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3 Years of War and Occupation - The World Can't Wait!
End the War - Drive Out the Bush Regime!

[click here to find protests in your area this spring on the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War and on April 29]

3 years ago, "shock and awe" began: bombs reigned down on the people of Iraq, and an invading army began its brutal occupation.  Since then, one war crime after another has been committed - from the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib (and elsewhere), a blitzkrieg attack on Fallujah which included the use of white phosphorous chemicals on civilians, house-to-house raids, continued bombings, round-ups and imprisonments - in short, a brutal imperial occupation.  This murderous and illegitimate war was based on blatant lies that the Bush regime still refuses to own up to.  Over 100,000 Iraqis and 2,000 American soldiers have been killed on the basis of these lies.  The Bush regime arrogantly promises to continue this occupation, and sets its sights on invading more countries.

But in the run-up to the war, something else happened: millions inside the US took to the streets to stop the war, showing that this war and this regime does NOT represent the will of the people.  This powerful anti-war movement exposed Bush's lies and stood with people around the world, including those directly facing the oncoming onslaught.

The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime joins in demanding an immediate end to this war in protests across the country this spring.  Truly, the people of Iraq can't wait another day for this brutal occupation to end.

Is there a distinction between the people in the US and the government in this brutal war of occupation? People all over the world are looking to see if the people in this country are just going along or if they are projecting their own voice, in the streets and in a growing multi-faceted resistance.

What Will it Take to Stop the War?

As we join together in the streets to stop the war, let's get into what it's going to take to meet this challenge.  Uncompromising and unapologetic stands like Cindy Sheehan's have galvanized and energized many people who are fed up, including military families.  While some have written off the demand to end the war now as "bumper sticker politics," what they are actually afraid of is resistance not bound by the politics and interests of those waging the war.

Despite the fact that more people in this country now oppose the war than support it - and the situation in Iraq is going from bad to worse - The Bush administration remains committed to victory in the "war on terror" and is now threatening Iran . The Democrats have fundamentally accepted these political terms, voting  for the war to begin with, and despite making noises about how the war was begun based on lies, are mainly talking about how to successfully prosecute the war.  Just this week, in another shameful repeat of their ongoing endorsement of the whole war program, they voted to make the Patriot Act permanent.

In the last presidential election, anti-war sentiment got channeled first from support for Kucinich to Howard Dean, and then to Kerry "reporting for duty" to be the better "Commander in Chief".  Frustrating the desires of millions, the Democrats refused to make the 2004 election a referendum on the Iraq war or the whole trajectory the Bush regime is taking the world.  The Bush regime set the terms of debate, the Democrats accepted this logic, and the will of the people was left out. When it was over, much of the anti-war movement was left demoralized and demobilized by having accepted the political framing of what is defined as "electable" vs. what will actually stop the war.

If you think the 2006 elections will be any different, just look at what the Democrats are  already actually saying and doing.  The best they can offer is claiming that while the war may have been started on the wrong basis, "now that we're there we have to get the job done."  Howard Dean promotes "strategic redeployment" as the Democrats' plan for Iraq.  This plan consists of pulling troops out of Iraq but keeping most of them in permanent military bases in the Middle East, and continuing the occupation with even more aerial bombings (resulting in higher civilian deaths).  [click here for more on the Democrats plan for strategic redeployment and the Murtha Plan]

What's more: when candidates have emerged whose views have given more expression to the will of tens of millions in this country, even when they have grown a following, they have been discouraged or sabotaged by the leadership of the Democratic Party.  Just recently Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer pressured Paul Hackett, an Iraqi war veteran who was garnering impressive support in his bid to be an Ohio Democratic Senatorial candidate (even in the "red areas" of his state), to drop out of the race.  In fact, it was the very things which made him so popular among the people - his calls for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq, his comment that the Republican Party has been hijacked by religious extremists who "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden" - that made those in the Democratic Party leadership so adamantly opposed to him.  As Hackett put it, "For me, this is a second betrayal.  First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."

If we're going to end this war, it is going to take something radically different than putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who in fact support the war.  It will take setting into motion a different political dynamic by relying on mobilizing the independent political actions of millions of people, based on consistently sticking to principle and opposing a war that is unjust, illegitimate and immoral.  Think about what it took to end the Vietnam War - massive opposition around the world and inside the US, and large-scale defection inside the military.  While this is a different war in a whole different (and more dangerous) context, the example of a movement acting with a conscience and spreading throughout society is certainly something to learn from.

What will end the war on Iraq is millions of people refusing to support it, fight it, give aid to it, or be complicit in any way.  If people refuse to support torture, rendition, chemical warfare, or any of the other atrocities, but instead build a movement to stop it - including doing the hard work and taking the necessary risks (like soldiers refusing to fight, students kicking military recruiters off of their campuses, and the growing civil disobedience actions).  As this kind of dynamic spreads, this will force those in power to respond to the terms set by millions of people in the streets.  And if your aim is to get the Democrats to do the right thing, this will not happen without the kind of movement described above.

Stopping the War and Driving Out the Bush Regime

The war itself is part of a larger and dangerous program.  After 9/11, the Bush regime set loose a war which they promised will last generations. A war for empire to reshape the world accompanied by a whole new reshaping of US society.  If you just look at what's already happened this year - a new Supreme Court poised to end abortion and affirmative action, the Patriot Act made permanent, NSA spying becoming legal, and the prospect of an attack on Iran on the horizon - this program is going ahead full-steam. They have legitimized pre-emptive war, torture and indefinite detention based on nothing other than the word of Commander in Chief. They are remaking society in a fascist way. And the official politics of this country just keeps going along with it.

What we're confronting is enormous, and the only thing that really addresses it is people saying enough is enough - this whole regime needs to be driven from office and it's on us to make it happen.  This whole trajectory of moves toward a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, police state restrictions becoming law, a "unitary executive" branch that steals elections and suppressed dissent, abortion banned in South Dakota, and a permanent state of war must be taken on as a whole and stopped.

This war in Iraq needs to be stopped, and that will take a determined movement from below. But we must also recognize that this is completely bound up with a huge struggle over the whole direction of US society and its role in the world.

As it says in the Call for The World Can't Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime:

We need more than fighting Bush's outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history)

) The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.

Find Protests Near You on the Anniversary of the War and on April 29:

Distribute this 2-sided tri-fold flyer from World Can't Wait at anti-war rallies:
    The Call - [pdf]
    Front    [pdf]   [higher res pdf]    [zip pdf]    [psd]
       [spanish pdf]    [spanish word doc]

Contact the local chapter of World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime nearest you and join with their plans to participate in the upcoming anti-war protests.

Not In Our Name Project events and protests - [click here]

Veterans March to New Orleans - March 14-19 - [click here]  

Global Call For Nonviolent Civil Resistance to End the U.S.-Led Military Occupation of Iraq - March 18-20 - [click here]

MARCH 18 - 19 Coordinated Actions Against Poverty, Racism and War - Bring All the Troops Home Now - Troops Out Now website

War Anniversary Global Days of Action (March 18-20) - ANSWER Coalition website  

Week of Local Actions (March 15-22) - United for Peace & Justice website  

April 29 End the War Mobilization in New York City - United for Peace & Justice website

What is the Democrats Plan for Strategic Redeployment?

The Democrats plan for strategic redeployment was written by Lawrence J. Korb, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information (and former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics) under the Reagan administration from 1981 through 1985).  The following passage from the plan is telling of what this will mean for Iraq and the Middle East:

As redeployments begin, the remaining forces in Iraq would focus on our core missions: completing the training of Iraqi forces; improving border security; providing logistical and air support to Iraqi security forces engaged in battles against terrorists and insurgents; serving as advisors to Iraqi units; and tracking down terrorists and insurgent leaders with smaller, more nimble Special Forces units operating jointly with Iraqi units...

By the end of 2007, the only US military forces in Iraq would be a small Marine contingent to protect the US embassy, a small group of military advisors to the Iraqi Government, and counterterrorist units that works closely with Iraqi security forces. This presence, along with the forces in Kuwait and at sea in the Persian Gulf area will be sufficient to conduct strikes coordinated with Iraqi forces against any terrorist camps and enclaves that may emerge and deal with any major external threats to Iraq ... 14,000 troops would be positioned nearby in Kuwait and as part of a Marine expeditionary force located offshore in the Persian Gulf to strike at any terrorist camps and enclaves and guard against any major acts that risk further destabilizing the region.

Just from the passage above, you can see that this strategic redeployment will mean the US will continue overseeing Iraq's military (and train it in the same methods it has used to occupy Iraq, as we can see in the striking resemblance to Abu Ghraib of the recently uncovered Iraq-run torture chambers).  As Bruce Gagnon describes, "the U.S. would increase Air Force bombing missions over Iraq, increase the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) like the Predator, that fly via satellite direction, and can drop bombs and fire missiles. For the Iraqi people this means more indiscriminate bombing and more innocent people killed."  And permanent US military bases in the Iraq, the Middle East, and the surrounding area would maintain a large military presence and send out troops as necessary to intervene (in Iraq and elsewhere).  Even if this meant a decrease in troop levels, this is not a strategy anyone with a conscience can support, as it would continue to murder people in Iraq and assert imperial power over the people of the world.

The Democrats have made clear that this "strategic redeployment" is not a plan for ending the war.  Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said, "It's important to note that it's not withdrawal -- it's redeployment.  We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility.  Not only is it a message, but it's a method to improve the security there and around the globe."  And Howard Dean made clear, "We aren't going to cut and run, that's just Republican propaganda."

Even if this "strategic redeployment" did mean a decrease in US troop levels in Iraq (which is by no means promised by this plan), this is not a strategy anyone with a conscience can support, as it would continue to murder people in Iraq and assert imperial power over the people of the world, and, as leading Democrats have made clear, will not end the war.

What About Murtha's Plan?

What stands out about Murtha's plan are its similarities to the plan for strategic redeployment.

As Murtha put it in a statement released Nov. 17, 2005:

My plan calls: 

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces. 
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines. 
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

And as Murtha has repeatedly made clear, his prime concern is keeping the US military powerful in order to continue waging wars on foreign countries.  He has not come out in opposition to the war crimes committed against people in Iraq, or to the whole drive for permanent war around the world (the "war on terrorism"), but is worried the US military will not be able to continue this course if it stays in Iraq.

After Democratic Congressman John Murtha's speech calling for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq for military strategic reasons, Republicans pushed for a vote on an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. It was soundly defeated 403 to 3.  Despite all the anti-war rhetoric coming from many of the Democrats these days, only three out of the 202 Democrats in the House decided to vote for the resolution supporting a immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. Murtha himself voted against the resolution, as well as other leading House Democrats like Dennis Kucinich.

Some Congressional Democrats complained that this resolution was pushed by the Republicans to force them between a rock and a hard place, and it's absolutely true - because there wouldn't be a "hard place" if the Democrats were really against this war!

The Murtha Plan and strategic deployment will not mean an end to the war on Iraq, torture and war crimes, or the unending war launched after 9/11. 

Sources:

"Strategic Redeployment - The Democrats' New Stall Strategy", By Bruce K. Gagnon, 2/21/06, http://www.counterpunch.org/gagnon02212006.html

"Democrats' Pull Out: Another Election Year Stunt", by Joshua Frank, 2/21, http://brickburner.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/02/democratic_jarg.html

"War in Iraq", statement by John Murtha, 11/17/06, http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa12_murtha/pr051117iraq.html

"House Rejects Iraq Pullout After GOP Forces a Vote", Washington Post, 11/19/06, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802896.html

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