“First, the historical record of the United States in Iraq
has made it the leading killer of innocent Iraqis: its backing for Saddam
Hussein during his most ruthless actions, its denial of support to the 1991
anti-Saddam uprisings, its more than ten years of murderous sanctions, it use
of weapons like cluster bombs and depleted uranium that have been condemned by
human rights organizations.” –“Where do we go from here: The Anti-War Movement and
the Occupation of Iraq” by Stephen R. Shalom, April 25, 2004.
We might ask whether the antiwar movement is competent to
stay the course in the US
in opposing the war in Iraq
by the same token. While the logic employed here is good, citing the US
for its tolerance of “murderous” sanctions, we must consider just how murderous
they were and whether the peace movement can be let off the hook for its role.
What? The role of the peace movement in
the employment and persistence of the sanctions? Heresy! The peace
activists were against the sanctions!
The sanctions probably killed over a million people, mostly
the most vulnerable, including children under 5 and the elderly. We know that activists,
writers against the war, progressives, etc., did protest these sanctions. But the
case can be made that the action on these most lethal atrocities was so little,
so late (like the Food for Oil Program) and so lacking in proportion to the
gravity of the situation involved, that they indict peace activists as well. So
much so that the question Shalom asks here must be directed at prevailing
activism as well.
What if a nuclear device were detonated
over an Iraq
city, one that, furthermore, targeted the most vulnerable, leaving over a million
dead? We know the outcry, the activism, the arrests and acts of civil
(hopefully) disobedience would be far greater than all of the anti-war activism
that took place around the war about the “official” wars that have been
undertaken from ’91 on. The sanctions did kill that many people, but because
they were couched in “administrational”, clothed in their being quasi-peaceful,
“diplomatic” measure, the action taken by peace activists were not
proportionate. My own actions were also not proportionate. I went to some “actions”
(as they are called), and even opted not to get arrested when one good opportunity
arose. I had good reasons for this, not pertaining to the sanctions, but
personally. Even so, I should like to have done more. And the peace movement in
general is shown, in this matter, to be phenomenally mis-oriented,
taking the phenomena of “proper war”, bombs going off, etc., as more important
than the very truth that the movement
is so concerned with. It is striking, indeed, that this orientation towards
truth is, at times, willing and able to enact the perpetual leap of faith by
which the elected leaders and what is touted as just and right causes may be
regarded with suspicion (is all suspicion really faith?), and yet at other
times it remains inactive, committed to status quo categories of “what counts”
as important. Clearly the lives of a million were not enough to make it through
this phenomenal orientation. The very category of “phenomenal orientation”
doesn’t really exist, of course. The work of coining and using the term,
situating it and opening it up, which I give the best gestures towards doing I
can in this space and in all my living is a responsibility
of thought according to the matter of thought’s
mortal gravity and its need in the peace movement. And in this matter of
thought, took, there lies a leap of faith.
So the question remains: can we
trust the peace movement, that movement that did so little about the loss of so
many lives? And the sanctions are surely not the only case to consider. From
the first Iraq war
onward, we know that the activism that took place was very ineffective. We can
not possibly use ineffectiveness simpliciter as an obviating criticism, since the hawk forces
may simply have been overwhelmingly powerful. On the other hand, if we can not
notice a trend in this regard, we are not looking.
But there is more to understand
here. It is not enough to suggest that the peace movement as simply not “been
doing enough”, that the simple operator of “more” could possibly suffice. No, a
more radical inventory and openness to paradigmatic shift, the turbulence of
not knowing all the answers, the hard work of opening up real underpinnings,
exposing the radical bases of what is taking place in peace activism today must
happen. I can’t work in that direction in this writing, but I believe I am
responding to these necessities in the best possible ways in the work I am
doing here, in my thinking, and so forth.
----
“So write the whole article….”
“No, that’s part of this and what
needs to be done...”
