We Have No Anti-war Movement
One thing we can be proud of in the US is our long history of anti-war activism, especially in the years after World War II. A massive movement that included active-duty soldiers was a key factor in ending America’s criminal war in Vietnam. The Iraq invasion, the Afghanistan war, all faced at least some spirited anti-war activism.
Today the US is engaged in the most massive European land war since 1945 and what push back do we have? Crickets. Almost nothing.
As for the Ukraine war, let’s stipulate that Russia is a bad actor, Putin is terrible. In my lifetime, I recall, Russia was regarded as a terrible enemy because it espoused socialism. If only the communists could be dethroned and capitalism restored, everything would be great. So let’s also admit that the road to a US-engineered Russian capitalism led to something terrible, the evil oligarchs and dictatorship. But that’s just capitalism. We have evil oligarchs in the US too and it’s hardly a democracy. So it seems that the end of communism did not bring a peace dividend because, after all, the main problem with Russia was that it was a geopolitical rival.
Okay, so Putin is awful. But what are the goals of the US state department, of the Pentagon? Have they suddenly become national liberationists? Are they deeply touched by injustice? Hardly. They certainly did not send weapons to defend Yemen from Saudi aggression. They never give the Palestinians protection from air assaults. So let’s focus on the US government, the largest military force ever seen on the planet, what Martin Luther King Jr. called the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. What’s in it for them?
Let’s not spend pages to revisit the 2014 Ukrainian Maidan revolution, in which the US was instrumental in helping to overthrow the elected (though corrupt) Ukrainian government, or the provocations of the NATO expansion in Europe right at Russia’s door, or the US bullying its allies to undermine any compromise between Russia and Ukraine. Today we must all agree that Russia has grievances and Ukraine has reasons to be outraged.
But let’s at least call this war what it is. It is a war between Russia and the US (plus its partners in the NATO war alliance). It is US weapons, US intelligence, US targeting. Two years ago, the Ukrainian army was the size of a few states’ national guards. They are able to hold out because of Pentagon intervention.
And this is the Pentagon’s dream. For the first time in 60 years, they get to deploy all their cyberwarfare weapons, blow up all the hardware they have been developing, try out all their war plans, and make war without one American dying, with hardly a peep of protest at home. They have gleefully pledged to fight to the last Ukrainian.
And much of the US left is pro-war. Can you believe it? Many liberals started to love the FBI when it ran up against Trump. Now they are loving the Pentagon. A topsy turvy world. And how far will you follow the Pentagon? How about if they decide to send Abrams and Leopard tanks? What if they need trained Americans to operate them? Are you OK with US pilots flying F-16 missions over Ukraine? It is a US — Russia war and the escalatory possibilities, including nuclear war, are horrifying.
We have been sold justifications for war for years. The New York Times has daily human interest stories, heartbreaking stories, to line up the unity behind the war. In earlier years, we were fed heartbreaking stories from Afghanistan — US soldiers needed to be there so girls could go to school. Until they didn’t. The US decided to pull out. The Taliban is still kicking girls out of school. Now the New York Times has forgotten them, or at least does not think we can do anything about it. That was last year’s war propaganda.
Today, the war fever demands complete unity with the military on Ukraine and any dissent is viewed as madness.
Please keep an eye on the bigger goals of the US warmakers. They decided to drop out of Afghanistan because they had bigger targets. Most of the world believes that the US empire, having lost wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, is declining, no longer the central player on the world stage. But the Biden Doctrine says we must be aggressive, must threaten war to rebuild our supreme position. We will now confront Russia and China — gain back our top spot. It’s a super dangerous game. Get ready for the next war over Taiwan or the South China Sea. But these wars are always sold as inevitable, something we had to do because someone else, the Other, the bad actor, forced our hand. And the US government is working hard to stave off any anti-war movement.
Thus, the position of the left in the US is odd indeed. It reminds me of the left in 1914. Once war broke out between all the imperialist powers in Europe, most of the socialists lined up with their own ruling classes, joined the “patriotic front.” After four years of a grinding horror that slaughtered millions, the Russian troops revolted and the Bolshevik revolution came to power. They immediately pulled out of the war. The liberals cried, “What about the terrible Germans? What about the terrible Kaiser?” Lenin replied that certainly the Kaiser was terrible but their responsibility was to deal with their own imperialists. The German workers were responsible to deal with the German imperialists. We should consider the same advice for us today.
The left in the US finds itself in an awkward position. It generally supports the US war efforts in Ukraine and flies Ukrainian flags. But it can’t quite muster a full-throated cheer for the Pentagon. So we are left with a curious silence. We talk about health care, student loan forgiveness, homelessness, other worthy causes. But we don’t know what to say about Ukraine. In ten years when you look back at the devastation it caused, particularly to Ukraine, you will wish we had had a courageous anti-war movement.
