As we enter another year with U.S. troops in Iraq, the obvious question is: What will it take to end this war? President Bush will not be moved, despite a solid majority — perhaps two-thirds — of Americans who want to end the war and start bringing troops home. Unfortunately, on a day-to-day basis, the majority is silent. Life goes on, and so do the war and the deaths.
Opponents of the war have become the new Silent Majority.
The new Congress, elected with a mandate to stop the war, has acted as chicken-hearted as the president has been bull-headed. This year’s presidential election offers precious little hope as the three leading Democratic candidates refuse to commit to having troops out by 2013.
The peace movement’s challenge is not to persuade Americans to oppose the war, but to mobilize the silent majority and convert them to active, vocal advocates to end the war.
That’s what has sparked the Iraq Moratorium, a decentralized, growing, national grass-roots effort that asks individuals to take personal responsibility to do something — anything — to show their opposition to the war.
The moratorium asks people to act, individually or collectively, on the third Friday of every month. Actions have ranged from wearing a black armband or button to participating in large-scale protests. The Iraq Moratorium Web site, IraqMoratorium.org, offers ideas, information and reports about past and upcoming actions.
The moratorium is a growing movement that touches big cities and small towns. Duluth has held Iraq Moratorium events. Hayward has been cited by organizers as an inspiration, with a turnout for a December event of 80 people in a city of 2,129. If the same turnout happened nationally, there would be 12 million people calling for an end to the war — too many to ignore.
The next Iraq Moratorium events fall on Friday, Jan. 18. Hayward will again be the site of a roadside vigil. And the Northland Anti-War Coalition will sponsor a public forum in Duluth — “Native & African American Voices Against the War” — at 7 p.m. at Central Hillside Community Recreation Center, 12 E. Fourth St.
But participation doesn’t require attendance at an event; individual actions to call for an end to the war are equally important.
Because while it would be easy to dismiss Iraq Moratorium events as meaningless (cynics sometimes say nothing anyone does will make a difference), doing something is infinitely more likely to have an impact than doing nothing. That’s what drives the Iraq Moratorium.
Buttons and armbands won’t stop the war by themselves. Neither will rallies and marches or letters to the editor or phone calls to Congress or speeches or civil disobedience. There’s no single magic solution. Those who want to end the Iraq war need to do everything. The Iraq Moratorium is one more tool in the toolbox — but one that in the long run could be an effective way to tighten the screws on elected officials to end the war.
Bill Christofferson of Milwaukee is a Vietnam veteran, a former journalist, a long-time political consultant, now retired, and a volunteer member of the Iraq Moratorium Committee.
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