What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

[Cybrweez]

My guess is the admin is waiting to determine when the pictures were taken? If a few years ago, then they can safely bash Bush. If w/in 2 yrs, they'll have to go into recover mode.

[Vraith]

I'd think it makes a difference that at Abu at least some of the treatment was in line with orders and policy.
In this one it wasn't.

[Zarathustra]

Well, the part about making naked pyramids out of prisoners and taking pictures while pointing at their junk surely wasn't our policy.

The main difference here is the worldwide response, from both the media and the so-called "anti-war" movement. Abu started an international firestorm of criticism for "Bush's war." He was called a war criminal and people wanted him tried, impeached, etc. Also, the media (without any apparent concern for putting our troops and our country at risk) flooded our global consciousness with this story and its images.

The difference is quite stark in how it is covered, how it is used, and how that increasingly fictional anti-war movement is reacting to it.

[Avatar]

Ja no, I have to agree with Z. There should be howls of outrage from people.

--A

[SerScot]

Avatar,

I actually heard a report on NPR early in the uprising against Gaddafi where some of the few rebels with military training were attempting to pass on their knowledge. Other rebels would come by calling the people training cowards for not just running to the front. The training group fell apart as they ran to prove their manliness.

With foresight like this how can these rebels not be trusted with sophisticated weapons systems. I mean they're just point and click, right?

Over the Horizon artillery fire is really simple after all.

[Avatar]

Part or the problem with popular revolts. That said, it doesn't matter in the sense that order holds only as long as people fear authority. Once they realise that there is a lot more of them, things start to take off.

--A

[Tjol]

For what it's worth, there still is an anti-war movement. The reason they seem less numerous is because there aren't socialists, anarchists, anti-semites, and anti-conservative folks keeping them company anymore.

I always told anti-war people way back when, that they didn't present a unified enough message to change people's minds. For every single actual anti-war poster, all the clinger on protest groups had a sign of their own so that protests didn't look to be in direct response to the war so much as they looked like a convention for professional protesters.

Likewise, too many of the professional protesters are in Wisconsin right now, so they don't have the time to be dramatic in front of the white house anymore... or crawford ranch for that matter.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I am still convinced that the vast majority of "anti war" protesters were actually "anti Bush" protesters, otherwise they would still be out there since a) Obama has actually ramped up deployment numbers since taking office and b) has opened up another front in Libya.

[Tjol]

What's odd with Obama though, is that he's not asked daily about war progress, and he isn't even vaguely referring to what his administration's intended outcome is for the current engagements, and the most recently added engagements. He commits our military, and then heads off to a tee time.

While I never liked Bush's executing the war with political concerns ahead of strategic concerns, it can at least be said that Bush was invested in the outcome of military deployments. Obama is much more detached... which I'm sure serves his general political strategy of waiting for the results before letting you know what side he was on. If you're never on a side, or seeking a specific goal, you can always claim victory when the dust settles, and Obama has done that over and over again with political issues, so it can only be expected that he'd do the same with regard to military deployments.

[Avatar]

I am still convinced that the vast majority of "anti war" protesters were actually "anti Bush" protesters, otherwise they would still be out there since a) Obama has actually ramped up deployment numbers since taking office and b) has opened up another front in Libya.

Yeah, I think you're probably right. Not that it matters, but they coulda been honest about it.

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Yeah, I think you're probably right. Not that it matters, but they coulda been honest about it.

--A

Diogenes is still wandering the countryside to this day, carrying his lamp and looking for an honest man.

[Avatar]

--A

[Cail]

Obama Gets a Blank Check for Endless War

The Obama administration is on pace to have more American soldiers killed in casualties related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the George W. Bush administration did in its first term.

Already, hundreds more American troops have been killed in Afghanistan during the less than three years of the Obama administration than during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration. According to the iCasualties.org Web site, whose count more or less tracks that of other sites devoted to these statistics, 630 American soldiers died in the Afghanistan operation in the years 2001 through 2008, when Mr. Bush was president, while 1097 American soldiers have died in the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Even if you allocate the 30 or so American soldiers killed in January 2009 entirely to Mr. Bush, who was president until the January 20 inauguration, it is quite a record.

Include Iraq, and the comparison tells a similar story: about 1,300 Americans killed in operations related to Iraq and Afghanistan combined during the first two and a half or so years we’ve had of the Obama administration, versus less than 600 American casualties in the first full three years of the George W. Bush administration.

It all raises at least two related questions. First, where are the antiwar protests? And second, where is the press?

In a phone interview, the national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, which organized some of the largest antiwar protests during the Bush administration, Michael McPhearson, said part of the explanation is political partisanship. A lot of the antiwar protesters, he said, were Democrats. “Once Obama got into office, they kind of demobilized themselves,” he said.

“Because he’s a Democrat, they don’t want to oppose him in the same way as they opposed Bush,” said Mr. McPhearson, who is also a former executive director of Veterans for Peace, and who said he voted for President Obama in 2008. “The politics of it allows him more breathing room when it comes to the wars.”

Mr. McPhearson says antiwar protests of the sort that drew hundreds of thousands of people during the George W. Bush administration now draw 20,000 at best. He said his group’s strategy now is to emphasize the cost of the wars and the Pentagon amid Washington’s focus on trimming the deficit.

As for the press, a New York Times article on the helicopter downed over the weekend in Afghanistan included the sentence, “Although the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has steadily risen in the past year, with a 15 percent increase in the first half of 2011 over the same period last year, NATO deaths had been declining — decreasing nearly 20 percent in the first six months of 2011 compared with 2010.” Why compare it to 2010? Why not to 2009, or to 2008? A Chicago Tribune news article, by contrast, declared that the helicopter downing “comes at a time of growing unease about the increasingly unpopular and costly war.”

By the standards of American history, the deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are small, a mere fraction of those suffered in World War II or the Civil War or even Vietnam or Korea. And there are measures of success or failure in war other than American casualties. It doesn’t only matter how many Americans die; it also matters how many enemy soldiers die, and whether America is achieving its war aims.

The approaching tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, is a sober time to weigh these issues for those of us New Yorkers and other Americans who supported the wars in part out of hope that they would decrease the chances of major terrorist attacks here at home. Mr. Obama can make the case here, as he does with the economy, that he is merely cleaning up and winding down the bad situation he was left by his predecessor. With the war as with the economy though, eventually even Mr. Obama will have to take ownership, or have it assigned to him by the voters.

[Zarathustra]

I've provided evidence upthread that the anti-war movement was a Democrat, anti-Bush movement, for anyone who hasn't read the report. However, this statement was unfair:

Obama Gets a Blank Check for Endless War

Include Iraq, and the comparison tells a similar story: about 1,300 Americans killed in operations related to Iraq and Afghanistan combined during the first two and a half or so years we’ve had of the Obama administration, versus less than 600 American casualties in the first full three years of the George W. Bush administration.

In the first full three years of the George W. Bush admin, we had only been at war in in Iraq for 9 months (the Iraq war began March 20, 2003) and in Afghanistan for 27 months (starting October 7, 2001) vs 36 (a "full three years"). So the article is comparing a combined 36 months of war for Bush to 66 months of war for Obama--a little more than half the time. Not exactly a fair comparison. When you look at the numbers in context, it's about the same.

But the point remains, and it's worth noting, that Dems only care about war when it benefits them politically. I just hate seeing a good point marred by deceptive statistics.

[Rigel]

I've provided evidence upthread that the anti-war movement was a Democrat, anti-Bush movement,

It's news to me, and news to everyone I know who's against the war.

Sure, we're all democrats, but we're also pissed off at Obama for not pulling out yet.

[Zarathustra]

Dems may be pissed, but they're not as pissed as they used to be ... if you use attendance at anti-war rallies as a way to gauge emotion.

Are you planning on voting for Obama again?

[finn]

I've provided evidence upthread that the anti-war movement was a Democrat, anti-Bush movement,

It's news to me, and news to everyone I know who's against the war.

Sure, we're all democrats, but we're also pissed off at Obama for not pulling out yet.

I'm starting to become pissed that his father didn't either!

[Rawedge Rim]

I've provided evidence upthread that the anti-war movement was a Democrat, anti-Bush movement,

It's news to me, and news to everyone I know who's against the war.

Sure, we're all democrats, but we're also pissed off at Obama for not pulling out yet.

I'm starting to become pissed that his father didn't either!

[Cybrweez]

Dang finn, harsh!

I linked to Obama's secret plan, from black agenda report, in another thread. The idea was that dem presidents push 'pub policies better than pubs, b/c dem supporters get in line. The decrease in anti-war activity is another example. I'm realizing the biggest dupes today are dem supporters.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It's a political paradox that since LBJ left office, only a republican can conciliate international foes and implement huge new entitlements, while only a democrat can wage war without significant opposition, cut social programs, and balance the budget. The symmetry is oddly beautiful, but I don't think Obama is up to the current task, unfortunately.