Aknauta
03-12-2003, 01:22 PM
Foreign Policy Research Institute
The Spirit of the New Antiwar Movement
by Adam Garfinkle
February 24, 2003
Adam Garfinkle, a frequent contributor in this space, is editor of The National Interest. He is a former Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he wrote, among other things, the critically acclaimed book Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1995).
A great deal of antiwar activism has erupted lately, characterized most typically by street demonstrations in Western Europe and the United States. In response to this activism, a good deal of print and radio commentary has already entered the public realm, some in support of these marches and rallies and some critical of them. This discussion, let’s call it, now joins the larger political gambit of the Iraq issue and may have autonomous political effects— say in harming Tony Blair, helping French Gaullists, or in influencing early maneuvering for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
The antiwar discussion might be thought to constitute a sort of meta-discussion of Iraq since it supposedly subsumes all the arguments, pro and con, about a prospective war. Mostly, however, it constitutes a sub-species of political sociology only glancingly related to the actual strategic and political issues being debated over the Iraq question. I will spell out what I mean by this below, but first some distinctions.
Link (http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20030224.americawar. garfinkle.newantiwar movement.html)
The Spirit of the New Antiwar Movement
by Adam Garfinkle
February 24, 2003
Adam Garfinkle, a frequent contributor in this space, is editor of The National Interest. He is a former Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he wrote, among other things, the critically acclaimed book Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1995).
A great deal of antiwar activism has erupted lately, characterized most typically by street demonstrations in Western Europe and the United States. In response to this activism, a good deal of print and radio commentary has already entered the public realm, some in support of these marches and rallies and some critical of them. This discussion, let’s call it, now joins the larger political gambit of the Iraq issue and may have autonomous political effects— say in harming Tony Blair, helping French Gaullists, or in influencing early maneuvering for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
The antiwar discussion might be thought to constitute a sort of meta-discussion of Iraq since it supposedly subsumes all the arguments, pro and con, about a prospective war. Mostly, however, it constitutes a sub-species of political sociology only glancingly related to the actual strategic and political issues being debated over the Iraq question. I will spell out what I mean by this below, but first some distinctions.
Link (http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20030224.americawar. garfinkle.newantiwar movement.html)