As I write this, it looks like war.
This, in spite of the obvious lack of enthusiasm
in the country for war. The polls that register "approve" or "disapprove"
can only count numbers, they cannot test the depth of feeling. And
there are many signs that the support for war is shallow and shaky
and ambivalent.. That's why the numbers showing approval for war have
been steadily going down.
This administration will not likely be stopped, though
it knows its support is thin., In fact, that is undoubtedly why it
is in such a hurry; it wants to go to war before the support declines
even further.
The assumption is that once the soldiers are in combat,
the American people will unite behind the war. The television screens
will be dominated by images showing "smart bombs" exploding, and the
Secretary of Defense will assure the American people that civilian
casualties are being kept to a minimum. (We're in the age of megadeaths,
and any number of casualties less than a million is no cause for concern).
This is the way it has been. Unity behind the president
in time of war. But it may not be that way again.
The anti-war movement will not likely surrender to
the martial atmosphere. The hundreds of thousands who marched in Washington
and San Francisco and New York and Boston - and in villages, towns,
cities all over the country from Georgia to Montana - will not meekly
withdraw. Unlike the shallow support for the war, the opposition to
the war is deep, cannot be easily dislodged or frightened into silence.
Indeed, the anti-war feelings are bound to become
more intense. To the demand "Support Our GIs", the movement will be
able to reply: "Yes, we support our GIs, we want them to live, we
want them to be brought home. The government is not supporting them.
It is sending them to die, or to be wounded, or to be poisoned by
our own depleted uranium shells".
No, our casualties will not be numerous, but every
single one will be a waste of an important human life. We will insist
that this government be held responsible for every death, every dismemberment,
every case of sickness, every case of psychic trauma caused by the
shock of war.
And though the media will be blocked from access
to the dead and wounded of Iraq, though the human tragedy unfolding
in Iraq will be told in numbers, in abstractions, and not in the stories
of real human beings, real children, real mothers and fathers - the
movement will find a way to tell that story. And when it does, the
American people, who can be cold to death on "the other side", but
who also wake up when "the other side" is suddenly seen as a man,
a woman, a child - just like us - will respond.
This is not a fantasy, not a vain hope. It happened
in the Vietnam years. For a long time, what was being done to the
peasants of Vietnam was concealed by statistics, the "body count",
without bodies being shown, without faces being shown, without pain,
fear, anguish shown. But then the stories began to come through -
the story of the My Lai massacre, the stories told by returning GIs
of atrocities they had participated in.
And the pictures appeared - the little girl struck
by napalm running down the road, her skin shredding, the mothers holding
their babies to them in the trenches as GIs poured rounds of bullets
from automatic rifles into their bodies.
When those stories began to come out, when the photos
were seen, the American people could not fail to be moved. The war
"against Communism" was seen as a war against poor peasants in a tiny
country half the world away.
At some point in this coming war, and no one can
say when, the lies coming from the administration - "the death of
this family was an accident", "we apologize for the dismemberment
of this child", "this was an intelligence mistake", "a radar misfunction"
- will begin to come apart.
How soon that will happen depends not only on the
millions now - whether actively or silently -- in the anti-war movement,
but also on the emergence of whistle blowers inside the Establishment
who begin to talk, , of journalists who become tired of being manipulated
by the government, and begin to write to truth. . And of dissident
soldiers sick of a war that is not a war but a massacre --how else
describe the mayhem caused by the most powerful military machine on
earth raining thousands of bombs on a fifth-rate military power already
reduced to poverty by two wars and ten years of economic sanctions?
The anti-war movement has the responsibility of encouraging
defections from the war machine. It does this simply by its existence,
by its example, by its persistence, by its voices reaching out over
the walls of government control and speaking to the consciences of
people.
Those voices have already become a chorus, joined
by Americans in all walks of life, of all ages, in every part of the
country.
There is a basic weakness in governments, however
massive their armies, however wealthy they are, however they control
the information given to the public, because their power depends on
the obedience of citizens, of soldiers, of civil servants, of journalists
and writers and teachers and artists. When these people begin to suspect
they have been deceived, and withdraw their support, the government
loses its legitimacy, and its power.
We have seen this happen in recent decades, all around
the globe. Leaders who were apparently all-powerful, surrounded by
their generals, suddenly faced the anger of an aroused people, the
hundreds of thousands in the streets and the reluctance of the soldiers
to fire, and those leaders soon rushed to the airport, carrying their
suitcases of money with them.
The process of undermining the legitimacy of this
government has begun. There has been a worm eating at the innards
of its complacency all along - the knowledge of the American public,
buried, but in a very shallow grave, easy to disinter, that this government
came to power by a political coup, not by popular will.
The movement should not let this be forgotten.
The first steps to de-legitimize this government
are being taken, in small but significant ways. The wife of the President
must call off a gathering of poets in the White House because the
poets have rebelled, because they see the march to war as a violation
of the most sacred values of poets through the ages.
The generals who led the Gulf War of 1991 speak out
against this impending war as foolish, unnecessary, dangerous. The
C.I.A. contradicts the president by saying Saddam Hussein is not likely
to use his weapons unless he is attacked.
All across the country - not just the great metropolitan
centers, like Chicago, but places like Boesman, Montana, Des Moines,
Iowa, San Luis Obispo, California, Nederland, Colorado, Tacoma, Washington,
York, Pennsylvania, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gary, Indiana, Carrboro,
North Carolina -- fifty-seven cities and counties in all -- have passed
resolutions against the war, responding to their citizens.
The actions will multiply, once the war has begun.
The stakes will be higher. People will be dying every day. The responsibility
of the peace movement will be huge - to speak to what people may feel
but are hesitant to say. To say that this is a war for oil, for business.
Bring back the Vietnam-era poster: "War Is Good For Business - Invest
your Son". (In this morning's Boston Globe, a headline: "Extra $15
Billion for Military Would Profit New England Firms")
Yes, no blood for Oil, no blood for Bush, no blood
for Rumsfeld or Cheney or Powell. No blood for political ambition,
for grandiose designs of empire.
No action should be seen as too small, no non-violent
action should be seen as too large. The calls now for the impeachment
of George Bush should multiply. The constitutional requirement "high
crimes and misdemeanors" certainly applies to sending our young halfway
around the world to kill and be killed in a war of aggression against
a people who have not attacked us.
Those poets troubled Laura Bush because by bringing
the war into her ceremony they were doing something "inappropriate".
That should be the key; people will continue to do "inappropriate"
things, because that brings attention - the rejection of propriety,
the refusal to be "professional" (which usually means not breaking
out of the box in which your business or your profession insists you
stay in).
The absurdity of this war is so starkly clear that
people who have never been involved in an anti-war demonstration have
been showing up in huge numbers at recent rallies. Anyone who has
been to one of them can testify to the numbers of young people present,
obviously doing this for the first time.
Arguments for the war are paper thin and fall apart
at first touch. Weapons of mass destruction? Iraq may develop one
nuclear bomb (though the UN inspectors find no sign of development)
- but Israel has 200 nuclear weapons and the US has 20,000 and six
other countries have undisclosed numbers. Saddam Hussein a tyrant?
Undoubtedly, like many others in the world? A threat to the world?
Then how come the rest of the world, much closer to Iraq, does not
want war? Defending ourselves? The most incredible statement of all.
Fighting terrorism? No connection found between Sept. 11 and Iraq.
I believe it is the obvious emptiness of the administration
position that is responsible for the unprecedentedly quick growth
of the anti-war movement. And for the emergence of new voices, unheard
before, speaking "inappropriately" outside their professional boundaries.
1500 historians have signed an anti-war petition. Businessmen, clergy,
have put full page ads in newspapers. All refusing to stick to their
"profession" and instead professing that they are human beings first.
I think of Sean Penn traveling to Baghdad, in spite
of mutterings about patriotism. Or Jessica Lange, speaking at a movie
festival in Spain: "I despise George Bush and his administration."
The actress Renee Zellweger spoke to a reporter for the Boston Globe,
about "how public opinion is manipulated by what we're told. You see
it all the time, especially now....The good will of the American people
is being manipulated. It gives me the chills...I'm so going to go
to jail this year!"
Rap artists have been speaking out on war, on injustice.
The rapper Mr. Lif says: "I think people have been on vacation and
it's time to wake up. We need to look at our economic, social and
foreign policies and not be duped into believing the spin that comes
from the government and the media."
In the cartoon, "The Boondocks", which reaches 20
million readers every day, the cartoonist Aaron Magruder has his character,
a black youngster named Huey Freedman, say the following: "In this
time of war against Osama bin Laden and the oppressive Taliban regime,
we are thankful that OUR leader isn't the spoiled son of a powerful
politician from a wealthy oil family who is supported by religious
fundamentalists, operates through clandestine organizations, has no
respect for the democratic electoral process, bombs innocents, and
uses war to deny people their civil liberties. Amen."
The voices will multiply. The actions, from silent
vigils to acts of civil disobedience (three nuns are facing long jail
terms for pouring their blood on missile silos in Colorado), will
multiply.
If Bush starts a war, he will be responsible for
the lives lost, the children crippled, the terrorizing of millions
of ordinary people, the American GIs not returning to their families.
And all of us will be responsible for bringing that to a halt.
Men who have no respect for human life or for freedom
or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will
be up to the American people to take it back.
Dr. Howard Zinn is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science at Boston University.
Published on Thursday, February 27, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
