On Saturday, the West Michigan Justice and Peace Coalition (WMJPC) held a follow-up teach-in to one that the group organized last December. The teach-in was held as part of a day of activities against the war in Iraq, with a march and rally taking place earlier in the day. The teach-in, while sparsely attended compared to the march and rally, offered a place for people to discuss antiwar organizing beyond March 18th and looked towards building a more effective antiwar movement.
The keynote speaker, Mary Trotochaud of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, spoke at length about her own experiences living in Iraq from April 2003 to the fall of 2004 and shared the stories and concerns of the ordinary Iraqis that she met. Trotochaud opened her talk by describing how she watched the first night of the invasion of Iraq on television from Aman, Jordan with an Iraqi woman from Basra who was in Aman to take refuge from the bombing. As the two women watched television, the Iraqi woman repeatedly winced knowing that the bombs were targeting areas where her friends and family lived, as ordinary Iraqis had suffered dramatically under the both the bombing of Desert Storm and the years before the 2003 invasion as well as under the sanctions implemented after Desert Storm. Trotochaud described how Iraqis initially cheered when Saddam Hussein’s regime ended as the war was considerably shorter and less bloody than the “war in the streets” than they expected, sharing that many Iraqis summed up their attitude towards the United States in the early weeks of the war with the phrase “welcome, thank you, now go home.” However, as the occupation dragged on and it became clear that the short war was going to be a long and painful occupation, the majority of Iraqis came to oppose the occupation.
Trotochaud compelling argued that the occupation has been disastrous for Iraq and described how ordinary Iraqis have suffered under the occupation. She described how the statistics citing “progress” in Iraq were often either distorted or based on “pre-war levels” which were themselves skewed as the country’s infrastructure had been decimated by years of sanctions. From the start of the occupation, the United States Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), setup to administer the occupation and headed by Paul Bremer, instituted policies that harmed the Iraqi people from failing to guard ministries thereby preventing the effective functioning of the government to the decentralizing and privatization of services, as well as the disbanding of the Iraqi military (a move that effectively made 400,000 people unemployed over night). The CPA also installed government ministers that were Iraqi but held allegiances to “shadow ministers” favored by the United States, a fact that increased resentment from ordinary Iraqis. Additionally, the CPA’s policy of splitting up the government by religion and ethnicity appalled most Iraqis because of the majority of the population lives in ethnically integrated areas and the issue of ethnicity is almost never raised. Many Iraqis saw the move as one that would create sectarian divisions that did not previously exist and called the process the “Lebanization of Iraq” in reference to a similar process that took place in Lebanon. Moreover, the fact that the CPA did nothing to address rampant crime in Iraq gave rise to sectarian militias that originally formed to protect citizens. Iraqis have also opposed the reconstruction policies of the occupation and believe that this process has played a role in the country’s instability with jobs going to foreign contractors instead of Iraqis, reconstruction funds going to pay for security and contractors, and money going towards partial projects rather than repairing whole infrastructures. Overall, Trotochaud’s talk helped reinforce the fact that the war is having incredibly destructive effects on the people of Iraq and that it is the responsibility of the antiwar movement in this country to organizing effectively in order to stop the war with the demand that Iraq be for the Iraqis.
Other speakers address the oil industry in Iraq and the geology of oil, the ongoing political struggle in Iraq, and an organizing campaign targeting the local cost of war. While the discussion of geology and Iraq’s oil focused predominantly on technical and scientific matters and did not offer much in terms of information that could be useful in ongoing organizing efforts, Keith St. Clair, a Grand Rapids Community College professor’s insights on the political struggle were useful as were Jeff Smith’s presentation on an organizing campaign targeting the Iocal cost of the war. The campaign is working to pass a city resolution opposing the war in terms of its costs to Grand Rapids that are $137 million as of this writing. Moreover, the campaign not only provides a vehicle for further organizing against the war, it also draws connection between the privatization of services in Iraq and the structural adjustment programs going on in that country and those that are essentially going on in this country with the cuts to pool and educational funding and the privatization of such services. It is also hoped that the campaign will reach out to those who are struggling to get their basic needs supplied and consequently do not have the luxury of talking about the war.
Following the speakers, the attendees split up into three “focus groups” and discussed avenues for further organizing. The groups discussed lobbying, direct action, and public education. The lobbying group reported that there would be an effort to target Representative Vern Ehlers who has been a consistent supporter of the Iraq War and most recently voted for a House supplemental budget bill for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lobbying efforts will work to hold Representative Ehlers accountable for the budget vote and encourage him to endorse the various withdrawal plans before Congress. The direct action focus group reported that there will be a possibility of actions targeting Representative Ehlers, local military contractors, and military recruiters. The public education focus group discussed numerous ways to improve outreach to get more people interested in antiwar organizing.
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