Pittsburg National Antiwar: Conf. Demands “Out Now!”

by Joe Lombardo & Jeff Mackler / August 2009

Over 250 antiwar activists from 26 states and the District of Columbia participated in the second national antiwar conference sponsored by the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations (NA), on July 10-12 in Pittsburgh. They were joined by two central leaders of the recent Guadeloupe general strike, a top Haitian trade-union official, Palestinian leaders, and several Canadian antiwar activists from Toronto and Vancouver.

Recent years have seen a major downturn in antiwar and other protest activities, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan continue to escalate despite majority opposition.

The glaring contradiction between the mass U.S. opposition to imperialist wars abroad and to the ever-deepening attacks on working people at home, on the one hand, and the absence of major challenges in the streets to impose the will of this majority, on the other, served as the backdrop to virtually all conference discussions and debates. How and when this logjam could be broken informed the major conference deliberations.

A July 23 Associated Press poll reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune noted that 63 percent are opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq and 53 percent opposed to the Afghanistan War. Pre-2008 election polls indicated that 83 percent believed that an Obama administration would withdraw most U.S. troops during his first term. That figure is now down to 68 percent, as more and more people are beginning to realize that the policies of the current government in Washington, hyperbole aside, differ little from those of the Bush administration.

Obama’s military appointees in Iraq blatantly report that the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) accords signed last year regarding timetables for a U.S. withdrawal will be negated by joint U.S./Maliki government agreements to extend the stay of U.S. forces. Indeed, both Obama and Maliki, during the latter’s recent visit to the United States, made it clear that U.S. troops, in varying forms, were expected to remain in Iraq indefinitely—the now well-understood prerequisite to maintaining the neo-colonial order. Suppression of the popular opposition to the U.S. occupation by the majority of Iraqis—Shiite and Sunnis alike—can only be maintained by force and violence.

U.S. belligerency and saber-rattling in the region was further highlighted by a mid-July statement by Vice President Joseph Biden affirming that Israel had the “sovereign right” to bomb Iran should it feel its “national security” was threatened. This is not the first time that the U.S. has sanctioned—or better, orchestrated—Israeli bombing attacks on nuclear research facilities in the Middle East. Syria and Iraq have both been victims.

The larger than expected conference attendance, coming at a time when illusions in the Obama administration’s “good intentions” still run high and when working people have suffered defeat after defeat without a significant concerted response, helped to raise the spirits of antiwar activists, who are far from discounting the movement’s potential. Indeed, it was clear to all that the U.S. is entering a period of more, not less, wars of plunder and occupation at the expense of oppressed people around the world and at the expense of American working people.

The conference was attended by leading representatives and/or activists of all of the national antiwar coalitions—ANSWER, UFPJ, World Can’t Wait, International Action Center, Bail Out the People Coalition, and others. Participants came prepared to hammer out a plan of action aimed at achieving a greater degree of unity than in past years and at preparing for a resumption of the powerful massive mobilizations that can begin to effectively challenge the U.S. warmakers.

Members and leaders of Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink, American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, US Labor Against the War, Pax Christi, the Iraq Moratorium, Progressive Democrats of America, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Green Party, and other national groups actively participated. Close to a dozen socialist organizations were also represented, as were scores of leading activists from local and regional antiwar organizations across the country.

The conference was held at La Roche College in Pittsburgh and was hosted by the peace committee of the Thomas Merton Center, the main peace and justice organization in the area. National antiwar leaders in attendance included Cindy Sheehan; Col. Ann Wright; Donna Dewitt, president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO; and long-time peace activist Molly Rush of the Plowshares 8, who is also a founding member of the Thomas Merton Center.

Keynote and featured rally speakers also included Michael McPhearson, executive director of Veterans for Peace and co-coordinator of UFPJ; Brian Becker, national coordinator, ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism); Iraqi poet and National Assembly leader Zaineb Alani; National Assembly leader and unjustly disbarred human rights attorney Lynne Stewart; and Michael Zweig, an economics professor and leader of US Labor Against the War.

A special presentation by Elie Domota, general secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe, brought down the house with thunderous applause when Domota described what a united workers’ movement and 45-day general strike on the French-controlled Island of Guadeloupe had accomplished. The united mass movement there extracted major concessions from the island’s ruling rich and from the French government. Representatives of the peace and labor movements from Canada and Haitian trade unionist Fignolé St. Cyr, general secretary, Autonomous Confederation of Haitian Workers (CATH), were also active conference participants.

All those in attendance at this inclusive and open antiwar conference had voice and vote in all proceedings.

The main plenary sessions were dedicated to developing a united action proposal for the coming period and adopting a structure proposal for the National Assembly’s functioning. A 14-person Administrative Body was elected to help lead the organization. This body is subordinate to the National Assembly’s leading decision-making committee, the Continuations Body (CB), which includes representatives from all local and national organizations that agree to the Assembly’s five points of unity. These are the construction of a democratic (one-person-one-vote), united, independent, mass action, and Out Now! antiwar movement. To date, 44 organizations are represented on this open-ended body.

The central objective of the National Assembly is building a U.S. antiwar movement, in all its diversity, united around specific mass actions. Mass action is seen by NA organizers as an indispensable weapon to win fundamental social change—and as a fundamental tactical and strategic organizing principle. It is based on the premise that the people of the world are fully capable of making their own history provided only that they are united, clearly focused, and organized independently of the institutions of the status quo.

Five Action Proposals were circulated prior to the conference to all participants. One, submitted by the National Assembly’s CB leadership, had been discussed and debated for several months prior to the conference.

The remaining proposals came from writer/activist David Swanson, leader of the After Downing Street group; the World Can’t Wait coalition; and a group of 9/11 truth activists who sought adoption of a proposal supporting a New York City referendum for an independent 9/11 investigation.

Another proposal, submitted by the Bail Out the People Campaign, was withdrawn and later submitted for the consideration of the Assembly’s post-conference CB meeting. All proposals were discussed and debated, and in the end, in the spirit of unity that prevailed throughout the conference, all of the resolutions, with the exception of the proposal from the 9/11 truth activists, were consolidated into a unified action proposal and unanimously approved.

The major difference in emphasis between all the proposals presented centered on whether the present movement was capable of organizing a major mass antiwar action today. Those who were skeptical about such a possibility preferred a weekday event, where the anticipated modest turnout would not highlight the movement’s present limited organizing capacity. Those favoring a focus on Saturday, Oct. 17, eventually prevailed, albeit with a clear understanding that present conditions were not yet amenable to mobilizing the massive protests that marked the movement in its earlier stages.

October actions to highlight anniversaries

The Oct. 17 date was selected to mark the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the decision to go to war against Iraq as well as to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium, the 1969 mobilization that drew hundreds of thousands into the streets to oppose the U.S. war against the people of that country. At the same time, however, virtually all present understood that posing modest weekday actions was not at all counterposed to efforts at larger mobilizations.

The NA call aimed at promoting and organizing a series of actions in September and October and a nationally coordinated mobilization next spring around the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Actions will take place in Pittsburgh during the Sept. 24-25 G-20 summit meeting of leaders of the world’s most powerful industrialized nations. The conference voted to organize a National Assembly “Out Now!” antiwar contingent on Sept. 25. This day has been set aside by Pittsburgh G-20 organizers and NA supporters for a massive, peaceful, legal demonstration around the demand, “Money for Human Needs, Not War.”

The National Assembly will urge that the Oct. 17 actions include the following demands:

• Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan!

• End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the siege against Gaza!

• U.S. hands off Iran and North Korea!

• Self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples!

• End war crimes, including torture!

The Assembly will also support and endorse a two-week period of united actions, beginning Oct. 3 and culminating on Oct. 17. This includes Monday, Oct. 5, as the date for a national mass march and non-violent civil resistance at the U.S. House of Representatives office buildings and at the White House.

The NA’s Action Program includes the organization of a national speaking tour, collaboration with other groups on organizing a week of student antiwar protests, and projected nationally coordinated mass actions in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the spring of 2010. The NA is presently engaged in a campaign to win endorsements for Oct. 17.

Inspiring conference statements by leaders of the national antiwar groups and by participating rally and panelist speakers effectively promoted a new and welcome spirit of unity that few have witnessed in past years. The amended Action Program, was approved unanimously.

Eighteen workshops, organized in two sessions, saw many of the movement’s most hotly debated issues discussed in civil tones. Workshops focused on the war’s effect on the economy; women and war; students and youth; current developments in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Pakistan; lessons of the Vietnam War; immigrant rights/ICE raids; soldiers, veterans, and military families; Guadeloupe and Haiti; and more. The G-20 workshop saw some of the first organizing for the Sept. 24-25 Pittsburgh demonstrations.

A typical example of one of the many well-planned workshops was entitled, “Torture, Rendition, Detentions, Guantanamo and Wrongful Prosecutions: Holding Those Who Give the Orders Responsible.” Presenters included Lynne Stewart; Jules Lobel, U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights litigator; Janet McMahon, managing editor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; David Swanson, cofounder of After Downing Street; and Katherine Hughes from the Dr. Dhafir defense committee in Syracuse.

Resolutions on Palestine, Haiti, Honduras

The conference approved by unanimous votes critical resolutions on Honduras, Palestine, and Haiti. The Honduras resolution demanded the immediate and unconditional return of deposed President Manuel Zelaya, and a U.S. Hands Off! policy.

The Palestine resolution demanded the immediate release of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and supported the Palestinian right to self-determination. A Palestine Working Committee was also established “to help ensure that the antiwar movement stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine and integrates the issue of Palestine in the broader antiwar struggle.”

The resolution continued, “The movement should promote efforts to break the siege of Gaza, oppose attacks and incursions in the occupied territories, actively support the call of the Palestine Civil Society movement for boycotts, divestments and sanctions, and call for an end to U.S. support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine.”

The resolution on Haiti demanded “… the immediate withdrawal of the 12,000 UN occupation troops from Haiti and the return of democracy, beginning with the return of all exiled political leaders, particularly Jean Bertrand Aristide.”

The agenda featured a half-hour discussion and debate on the situation in Iran, wherein some 20 speakers in rapid succession expressed a broad range of often opposing views and opinions. It was clear that the vast differences expressed would not and could not result in a broadly accepted united agreement on whether the conference should stand in solidarity with the Iranian masses who rose to challenge the oppressive Iranian clerical corporate regime and threatened to go beyond the framework of the present repressive system itself.

Opponents of this position argued that the massive challenge to the “more progressive” regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in large part orchestrated by or benefited U.S. imperialism. This was a point of view that allowed no common ground with these writers and many other conference participants. The sharp division made it clear that the conference was compelled to refrain from adopting any position on the internal politics of Iran.

By unanimous agreement, however, the adopted Action Proposal approved the position that had been put forward by the CB, which opposed all U.S. sanctions against Iran and U.S. threats of intervention and war. A policy supporting the right of self-determination of the Iranian people and demanding, “U.S. Hands Off!” was also approved unanimously.