What Now for the Peace Movement?

By Amy Quinn, TomPaine.com. Posted March 10, 2005.

In the six months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the United States erupted in a display of citizen dissent not seen since the Vietnam War era. Now, almost two years later, the majority of the American public view Iraq as a train wreck. Yet public outrage about this war's seemingly endless tragedy has remained largely under the radar.

To turn up the volume and power of voices calling for an end to the U.S. war and occupation, the same organizations behind the massive rallies of 2003 and 2004 are planning a fresh strategy for engaging the public in constructive action on Iraq.

With the backdrop of an escalating war that's ravaging Iraq, destabilizing U.S. communities, and sowing seeds of resentment against the United States around the world, United for Peace and Justice – the nation's largest peace coalition – assembled 500 delegates over President's Day weekend in St. Louis to chart a roadmap for the next year to bolster and build the U.S. peace and justice movement. The assembly whittled dozens of proposals from member groups down to a powerful action plan to bolster the movement to end the war. A set of priorities emerged that maximizes the White House vulnerabilities generated by the Iraq War and sets a proactive agenda of alternatives to the Bush administration's belligerent policies.

Building a Plan

First, the assembly affirmed that we must broaden and deepen our base to catalyze public sentiment for bringing the troops home to reach a tipping point.  According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken after the Iraq elections, 59 percent of the public believes the United States should pull its troops out of Iraq in the next year. Yet the ranks of those actively demanding that the president produce an exit strategy from Iraq are slim. The peace movement must find fresh ways to stir untapped allies so that, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., our conscience leaves us "no other choice" but to act.

Second, we must support and amplify the pressure coming from within the ranks of the military. Military families and veterans hold the moral authority to successfully communicate with the U.S. public the reality on the ground in Iraq and the disillusion soldiers are facing. Iraq War veterans and military families need help putting a human face on the 1,500 soldiers who have been sent to their graves and the thousands more who are suffering the physical and mental scars of war. It's also crucial to expose how the war has dangerously overextended the U.S. military, the National Guard and our military reserve units.

Third, we must seize on Bush's greatest vulnerability – the war's astronomical cost, set to surpass $200 billion in the coming weeks.  Bush's mounting deficit from reckless war spending is already squeezing out community programs that serve millions.

And fourth, we must expose the hypocrisy of Bush's war of liberation and present viable alternatives to promote genuine democracy and economic sovereignty in Iraq.

Back to Movement Roots

Founded in 2002, UFPJ is the glue that will continue to link 1,400 organizations together around these strategies to oppose Bush's Iraq War and its domestic consequences. Since its inception, this diverse and dynamic coalition has mobilized hundreds of thousands of people through global demonstrations like the "World Says No to War" actions on Feb. 15, 2003, national actions such as the high-profile protests during the Republican National Convention in August 2004, and hundreds of smaller-scale actions that sustained opposition to this war since 2003. 

What's ahead for the peace movement? For our part, UFPJ seeks to expand our base through a sustained education campaign set to launch March 24, the 40th anniversary of the first Vietnam teach-in.  Simultaneous teach-ins will kickoff the campaign in Washington D.C., California, and at the site of the first Vietnam teach-in in Ann Arbor, Mich. Our goal is to generate momentum and infrastructure for a long-term education movement that promotes fresh models for reaching beyond the choir to engage clergy, youth, immigrants and others about the real axis of evil – racism, poverty and war – set forth by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967.

Most importantly, the teach-in campaign will speak to the large slice of the 59 percent of the public who thinks the troops should be brought home but are paralyzed with fear about the consequences for Iraq.  Our task is to illustrate the facts – the longer the United States occupies Iraq, the more deadly and costly this war will be.

Coupled with the education campaign is a strategy to highlight the domestic consequence of war in our organizing. Missouri taxpayers, who hosted the UFPJ conference, for example, are on the verge of paying $1.1 billion more to fund the Iraq War once Congress passes Bush's requested $82 billion emergency Iraq supplemental funding package. Missouri's share of the impending budget bill could be directed, instead, to provide health care to more than 485,000 children in the state. With statistics like this in mind, the assembly backed a plan to partner with allies such as poverty groups, education advocates and health care coalitions who are leading fights to save vital programs that are getting burned by Bush's skyrocketing deficits and budget cuts. This initiative will link the mushrooming number of local fights to save essential public services and the $1.5 billion-a-week sinkhole of Iraq War funding.

Amy Quinn is the Peace Movement Links Coordinator for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is a founding steering committee member of United for Peace and Justice.

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