Analysis
Peace movement speedily mobilizes
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
The most surprising thing about the current peace movement is not
that it has tapped a new generation of activists (it has), or that it is able
to mobilize thousands on any given day to protest Bush administration policy
(it can), or even that it gets a share of mainstream media exposure -- our 24/7
cable news culture guarantees that.
It is the speed with which the movement has grown and the level of
organization that exists within its managerial ranks.
As he makes the rounds of news conferences, prayer vigils and
peace demonstrations, National Council of Churches General Secretary Robert
Edgar compares the current moment with January 1975. Edgar was a leading member
of the “Class of ’74” -- the post-Watergate Democrats elected to
Congress “to shut down a war.” Even in 1975, the effort to block
additional U.S. military funding for the soon-to-fall South Vietnamese
government took monumental effort, Edgar, a Methodist minister, recalled.
It had been a long struggle: the first major demonstrations to
protest that war didn’t occur until the spring of 1967, more than two
years after Congress authorized military escalation through the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution.
Fast forward to 2002.
On Oct. 26, just two weeks after Congress gave authority for war
against Iraq, thousands (hundreds of thousands according to organizers) took to
the streets to protest U.S. policy. Europeans have turned out in even greater
numbers.
And on Dec. 11 -- International Human Rights Day -- more than 120
protests and events were held around the country. Demonstrators marched at the
White House, at military recruiting facilities nationwide, and at federal
courthouses across the country. Nearly 100 were arrested in New York for
blocking access to the U.S. mission at the United Nations.
On that same day, former President Jimmy Carter, accepting the
Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, warned against “preventive war,”
cautioning that it could have “catastrophic consequences.”
Additional protests and events are planned throughout December, in
what the National Council of Churches terms its “Season for
Peacemaking.” A large demonstration is planned in Washington for the
Martin Luther King birthday holiday Jan. 20.
This peace movement has its old guard, of which the National
Council of Churches -- an organization of 36 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox
member denominations -- has been at the forefront. From its Capitol Hill
offices, the group coordinated lobbying efforts prior to the Congressional
resolution authorizing force; now, it organizes protests.
Most recently, it sponsored a full-page advertisement in The
New York Times addressed directly to President Bush: “Your war
would violate the teachings of Jesus Christ. It would violate the tenets,
prayers and entreaties of your own United Methodist Church bishops.”
Other religious groups in the antiwar campaign include the
American Friends Service Committee, Bread for the World, Church of the
Brethren, the Catholic social justice lobby Network, the Friends Committee on
National Legislation, the Lutheran Office on Governmental Affairs and Pax
Christi USA. The U.S. Catholic bishops added a level of support, with a
November statement questioning the morality of a U.S.-led attack.
The peace coalition includes some secular upstarts. On Dec. 11,
for example, MoveOn.org sponsored yet another full-page New York Times
advertisement calling on the administration to “Let the Inspections
Work.” Created by two Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs to oppose the
impeachment of President Bill Clinton, MoveOn.org has transformed itself into
the leading Internet-based antiwar organizing tool.
Meanwhile, the far left -- some call it “Maoist” --
International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), was the primary
organizer of the Oct. 26 demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, and is
taking the lead on the planned January demonstration in Washington.
Add to this mix: college students and their professors (more than
13,000 signed a letter to President Bush opposing an attack), labor unions, and
now, celebrities. On Dec. 10, more than 100 entertainers -- actors Matt Damon,
Martin Sheen, Angelica Huston and David Duchovny among them -- urged a solution
short of war.
Lacking among the usual suspects is the leadership of the national
Democratic Party. Its prospective presidential candidates (with the exception
of Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and former Vice President Al Gore) generally
support the administration’s policy.
In the six months since Iraq moved front-and-center, opponents of
intervention have had their successes. With broad public support (more than
one-third of Americans polled express serious reservations when asked if the
United States should attack Iraq), they and their allies in Congress pushed the
administration to seek U.N. support prior to taking action. The inspection
regime that resulted has bought more time to make the case for stopping short
of war. And it might yet avert invasion.
But the administration is betting that a war against Iraq will be
completed quickly. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the fighting should
not last more than five weeks. Such a victory would not necessarily silence the
administration’s critics, but their chance to be heard amid the
celebration on the home front would be extinguished.
If, however, the administration has miscalculated -- if the
conflict is bloodier, wider or lengthier than anticipated -- President Bush
could share the fate of the last Texan to hold the White House, unable to
govern a deeply divided country.
Joe Feuerherd is NCR Washington correspondent. His
e-mail address is jfeuerherd@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, December 20,
2002
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