From: Montyneill-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:55:14 EST
Subject: AUT: war and resistance



--part1_1cc.2fb4b3e.2b82fa92_boundary

Several people have stated with seeming assurance that as soon as the bombs 
start dropping, opposition to the war in US and Britain will evaporate. 

I expect it will diminish, but I think ithe movement begun to <get out of 
hand>, peaceful as it has been. There will be continued resistance, it will 
re-group and I expect it will grow again because of the conditions - but how 
the movement responds to events will matter as well. 

A quick and relatively bloodless US victory would probably do more to reduce 
the anti-war movement than bombing itself would - as it would appear the war 
would be over. 

Of course, it will not be over. Bush himself has promised us so, and here we 
should take him at his word. And it is reasonable to assume war will also be 
waged in a variety of forms by a variety of forces (some thoroughly horrible 
as Al Qaeda) against and at times perhaps within the US and Britain et al. 

More fundamentally, is if we who think the issues revolve around oil but go 
beyond Iraqi oild and even oil in the mideast, important as they are, are 
correct, then the situation will get nastier.

We in Midnight Notes argued (Respect Your Enemies, on the web at <A HREF="www.commoner.org/uk">
www.commoner.org/uk</A> under War) that a crisis of accumulation under the 
neoliberal globalization regime has led to the war plans of the Bush regime; 
that protection of neoliberalism requires military action, to ensure 
compliance with neoliberalism; that the gulf and other oil states are 
currently unstable and unreliable  (due primarily to class struggles) and so 
must be bolstered and or intimidated (or removed) as the cases may be - do 
read it, it is not that long.  (These arguments are quite different from 
those of others, e.g. Wallerstein, but not entirely incongruent in some 
senses, particularly in leading to a conclusion of the US requiring and 
causing many more wars.) 

Following on that piece now a few months old, we would say the continuation 
of the anti-war movment is essential. Connecting it more strongly to 
anti-globalization (at least here in US, maybe it is in other places) is 
essential, as is broadening the class (and race) composition of those in 
resistance (which means connecting clearly to the way the war is a war on 
education, health care, unions, wages, civil liberties including the right to 
strike, etc etc).  

Thus, it is not now known in what form, with what size, strength, 
determination, composition, spectrum of support and capacity to re-grow, the 
movement will emerge if/when Bush atttacks and in particular if the immediate 
war ends quickly and (as perhaps it was someone on this list who said) the 
television watchers of the world get to see the US troops handing out 
medicine and food.  If the war drags on, the carnage is severe and not 
hideable from the media (assuming media will show it - I think enough will to 
make it not fully hidden) and the further destruction of infrastructure soon 
makes clear its horrors - that will be a different scenario for the movement. 


It is not that there are a set of pre-planned actions for the scenarios - but 
they key is to be thinking of strengthening the movement. I think that means 
exposing the horrors that will be present, linking to the many things people 
will be battling, and showing how the logic of at least the Bush regime if 
not the whole system guarantees deepening misery, continuous wars, etc.  I 
think that  a lot of this is now happening, often in fairly populist and 
general terms - but that is a good start and I am encouraged. 

Monty Neill 

--part1_1cc.2fb4b3e.2b82fa92_boundary

HTML VERSION: