Mainstreaming the Anti-War Movement

Only three days after the most devastating direct attack on the United States in its history, thousands of New Yorkers gathered for a peace vigil in Manhattan. By day five, some 4,000 rallied in San Francisco; another 2,000 in Portland. Thousands followed in Seattle, Boston, New York and San Francisco again, and elsewhere; smaller vigils, rallies, and marches came together in cities and towns across the country. Thousands, maybe millions more reached out on the Internet, finding virtual communities and message boards flooded by those who shared their views. In their homes, people began churning out letters to their newspapers and to the White House and Congress.

Since September 11's tragedies, large groups of people who didn't know each other on September 10 -- many who hadn't ever been politically active before -- have begun meeting and finding an unexpected common ground. They've been reassuring each other that they're not insane, and that they're not alone in wanting the United States not to respond to a horrific crime by flattening some country, any country. They're not alone in fearing World War III. They're not alone in worrying about an undefined war against an unknown enemy in undefined places, when we don't know what victory would look like and we don't know how we'll recognize it if it's achieved.

Those are not simply pacifist questions; they're common-sense questions that

transcend ideology. Almost immediately, there was a significant, and broad, counter-current to America's impulse for revenge. At first glance, it seemed astonishing; thousands died and virtually everyone in the country began worrying about their own physical safety and that of their loved ones. Of course something needed to be done.

But what? Is war, especially the prolonged one George Bush warns of, the answer? Most of the people of the world don't think so. An international Gallup poll released Sep. 21 found that 46 percent of Americans were either undecided or opposed to military action. In 29 of 30 other countries polled (Israel being the exception), the public was opposed to military action, preferring extradition and legal remedies. Margins against war were in the 80-90 percent range in Europe and Latin America. People have their doubts, abroad and at home.

Thankfully, the indeterminate nature of the war Bush initially called for (wiping out evil? All of it?) also gave the rest of the White House and the Pentagon pause. On Sep. 25, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cautioned Americans that, to our presumably great disappointment, there will be no massive land invasions in this war. But there are still plenty of other dangers down this path, and there are still more effective means of combatting terrorism.

To its credit (so far), while the rhetoric has been understandably bellicose and the White House has been busy lining up foreign support and military options, it hasn't blindly lashed out in retribution. But it has given in to the seeming American need to put a single name on the enemy (Saddam, Noriega, Qaddafi, Fidel), and that is a serious mistake. Even if bin Laden was involved in the Sep. 11 attacks, the enemy we are fighting doesn't need him, and, in fact, now that he has the cachet of being America's target, they'd greatly benefit from the volunteers his martyrdom would produce. Bin Laden isn't a major strategist among the world's radical conservative Sunni Moslems; his role has been relatively minor, even as financier. (His much-vaunted riches have been frozen for years.) He simply acts, as do a number of other individuals, as a facilitator among a broad network of radical, violent fringe Sunni groups. Removing him doesn't begin to solve the problem.

Instead, the War on Terrorism confronts an enormous, complex web of groups, and it's likely to get more, not less, complicated if we send in the military. Bush has exacerbated that concern by announcing they will target all terrorists (presumably including prospective ones), and the countries that "harbor" them. That essentially is a blank check for invading any country in the world, since the implicit assumption -- that bin Laden and his boys are responsible for it all, and they're all holed up on a ranch somewhere in Afghanistan, waiting for the Delta Force -- is preposterous. Even the direct accomplices to Sept. 1 were smart and prepared enough to scatter to the four winds ahead of time, and bin Laden's modus has often been to have sympathizers go into deep cover for years in the West. Many other groups have done the same. The War On Terrorism, as defined by Bush, can be fought against anybody, anywhere and everywhere on the planet.