Antiwar panel at Rutgers

On Tuesday night the Central Jersey Coalition Againt Endless War and Rutgers Againt the War In the interest of disclosure, I should mention that I worked on organizing this event. held what I thought was a quite interesting panel about withdrawal from Iraq, with about 120 people in attendance by my count. The Daily Targum did a decent piece on it.

The first speaker, Charlotte Bunch, really hit the nail on the head when she said that the United States needs to take responsibility without taking control. The US armed both sides during the Iran-Iraq war and spent years destroying the country's infrastructure with years of bombing and sanctions even before Bush Jr. came on the scene. I think this is a very good point - we owe the Iraqis a lot for all the damage we've done to their country over the last 25 years or so, but as long as the US ruling class uses that as an excuse to try and run Iraq we will keep making it worse. Dennis O'Neill, one of the other speakers, made a similar point about the "Pottery barn rule" (you break it, you buy it) argument; we're talking about a bull in a china shop Dennis was there as a representative of Bring Them Home Now. - you worry about getting the bull out first, because as long as it's there it's going to keep breaking things.

Patrick Resta, an army medic who was called up from the reserves and sent to Iraq, gave some good examples of what that all means; rather than try to reproduce it from my notes, I'll refer you to an interview with him.

The weak point of the panel, unsurprisingly for me, was Professor Stephen Eric Bronner. It was at least better than the last time I heard him speak on the subject (I think he was the first person I heard the "pottery barn theory" from, and he called the audience bad Marxists to boot). He now says that US troops should get out now, and that the prospects for democracy in Iraq are worse than before the war; but he kept saying that the problem is that "we" are losing influence in the middle east, that "we" need to use soft power, that this, that, and the other thing is "our fault", or even "your fault" - the last being one of a string of verbal tricks he invariable pulls in an attempt to remind everyone in the audience how much smarter he is than them.

Ellen Whitt, one of the main organizers of the event, made what I thought was an excellent response to that from the floor, the gist being that just because the US government has gotten itself into trouble, that's not necessarily trouble for us. You would think a self-styled Marxist intellectual like Bronner would have had a greater appreciation of that.

Someone who most definitely does is Dennis O'Neill. He said, I think quite correctly, that the ruling class can't afford to stay in Iraq and it can't afford to leave, which makes this a crucial moment for the rest of us to make up their minds for them. That's why I hope (as I'm sure Dennis does) to see you all in Washington tomorrow, where we can take the next step towards making that happen