A letter to my friend in peace studies:

Dear friend, life gets busy and it has been too long since we have talked, perhaps this letter can start a dialogue.


I was with my family in Georgia 2 weekends ago. We were down there to visit my parents, my sister and her family, and to attend the demonstration to close the School of the Americas. I think you know my father is politically left, well informed and thoughtful.

Through several conversations with him I came to develop some thinking about how the peace movement might progress in the Obama era. You seemed like the ideal person to share these thoughts with.

The gist of the argument I would like to make is that the goals we have regarding US foreign military involvement might be considered separate from some specific programmatic goals of the peace movement. While we can hope for change on both fronts, we may have greater power to achieve programmatic goals.

To begin with certainly the election of Obama is an opening for the peace movement, but in no way should we assume that this means world peace is soon at hand. Even withdrawal from Iraq remains an open question. While we might want an end to military involvement in Afghanistan and incursions into Pakistani this is highly unlikely in the short term. We might want a radically different position on Palestine and Israel, however, it seems naive to expect much more than greater involvement in negotiations.

I have to acknowledge that from my perspective, under the Bush administration protest came to seem almost ridiculous in its futility. We are again entering a place where public expression may make a greater difference. Still, regarding actual fighting and war, I think that things will most likely play out more according to the dictates of Real Politics and within the framework of American foreign policy as it is today. Perhaps the best we can do is to keep Obama on track regarding the military departure from Iraq. We can hope that the risk of an attack against Iran is off the table for the moment. But a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan is highly improbable. To have much effect on issues of Israel and Palestine would require numbers and coherence greater than the peace movement's present scope.

Beyond Iraq, foreign policy is probably the area where Obama's positions are most disappointing to the left, and to the peace movement. All this is not to say that we shouldn't make noise about these important issues, but that we should anticipate that the peace movement will not have much power in the short run to influence foreign policy events.

I think another set of issues have a greater potential to be effected by organizing and action. Let me call them programmatic goals. Although they are less direct and urgent than stopping a war, they may be more important. Success with these could help to shift the framework of American foreign policy. And I believe the potential for success is grater.

The campaign to close the School of the Americas is an example of what I mean by a programmatic goal. This campaign is about 20 years old, often seemingly myopic in it's single issue focus. Now, with the recent change in the composition of congress the possibility of successis almost at hand.

There are several other campaigns that I believe now might make greater headway. Obama has promised to close guantanamo, and to stop US torture. Then there are international treaties that most of the world embraces but the US is not party to. The international treaty to ban land mines is an important example. Nuclear disarmament may again be a possibility. There is a growing international movement to close American bases in other countries. If successful this movement could begin to reverse American imperial reach. Kuciniche's proposal for a Department of Peace also needs a grassroots push. I believe that with all these programs and others like them there is now a greater potential for success.

While many grassroots efforts are underway all are limited in there scope, even the Close the SOA efforts seem to be mostly populated by a small sub culture of the peace movement. The busloads of students from small catholic colleges I've never heard of who show up at Fort Benning always amazes me. Some networking or linking of these programmatic campaigns might give strength to all of them.

So this brings me to why I am writing you. You have spoken of wanting to develop an international peace organization like greenpeace is for the environment, or Amnesty international is for human rights . I wonder what thoughts you might be having about that organization these days.