We Gave War A Chance

Alec Dubro

January 25, 2007

The morning after the State of the Union speech, the Washington Post headline ran—apparently without irony—“Bush Urges Congress, Nation, To Give His Iraq Plan A Chance.” Too bad John Lennon is dead, he could have sung it.

While we’ve all given the war a chance, some of us did it reluctantly. A smaller number opposed it from the get-go. And just as the Post hit the doorsteps, the naysayers were holding a Washington, DC press conference. United for Peace and Justice co-chair Leslie Cagan, flanked by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, former Congressman Tom Andrews, and two other anti-war activists, expounded on Bush’s war and announced details of the upcoming January 27 peace march .

No one actually said, “We told you so,” but it was in the air. Leslie Cagan, who has been organizing against the war for longer than the war itself, no longer has to spell out the awful truth of the Iraq invasion—the news has done it for her. Her message was, “We want the war to end, now.” And it no longer seems a quixotic hope.

Congresswoman Woolsey of Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California has been on the record opposing the invasion from the beginning. “The people have caught up with some of us,” she said. Bush, she said, “isn’t listening.” Woolsey, along with Representatives Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters, both California Democrats, has introduced binding legislation to bring the war to an end .

Former Congressman Tom Andrews, D-Maine, was the angriest. It’s not just a majority of Americans who want us out, but “71 percent of Iraqis also want us gone, and 66 percent of them think that’s it’s OK to attack U.S. troops.” Andrews noted, almost unnecessarily after the SOTU, “The president is a lost cause, we won’t change his mind.”

Which brought us to the message of the demonstration and the following visits to the Hill. “Our unified message is it’s time for Congress to act,” said Cagan.

While it is indeed time, well past time, for Congress to act, not everyone is convinced that mass demonstrations—even big demonstrations—are effective. In fact, two days previous, thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators occupied the National Mall, and when they were gone, all that was left were plaintive picket signs filling the trash bins around the Capitol.

Why, asked this veteran of hundreds of demos to the panel, is another one essential? Doesn’t the situation call for a limitless shutdown of Washington, rather than a transitory show of enthusiasm? Not the most sympathetic questions, I admit, but ones I’ve heard from any number of people sick of the war, but dreading a long march in the dead of winter.

No, said Cagan. Demonstrations are not just about the turnout, “They’re primarily about the organizing. About the work people are doing in their communities. We do them so that people will be re-invigorated and go back home and do the weekly, daily work…This is about building a movement and the demo is a step along the way, a building step.”

Panelist Fred Mason is president of the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO, as well as co-convener of U.S. Labor Against the War. He reminded reporters that labor has a principle in strikes, “One day longer. That means we have to outlast them by one day.” So it is, he said, with this movement.

I was convinced.

While neither I nor the organizers could guess how many would participate on Saturday, I’m guessing there will be some people in short supply—counter-demonstrators. Although Congress may hesitate to act boldly to bring the war to an end, it’s not because of offending public opinion. The giddy enthusiasm for a 9-11 payback has withered down to the stubborn and the truly mad. Saturday’s action may not change many minds from pro to anti, but it may well add another vertebra to the Democratic backbone. Be there.