under occupation. It doesnt mean
blindly cheerleading for the resistance. ... Some elements of the armed
resistance are targeting Iraqi civilians as they pray in Shia mosques
barbaric acts that serve the interests of the Bush administration by feeding
the perception that the country is on the brink of civil war and therefore U.S.
forces must remain in Iraq. Not everyone fighting the U.S. occupation is
fighting for the freedom of all Iraqis; some are fighting for their own elite
power. Thats why we need to stay focused on supporting the demands for
self-determination, not cheering any setback for U.S. empire.
.
The courage to be serious
.Part of that seriousness is to echo the policy demands made by voters and
demonstrators in the streets of Baghdad and Basra and bring those demands to
Washington, where the decisions are being made.
.But the core fight is over respect for international law, and whether there is
any respect for it at all in the United States. Unless were fighting a core
battle against this administrations total disdain for the very idea of
international law, then the specifics really dont matter.
.And part of the war has to be a media war in this country. The problem is not
that the anti-war voices arent there its that the voices arent amplified.
We need a strategy to target the media in this country, making it a site of
protest itself. We must demand that the media let us hear the voices of
anti-war critics, of enraged mothers who have lost their sons for a lie, of
betrayed soldiers who fought in a war they didnt believe in. And we need to
keep deepening the definition of democracy to say that these show elections
are not democracy, and that we dont have a democracy in this country either.
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