While Donald Rumsfeld and his chuckle-headed apologists crow about the outcome of the Bush administration’s use of lies and deceit to justify war on Iraq, we might remember that the war zone created in Baghdad has led to a couple things: armed Islamist militias controlled by local clerics and the rise of rape and terror against women.

Zeinab, a 24-year-old computer science major who declined to give her last name, would drive her own car to college before the U.S. invasion, but now she’s only permitted to leave the house for school with the man she jokingly calls her driver-bodyguard-chaperon.

The beauty salons she used to frequent for pedicures and conversation are closed, so Zeinab spends much of her long hours at home in front of a mirror, practicing different hairstyles for the day she regains a social life.

Girls lost most of their freedom here a long time ago, but now we’ve lost it all, she said angrily. They want to protect our honor.

[LA Times]

And:

Sheik Nasseri, for instance, has been giving the Friday sermon at the main mosque in Sadr City, where he has railed against Americans as infidel colonizers and sanctioned the killing of unveiled women who refuse to comply with his rules, as well as the killing of Muslims or non-Muslims who sell liquor.

[NY Times]

Just in case you have forgotten: these are the same conditions–precisely the same conditions–that led to the establishment of the Islamist tyranny in Iran, and were used to justify forced veiling and other misogynist repression. And they are also the same conditions–precisely the same conditions that led to the horrors of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

So thanks, Donald, for lying to us about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out your dirty little war. What an awful outcome indeed.

Today, about 100 people braved temperatures just above freezing to stand for peace at Toomer’s Corners in Auburn.

In honor of the event, here’s a thought for Presidents’ Day: What would the other George W. do?

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

–President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Editors, The Plainsman:

In a recent letter to the editor of The Plainsman, Jonathan Melville took a rather odd tack in his support for war against Iraq:

As for the argument that Iraq doesn’t pose a threat to us, this statement is completely irrelevant with respect to whether we wage war.

Mr. Melville may not believe that it is relevant whether the United States is unleashing its deadly military might in an act of self-defense or in an act of unprovoked conquest. This is, however, an odd position to take, and requires some explanation. Unfortunately, nowhere in his letter does Mr. Melville support his claim that the United States can be justified in waging wars based on aggression rather than self-defense. Nor does he provide any principle which he thinks is relevant to whether we wage war.

I would like to propose the following test for whether or not the United States is justified in going to war with Iraq. A war is justified if all of the following conditions are met:

1. The Iraqi government possesses, or is likely soon to possess, significant weapons of mass destruction.
2. There is a specific threat that the Iraqi government will use such weapons against citizens of the United States.
3. There is good reason to believe that a war will substantially remove this threat.
4. There is good reason to believe that the destruction caused by the war will not be worse than the threat left without a war.
5. There are no options for removing the threat through less destructive means than war.

Now, neither Jonathan Melville nor myself is a U.N. weapons inspector. Neither of us has any particular access to whether (1) is true or false. As it happens, Hans Blix, who is in charge of chemical and biological weapons inspections, and Mohamed El-Baradei, who is in charge of nuclear weapons inspections explicitly deny that they have discovered anything which should prompt a war against Iraq. Since Mr. Melville claims to know that Iraq does in fact possess banned chemical and biological weapons, and also claims to know that they are about to have nuclear weapons, perhaps he has access to secret intelligence that the U.N. weapons inspectors do not. But he can hardly expect us to take his assertions on blind faith.

But even if (1) turns out to be true, neither the Bush administration, nor Jonathan Melville, has bothered to present any evidence whatsoever for (2)-(4). There is no evidence at all that Saddam Hussein has any more plans to attack the United States now than he did for the past twelve years. Has something changed in that time to transform a broken, beaten, third world country into an imminent threat to the world’s last unchallenged superpower? If something has changed, then the War Party should point it out. But, as far as I can tell, no-one has shown that anything has changed except the belligerence of the ruling party in Washington, DC.

How about (5)? Are there any options other than war? Certainly there are. For example, the United States can step back and let the inspections process continue to work–as Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Baradei have indicated they would be willing and able to do.

Mr. Melville and his fellow epistolator Charlie Vaughan do not present any evidence for believing that (2)-(5) are true. Instead, they both try to use an analogy with the struggle against fascism as a historical backdrop for the Bush administration’s plans for war–by accusing peace supporters of favoring appeasement of Saddam Hussein, as Neville Chamberlain favored appeasement of Hitler.

The attempted comparison is a grotesque abuse of history. Saddam Hussein is certainly a ruthless dictator with a lot of blood on his hands. However, comparing him to Hitler simply blanks out one minor detail: while Hitler stood atop a massive military machine that conquered nearly all of Europe in a few short years, Hussein is the tinhorn dictator of a devastated third world country, completely surrounded by hostile and militarily superior forces. There is no appeasement of Hussein to be done, because he poses a threat to no other country. What peace supporters ask is that we do not go out of our way to unleash the destruction of war on the Iraqi people when we can deal with Saddam Hussein through peaceful means.

Mr. Vaughan also angrily accuses Dr. El Moghazy of comments that are a slap in the face of those currently serving in our military. But El Moghazy never criticized women and men in the military–rather, his criticism was directed against the Administration that is dead-set on putting those brave men and women in harm’s way. It seems to me that it is no disrespect to our troops to try to keep them from being sent off to die in another dumb foreign war. If I were in the military, I’d rather have people support our troops by keeping me alive, rather than by giving me a medal after I’m dead.

Editors, Opelika-Auburn News:

Since I was at Toomer’s Corners when 250 people rallied for peace, and 100 people attended the candle-light vigil the following day, I was a bit puzzled to see Malcolm Cutchins dismiss Auburn peace efforts as a few candle holders.

Indeed, the Auburn rallies were part of a nation-wide call for peace, with 200,000 people marching in San Francisco, and half a million (500,000) marching in Washington–the largest peace demonstration in DC history. (Mr. Cutchins may find that rather small, but it was twice the size of the largest Vietnam-era peace march–ten times the 50,000 anti-abortion activists who marched later that week.)

What was even more puzzling was Cutchins’ attempt to portray the peace supporters as a few peaceniks, who only seem to outnumber the warhawks because of slanted media coverage.

In fact, the majority of Americans do not support war on Iraq.

Recent Zogby polls show more than half either actively oppose Mr. Bush’s rush to war (49%), or are unsure (4%). Warhawks are a large minority (47%), but they are still a minority. A strong majority of Americans (59%) oppose unilateral war. If peace supporters seem to be the majority, that’s because we are the majority.

Mr. Cutchins may think that he knows more about what most Americans believe than we do ourselves. But he can hardly expect us to agree with him.

Of course, popular causes are not always right. But in a democratic country, decisions that could condemn thousands to death should not be pushed through by an angry, vocal, hawkish minority. Before bombing kills thousands of Iraqi civilians–before our children come home in body-bags–the War Party needs to prove a specific threat that only war can stop. Until they give us that explanation, let’s step back and let the inspections work.

This Sunday I watched a very long and depressing line of speakers from the United States Bureau of Making Shit Up. James Woolsey (former head of the CIA and freelance war-hawk) speculated wildly and baselessly about possible connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. An anonymous terrorism expert moved beyond baseless allegation into nothing more than vague insinuations–he was particularly a fan of the claim that the Beltway sniper is actually an al-Qaeda operative, in spite of the complete lack of any basis whatsoever for asserting this to be probable, let alone true. Bill Kristol then got on and talked for a while about the need to bomb the world and starve North Korea, and practically accusing Tom Daschle of treason for daring to question the President’s authoritarian and secretive attitude towards Congress and the American people on foreign policy issues.

Well, OK. I expect this shit from Fox News. But while they drone on, an astounding grassfire movement against the war is welling up. The latest development is something that should get the attention of every Right-wing Bomb the World Republican, every spineless amoral Democrat, and the few progressives and genuine Lefties that remain in DC. Over the past week, MoveOn PAC‘s Reward the Heroes drive has raised over 1 million dollars for the campaigns of Congresspeople and Senators who opposed the President’s resolution for war against Iraq. Over $1,000,000 in a week! And we’re not talking about Republican or DLC-style contributions from millionaires here. We’re talking about over 37,000 individual contributions. An average of about $27 per contribution (I gave two contributions of $25, personally). If the DC cognoscenti start taking notice, this could be a very big deal. Money talks in DC, and right now, the people are screaming at the top of their lungs.

Of course, this campaign–like all campaigns–has its limitations. Among them:

• It’s depressing that this action will talk much louder than the hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails against war on Iraq that were sent out over the past several weeks. The pre-eminence of PAC money-laundering in politics is not a trend that I really want to see strengthened, although I’m willing to work to get through to Congress by pretty much any just means necessary right now.

• The campaign is primarily focusing on funnelling money to support incumbent Democrats who voted against the war. With the exception of that lying goat Paul Wellstone, I don’t have any objection to supporting those who have taken a stand against war. But I’d also like to see a lot more invested in getting new blood into Congress, not just giving established Lefty Democrats a political sinecure.

• Maintaining a Congress which is independent of the grip of the far Right is important, but we have to do a lot more than that to keep the country from going to hell in a handbasket. Slowing the bleeding will only do so much.

• MoveOn, for all of its virtues in moving Internet activism out into the offline world, makes no particular efforts to reach out to people other than those who can receive their e-mail alerts or access their website.

Again, the power of the Internet as an organizing medium is simply astounding, and we have to take very seriously how we are going to make the best use of it. The MoveOn PAC campaign is one very important way to put a lot of energy into grassroots campaigns, but we have to see this as only the start, and improve from here.

So what do we need to do?

• We need to follow up this campaign with more campaigns that move beyond online voting and make concrete actions. Contributing to campaigns where necessary, I guess, but also building up funding reserves for other purposes–organizing spaces, grassroots organizing (including workplace unionizing), and all the other infrastructure of a successful, anti-vanguardist resistance to the Right-wing Powers that Be. MoveOn PAC’s campaign is a brilliant example of a dynamic, exciting, creative way of standing up against the flow in DC and making them listen. Let’s come up with more ideas.

• We also need to talk about ways to allow online campaigns to reach out to people who don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet–people who tend to be older, poorer, racial minorities, etc. The Right doesn’t care: every CEO and arm-chair warhawk columnist has e-mail, Web access, and all the money the Right-wing foundations have to offer. But we have to work with people, not just dollars, and we have to think about building a mass movement. Otherwise, as Martin Striz pointed out in this space:

  Unfortunately, this nascent form of democratic political transformation is only relevant to those who have an Internet connection, and the unfortunate divide between the haves and have-nots will continue to plague us.

  So what can we do to pull that off? Well, simply focusing on campaigns that move offline and into the world of street protests, organizing spaces, letters to the editor, and other things in the meatspace will help. But let’s start thinking about other ways to convert Internet organizing into a galvanizing force for everyone. I don’t have many more ideas than anyone else on this–I’ve lobbied for printable posters and flyers to be available from all websites that advertise an offline political event, and I think that working on developing phone trees that spread from online to offline contacts would also be a really cool idea. But I’m a neophyte like everyone else and I’m really interested in hearing some creative ideas about where we can go from here.

In the meantime, toss a few bucks to the [MoveOn PAC][] Reward the Heroes campaign, and help make our voice heard in support of pro-peace candidates.