Obama's War: Has the "peace movement" become part of the war machine?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement
Submitted by John Stauber on March 27, 2009 - 1:00pm.


John Podesta's liberal think tank the Center for American Progress strongly supports Barack Obama's escalation of the US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is best evidenced by Sustainable Security in Afghanistan, a CAP report by Lawrence J. Korb. Podesta served as the head of Obama's transition team, and CAP's support for Obama's wars is the latest step in a successful co-option of the US peace movement by Obama's political aids and the Democratic Party.

CAP and the five million member liberal lobby group MoveOn were behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war. AAEI was operated by two of Barack Obama's top political aids, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, and by Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change and USAction. Today Woodhouse is Obama's Director of Communications and Research for the Democratic National Committee. He controls the massive email list called Obama for America composed of the many millions of people who gave money and love to the Democratic peace candidate and might be wondering what the heck he is up to in Afghanistan and Pakistan. MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama's policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8297

Progressive Media - A PR War Room for Obama
Submitted by John Stauber on March 28, 2009 - 7:46am.


Liberal think tanks and advocacy organizations formed during the Bush/Cheney regime are working in close and well-funded coordination as a PR messaging machine for the Obama Administration's foreign and domestic policies. A Washington Post blog noted that the Center for American Progress is now running Progressive Media which was begun by Tom Matzzie and David Brock in 2008 and now "represents a serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming policy wars." Progressive Media is a joint project with CAP and Brock's Media Matters Action Network and "headed by well-known liberal operative Tara McGuinness." Matzzie recently reminisced about his work with MoveOn's "Tara McGuinness, Eli Pariser and others" organizing Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Today MoveOn, USAction and others in that coalition are working hard to push Obama's policies, including rationalizlng or defending his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as "sustainable security"

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8300

Major Anti-War Groups Staying Quiet About (Or Supporting) Obama’s Afghan Escalation

Don’t look now, but President Obama’s announcement today of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence — and even some support — from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War.

It’s another sign of the dramatic shifts in the political landscape caused by Obama’s election and the economic crisis. Groups whose fundraising and membership exploded with their opposition to Bush’s Iraq policies are adapting to a new world where public outrage is focused heavily on the economy and leading liberal groups suddenly have an inside track to the White House.

MoveOn.org, the most visible and controversial anti-war bugaboo to people on the right, declined to make any public statement about Obama’s Afghan policies in response to my queries. An official close to the group confirmed to me that MoveOn wouldn’t be saying anything in the near term. The group is expected to poll its members on Afghanistan, the official said, though it’s unclear when.

MoveOn’s own members were recently polled on their priorities for 2009, and Afghanistan didn’t make the cut.

<snip>

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/afghanistan/major-anti-war-groups-staying-quiet-about-or-supporting-obamas-afghan-escalation/

[MadHound]

1. Sad to see the national movements selling out,

But my little local group have continued our Saturday and Wednesday peace vigils because guess what folks, the war hasn't ended yet, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better any time soon, only worse.

I suspect that in a year or so all the local peace groups will look at what the national groups are doing and kick the sell outs to the curb, and form their own new national group. And if Obama isn't careful, he too could be facing anti-war opposition in 2012.

[TBF]

24. I don't think they care. They're fighting the "cool" war. Just ask them. n/t

[blindpig]

2. but, but, but,

he's not a Republican......

[geek tragedy]

3. Afghanistan is not Iraq, except to the kooks on the fringes

both left and right.

[alarimer]

25. We still shouldn't be there.

It's wrong, no matter what the war fanatics say.

[juno jones]

4. Well nobody said much about yugoslavia back in

Clinton's day.

[Odin2005]

5. Stopping ethnic cleasing is a bad thing?

Those images of the the crap in Bosnia I saw when I was a kid is what drives my dislike for what I call Naive Pacifism. I think it was Dante who said that the depths of Hell are reserved for those who in a moral crisis refuse to get involved.

[blindpig]

6. It was a set up

I'll admit at the time I was fooled too. The propaganda machine worked just fine. You might want to check this out concerning western complicity and hypocrisy in this whole horrid affair.

http://links.org.au/node/560

[cali]

7. bullshit

there was absolutely large scale ethnic cleansing and killing going on in Bosnia. It wasn't fucking propaganda. And there's so much evidence about it that anyone denying it is either massively stupid or has a very ugly agenda.

[blindpig]

9. Not denying these things happened.

Rather the chain of events which lead to it and Western actions which aggravated the situation.

Read the fuckin' article.

[Odin2005]

10. It's a typical BS argument I see from the Naive Pacifists when Bosnia is brought up.

They have no problem siding with monsters like Miloshivich if it suits their agenda.

[blindpig]

11. Hardly pacifist

Rather anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

I will support the use of force when necessary such as the Cuban intervention against the racist/fascists in Angola.

[anonymous171]

19. So intervention is OK when your guys do it?

:rofl:

[blindpig]

22. When fighting apartheid, yes.

Ain't no pacifist.

[The Leveller]

26. You are regurgitating propaganda- You need to do some homework on the matter

"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable...” said one report, quoted in the April 24, 1999 issue of the German newspaper Junge Welt. The report concluded that Serb security forces were targeting KLA guerrillas and collaborators but apparently not innocent civilians.

What about the 100,000 - 500,000 Kosovar men allegedly missing and feared killed? USA Today, among others, reported that even U.S. officials lowered the figure to 10,000. Further reductions seem likely.

Then there are the mass graves. It was the discovery of one such grave in January that triggered NATO intervention. When 45 bodies were found near the town of Racak, a U.S. media blitz accused the Serbs of slaughtering innocent civilians.

By the time all of the lies were written, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Die Welt, the BBC, and others had already raised doubts about the alleged massacre. Forensic investigators had concluded that the bodies were probably those of KLA guerrillas killed in action. The bodies appear to have been dressed in civilian clothes, then shot additional times and cut with knives several hours after death, in order to simulate a brutal massacre.

In view of the Racak hoax, it would seem wise to reserve judgment about any reports concerning mass graves. Many atrocities have undoubtedly occurred, on both sides. But there is little evidence that Serbia behaved more villainously than its adversary, the KLA.

[rug]

14. Pimps are in the eighth circle.

[bigtree]

8. I dunno

. . . but, I do know that Bush never got an inch from activists against the same instigation of military force abroad, even though Obama has used many of the same justifications.

I hope folks don't dig themselves in too far defending the administration, trusting him to mitigate what is essentially military policy to a degree that this generation has generally opposed and resisted in the past.

[TBF]

12. K&R n/t

[No.23]

13. Peace, to many anti-war advocates, does not mean...

the absence of military intervention abroad.

It means the absence of Republicans in office.

Which explains the current status of some "peace" movements.

[Pastiche423]

17. "many anti-war advocates"

Did you pull that little gem from a dark hole, or do you have stats to prove your claim?

[Orsino]

15. Well, it's still substantially the same Congress that took us to war...

...and Obama might not have been elected if he'd been adamant about ending the wars immediately. Whether or not he really opposes war in general, he doesn't seem to have the power or will to stop it.

America, on the other hand, loves war, when it's someplace else. We swagger and bluster to drown out the casualty reports, and hardly bat an eye when it kills our neighbors--or forces them to kill.

[blindpig]

16. kick n/t

[anonymous171]

18. The Peace "movement" is not very big. It only gets big when there is a draft. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Well, it's now "our guys" in charge of the killing, so it's chic to be a hawk.

Just like the good old days when the party rallied behind LBJ and his escalation of that other brilliant adventure into colonialism.

[ieoeja]

21. How many times do you have to hear/read the phrase, "anti *this* war," before you finally get it?

The RW "get them before they get us" crowd never could understand that. And it would certainly seem that, despite that phrase being used over and over and over again here on DU, the pacifists here thought we were ... I dunno?

What did you people think we meant all those times we said we were in favor of the war in Afghanistan, but opposed to the war in Iraq? Did you think we were just making it up for some sort of political coverage?

You must be the only people in the world who complain when the candidate you voted for actually keeps the promise he made to you. There's just no pleasing some folks.

[anaxarchos]

23. WTF are you talking about?

Who is "we"? Do you so thoroughly identify with the powers that be? You must be on the board of directors of CitiBank or somethin'.

"We said...", "You people"...

Shit... That whole "entitlement" thing is supposed to be a lampoon.