US peace activist: Bush faces 'deficits' in Iraq

Jim McIlroy and Pip Hinman

The US government faces "deficits" on a number of fronts in its occupation of Iraq, peace activist and author Phyllis Bennis commented at a meeting sponsored by the Brisbane Social Forum and Just Peace Queensland on July 27.

Bennis, a keynote speaker at Hiroshima Day events, is a fellow at the US Institute for Policy Studies. She is an analyst and activist specialising in the Middle East and the United Nations. In 2001 she helped found, and is now co-chair of, the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the US United for Peace and Justice Coalition.

In the first place, the US faces a "military deficit" in Iraq, she explained. It does not have enough troops to successfully fight the war and is having great difficulty recruiting. The peace movement, led by a growing section of the US military and its families, is engaged in a campaign of "counter recruitment" to convince young Americans not to join up for the war in Iraq.

The US also faces an "economic deficit" in Iraq, Bennis said. The government is spending US$1 billion a week on the war, yet at home the health system is inadequate and social welfare is in ruins. It also faces a "strategic-regional deficit" in the Middle East, with the myth of "democracy" sweeping the region, while the US and Israel maintain the illegitimate dual occupations of Iraq and Palestine.

Bennis argued that the US administration confronts an "international deficit", in which the worldwide anti-war movement is crucial. The movement has created a "second superpower, which had to ensure that the Iraq war was illegal".

Bennis reported at a meeting organised by the Sydney Hiroshima Day Committee on August 3 that the US labour confederation, the AFL-CIO, had recently resolved to call for the US troops to leave Iraq immediately, a reflection of growing public opposition to the war.

She said that the Australian troops, while not militarily significant, were nevertheless "providing a fig leaf of legitimacy for the Bush administration because Bush points to this as evidence of support for the war". The global anti-war movement "has an obligation to help bring this war to a halt", she said, urging activists not to give up organising opposition.

The war in Iraq shows "unilateralism run amok", she said, adding that Bush's recent appointment of war-maker John Bolton to the UN is further proof of this dangerous unilateralism. The war in Iraq is the centrepiece of a war for a new empire, she said. "We have to force an end to this drive and force the UN to play a better role. We need to reclaim international law as a tool for peace", she concluded.

From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.

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From GLW issue 637