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Washington's Wars and Occupations

By Max Elbaum, War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

LONG PEACE MOVEMENT NEEDS A NOISY NEXT PHASE

Month in Review #52
August 31, 2009

As the peace movement digs in for long-haul opposition
to continuing U.S. wars, we simultaneously face urgent
immediate challenges. Policy fights that may well
determine Washington's course for many years ahead
regarding Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and Honduras
(and Latin America in general) are at important
junctures. It will take more noise - in the streets and
elsewhere - from our side than we've been able to
generate in the last few months to tilt them in a
positive direction.

In the previous phase of struggle, under George Bush,
the Neocon strategy of "everything via military force"
failed. What was supposed to be a "cakewalk" in Iraq
turned into a debacle. Instead of increasing U.S. clout
and intimidating all opposition into surrender under
threat of "regime change," it strengthened the hand of
Washington's opponents. At home, public disgust with
Bush's war and the lies, torture and decline of U.S.
"global standing" that went with it - as well as the
tireless work of the antiwar movement - drove down the
right's popularity and was a main factor in the
Neocons' 2008 electoral defeat.

But the U.S. defeat in Iraq, and related loss of
influence world-wide, was not so severe that Washington
was forced to withdraw completely or immediately from
that country, much less the entire region. And U.S.
opinion, though shifting from a pro-war majority to
skepticism about anything positive coming from these
bloody interventions, did not reach the point where
millions constantly get in politicians' faces with the
boisterous demand "Out of the Middle East Now."

All this against a background of global economic
downturn, mounting ecological crisis, and an underlying
long-term trend toward the decline of U.S. economic
clout relative to other countries, especially China.

The result is a new, complicated and fluid balance of
forces, and a new administration in strategy adjustment
mode. Washington's new team of heavyweights (which
includes all too many carryovers from the previous
team) recognizes the terrain has shifted. They are
looking for a new mix of military, diplomatic and other
means to retain maximum U.S. influence within an
increasingly multi-polar world. Exactly what that mix
will be - where Washington will make concessions to
other powers and to progressive social movements vs.
where the U.S. will dig in its heels - is determined
only in part by grand ideological conceptions or
think-tank "gaming" blueprints. To a much greater
degree, it is determined by power and pressure. Where
global opponents and domestic resistance make the price
of U.S. war-making too high, Washington's pragmatic
"realists" can be forced to back off. On issues where
the forces invested in militarism and bullying (present
within the current administration as well hammering it
from the Republican and populist/racist right) are
given even an inch, they will push to take a yard and
more.

ISRAELI COLONIALISM GRINDS ON

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, there is what's
happening on the ground and what's happening in the
diplomatic arena. The U.S. media portray the second as
the bigger and more decisive drama. It is indeed a
vital site of battle. But where it fits into the
overall conflict can only be evaluated against the
day-to-day realities existing on the ground. In that
regard, Juan Cole's August 27 report lays out some
harsh truths that are constantly obscured in U.S.
mainstream debate. Go to http://www.juancole.com where
each of Cole's points below is backed up with a
citation:

"Israel is strangling the Palestinian economy. The
Israelis are restricting Palestinians' water supply and
essentially using their water at a rate 4 times that of
the Palestinians. Dozens of Palestinians in East
Jerusalem have been pushed out of their property by
Israeli squatters and are now forced to sleep in the
streets. Israeli illegal immigrants into the
Palestinian West Bank routinely act like thugs, beating
up on Palestinians and stealing from them. Israel has
11,000 Palestinians behind bars, and has repeatedly
blocked family visits to prisoners, which the Red Cross
has called a violation of the Geneva Conventions and
international law more generally. The Israeli military
justified the attack on an unarmed American peace
protester as a 'justifiable act of war.' (He is in a
perhaps permanent coma).

"Much of the U.S. press, as usual, is ignoring the
belligerent statements of Likudniks in the Israeli
government and misrepresenting the Palestinians, whose
statelessness (and consequent lack of human and legal
rights) is imposed on them by a brutal Israeli military
occupation and/or perpetual siege and blockade..."

The Obama administration's public opposition to any new
Israeli settlements remains an important marker. But it
cannot last as a "stand alone." Sooner or later - and
right now it looks like sooner - Obama will have to go
further to put real pressure on Israel or follow in the
footsteps of previous U.S. administrations and let Tel
Aviv have its way. Signals as of this writing are not
positive. The Israeli newspaper Ha'eretz reported Aug.
28 that "The Obama administration has agreed to
Israel's request to remove East Jerusalem from
negotiations on the impending settlement freeze.
According to both Israeli officials and Western
diplomats... the U.S. will not endorse new construction
there, but would not demand Jerusalem publicly announce
a freeze..." If this is in fact the case, it is a
terrible sign that in the Obama-Netanyahu stand-off, it
is Obama who is blinking first.

That outcome would not be surprising given the
longstanding "special relationship" between the U.S.
and Israel and the entrenched power of pro-Israel hawks
at every level of the U.S. government. It is also the
most likely as long as negotiations take place at "high
levels" behind closed doors. But it is not inevitable.
Given enough noise and protest from below a spotlight
can be cast on the underlying realities of brutal
occupation. And pressure can move U.S. policy toward
the position taken by most of the world: that not just
a "settlement freeze" but complete Israeli withdrawal
from the occupied territories is a pre-condition for
any just settlement of this region-threatening
conflict.

Just how frightened Israeli leaders and apologists are
of such noise is indicated by their reaction to the
recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed supporting the call for
boycotting Israel by Israeli Jewish peace activist (and
Israeli Army veteran) Neve Gordon. As Gideon Levy put
it in the aftermath of the outpouring of hate directed
at Levy, "If Israel were convinced that Gordon's call
for a boycott and his description of Israel as an
apartheid state are unjust, we would not be so abusive...
It is not just a question of intolerance for different
opinions... It is also a manifestation of edginess and
aggressiveness that prove what Gordon and others like
him want so much to show in Israel and abroad: that
something very basic and very deep is flawed in the
third kingdom of Israel." Full text at
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22455

Even London's Financial Times "gets it," editorializing
August 25: "Netanyahu has always argued that the
Palestinians cannot expect a nation, only some sort of
supra-municipal government... his emotive insistence on
"natural" settlement growth is equally bogus. With vast
subsidies, these colonies are growing at more than
three times the rate of population in Israel proper...
Netanyahu turned the drive for peace into pure process:
piling up unresolved disputes to be parked in "final
status" negotiations he never intended to begin."

If Britain's premier business-class paper can write
such things, certainly the U.S. peace movement can be as
blunt and even more boisterous. Resources for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions campaigns can be found at:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&
type=28

And you can get information about the campaign to
defend Neve Gordon and academic freedom at:

http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

MORE ESCALATION IN AFGHANISTAN?

As for Afghanistan, it's like watching the rerun of a
movie that already flopped the first time around.
Foreign troops invading and occupying a county under
the banner of freedom and democracy. An insurgency that
grows with each civilian killed in the occupiers
"keep-U.S.-casualties-down" bombing runs. A corrupt
government, full of human rights violators and drug
traffickers. U.S. generals saying "the war is in danger
of being lost" and what we need is "more troops."

(It's true that in the case of Afghanistan the
ideological outlook and political program of the
insurgent core - the Taliban - is quite different from
the mostly progressive perspectives that have fueled
the majority of anti-colonial resistance movements. As
a result, most of Afghanistan's neighbors, and many
Afghans, are determined to resist a Taliban return to
power. But that does not alter the fact that foreign
occupation is a recipe for endless bloodshed and that
no solution can be achieved by military means. It only
means that the final shape of a political settlement
will likely be different, and involve regional powers
differently, than those that ended or accompanied other
colonial/anti-colonial wars.)

The immediate point is that another decision-making
moment is at hand. The New York Times reported August
24 that U.S. military commanders are on the verge of a
formal request for more troops and adds: "The
possibility that more troops will be needed in
Afghanistan presents the Obama administration with
another problem in dealing with a nearly eight-year war
that has lost popularity at home, compounded by new
questions over the credibility of the Afghan
government, which has just held an as-yet inconclusive
presidential election beset by complaints of fraud."

What the Times considers a problem is in fact an
opportunity for the administration to change course
toward de-escalation, negotiation and withdrawal. The
potential to mount pressure to do exactly that exists.
The latest polls show a majority of the U.S. public
thinks the war is a mistake. Sen. Russell Feingold has
just broken what the mainstream press calls a
"Washington taboo" by calling for a timetable for the
withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.
And grassroots antiwar groups have begun preparations
for a new round of mass demonstrations in October.
Building on each of these components - expanding
antiwar public opinion, amplifying "time to get out"
voices on Capitol Hill and filling the streets with
antiwar chants - can create the climate where the
administration can put into practice its "there is no
military solution" rhetoric rather than its "we must be
in a position of strength" recipe for disaster.

Among the websites where you can get action information
about ending the war in Afghanistan are
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ and

http://www.peace-action.org/Afghanis...on_letter.html

AS GOES HONDURAS...

Once again the coup-makers in Honduras have refused to
accept an already watered down compromise that would
restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya. They turned
down the latest version of this compromise, offered
during a late-August visit to Tegucigalpa by a
delegation from the Organization of American States.
Under mounting pressure from throughout Latin America,
the Obama administration signaled that in response to
this latest stonewalling it might go beyond the
slap-on-the-wrist steps it has taken so far against the
coup makers. A State Department spokesperson told
reporters: "Given the de facto regime's refusal this
week to meet the demands of the O.A.S. delegation, we
will make some judgments based on that, and we'll
announce them very shortly."

But with most of the Washington establishment mouthing
the coup-makers "justifications:" for their actions, it
will take counter-pressure to get U.S. sanctions with
any teeth. New York University Professor Greg Gandin
laid out the stakes in the Nation magazine:

"Failure to restore Zelaya to power will send a clear
message to Latin American conservatives that Washington
will tolerate coups, provided they are carried out
under a democratic guise... they already sense that
Honduras might be a turning point. A conservative
businessman recently won the presidency in Panama. In
June in Argentina, Cristina Fernandez's center-left
Peronist party suffered a midterm electoral defeat and
lost control of Congress. Polls show that presidential
elections coming up in Chile and Brazil will be close,
possibly dealing further losses to the left.

"In the meantime, Zelaya is rallying supporters from
abroad to press for his return. In Honduras, protests
continue and the body count climbs. At least eleven
Zelaya supporters have been killed since the coup took
place. [Coup leader] Micheletti, for his part, is
hunkered down in Tegucigalpa, betting he can leverage
international support to last until regularly scheduled
presidential elections in November. The future course
of Latin American politics may hang in the balance."

Information about solidarity efforts with the Honduran
people can be found at http://quixote.org/


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