From the ANSWER Coalition
September 15 is the date that General Petraeus and the Bush Administration must report to Congress on the progress of the Iraq war and “surge.†The eyes of the country and world will be focused on Washington DC.
On September 15 people from every corner of this country will descend on Washington DC to demand: End the War Now!
Everything that the ANSWER Coalition members and other anti-war activists and organizations said about the invasion and occupation is proven to be true. All the lies of the war makers and their apologists now stand exposed.
I remember helping ANSWER organize antiwar marches before the Iraq invasion happened, when we were a tiny minority. Now we are the majority. This is the time to redouble efforts. We can end the war. We must end the war.
The 1,700 word editorial in the Sunday July 8 edition of the New York Times (see below), calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is a major shift and signals an overt rupture in the summits of the political establishment over the Iraq war.
The mainstream now opposes the war. Republican senators are bailing. The national paper of record says, it’s time to leave. This is an extraordinary change.
It is a repeat of what happened in Vietnam when it became clear to the political elites that the imperial war was doomed. While Bush enjoyed the open support or silent complicity of the corporate establishment (including all the mass media) when he carried out the criminal invasion of Iraq, the Administration is now isolated.
I came of age during the Vietnam War. Few thought the antiwar movement would be instrumental in ending that war or that Nixon would fall. Yet both happened. Why? Because the power of the people and of public opinion made it happen, that’s why.
The nightmarish fantasy of imperial military domination over the oil-rich Middle East, which was the dominant ideology in Washington DC after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, has given way to a new, unstated, but actual objective for the political establishment: to avoid the appearance of a catastrophic U.S. military defeat in Iraq.
Sickening, aren’t they? Wanting to pretend all is well, no matter how many die. But it’s not the family, children, and friends of the rulers in D.C. are are dying or coming home maimed, now is it? Nor have they expressed concern for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians or the millions of refugees.
The US has already lost in Iraq. Just like they lost in Vietnam. And for many of the same reasons too.
Every Iraqi who dies and every U.S. service member who is killed will lose their life so that the politicians can carry on with this effort: to avoid the perception of defeat. That is the real story. That is exactly why tens of thousands of GI’s and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died between 1968 and 1973, well after the generals and politicians knew that defeat was unavoidable.
It is imperative that we act now, decisively, and with such force to stop the war immediately.
More.