On The 10th (Count 'Em) Anniversary Of The Afghanistan Occupation-*Opinion Polls And The Question Of Peace- A Short Note ( Repost)-Enough-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Reposted from American Left History-Thursday, September 02, 2010

*Opinion Polls And The Question Of Peace- A Short Note

Markin comment:

Recently there have been a number of polls that have come out from various media sources indicating that the majority of American people have, in some form, turned against Obama's Afghan adventure. Every anti-war militant and leftist should take that as good news, at least in the sense that this gives us fertile ground to work in as we fight for out program of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied troops and mercenaries from Afghanistan.

Of course, polls in themselves can only give a very broad and , sometimes misleading, sense of the pulse of the populace at any given time. That is a given, but this short note is motivated by more than that concern. I want to make my point on this not by some high theoretical, high Marxist, high Trotskyist formulation but by a small piece of anecdotal evidence.

In the aftermath of 9/11 tensions, angers, and hatreds were running high, some of it natural under the circumstances some of it not. In any case at that time I was on the listen for any hint that cooler voices might appear that would , frankly, make it easier for we of the anti-war left to get a hearing for our anti-imperialist message. As I have mentioned before previously in this space that period was one of the few time in my long political street career that I feared being on the American protest streets, day or night. Along that line I started listening to a local call-in radio talk show. Now this was not some flaming, fire-red Fox Network/Rush Limbaugh operation but the very soul of discretion, a National Public Radio-like (NPR) talk show. Such shows if you are at all familiar with their format are noted more for long-windedness among the irate than venomous "red meat" statements, and tempers rarely flare up if at all.

On this particular day, this post 9/11, post-Afghan invasion, pre-Iraq invasion day the subject of the program turned on the question of individual callers' "peace strategies" for the Middle East (and, maybe, world peace as well although the focus was on the Middle East). The general tenor of the responses, for the most part, as was to be expected were long on the brotherhood of man (or some such hood) and short of breaking the back of Islamic fundamentalism in a way that would serve our interests (the interest of the anti-war left). Mainly the strategies were drive by proposals from policy wonks who submitted their plans in a manner befitting those who see themselves as policy-makers in exile (remember this was in Boston and and during the Bush administration when such types were around by the bushel full).

The call that drew my attention, however, and has made me even more skeptical and wary of these vaunted opinion polls was one woman caller, a mother of two, a worried distraught mother of two, a self-proclaimed pacifist along Quaker lines (and who articulated the Quaker "inner light" line very well), who solely in the interest of well-being of those two children you understand, proposed that perhaps a couple of surgical tactical nuclear strikes in the heart of the Middle East wouldn't make those two winsome children's future just a bit more secure.

Now I will not get into the little, the tiny little problem of those other mothers, those Middle Eastern mothers with their own two little winsome children and their fates under this program. I will merely speculate here, that, assuming this concerned mother did not personally have a couple of extra tactical nuclear weapons around the house (for the safety of those kids, remember) that this job, practically speaking would, of necessity, have to be detailed to the American imperial state.

But here is the kicker- when asked if she supported the furious rush to war by the Bush Administration in Iraq she quickly and unequivocally said no. I assume those quick strike nukes on behalf of Johnny and Jimmy were enough for her. So the next time you get really hung up and all excited about increased opposition to Obama's Afghan fiasco remember this little tale, this little cautionary tale, about the vagaries of peace-the peace of the graveyard. And organize, organize like crazy to get those troops out of Afghanistan before that 'concerned' mother steps into the breach.