The Death of the Anti-War Left

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Posted on 09/28/2024 6:08:49 AM PDT by DoodleBob

Anti-war activists used to be at home on the left. In the mid-2000s, Democrats were the first to oppose the War on Terror. During the 2004 Democrat primary, for example, the last rival to John Kerry was Dennis Kucinich, a staunch critic of the Iraq War who would later propose the establishment of the “Department of Peace.” Then, suddenly, something changed: Democrats embraced military intervention abroad and defended the intelligence apparatus that was built alongside it.

Kucinich—despite being very liberal on other issues—was eventually all but disowned by his party, leaving to work as one of the few progressives employed by Fox News. Today, he’s still a steady critic of American involvement in foreign wars, including those being fought in Ukraine and Israel. Yet ironically, this means that he’s aligned with the growing numbers of anti-war right wingers, which include Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, and, to an extent, even Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Democrats have embraced the national security state, allying themselves with agencies such as the CIA and the FBI.

How did this happen?

If you have to choose a date at which the American political system started realigning around the military-intelligence axis, choose March 11, 2010. On that day, the CIA’s Red Cell group issued a special memorandum entitled “Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough.” Thanks to WikiLeaks and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, this document is freely available.

The file spells out the CIA’s cynical view of the War on Terror. Issued in response to the collapse of the Dutch government, which was voted out of office for continuing to commit troops to Afghanistan, the memo lays out a new approach to ensuring Western European support for the War on Terror.

The memo starts with the observation that most citizens of NATO countries no longer supported the war. Though most of them were apathetic because the conflict didn’t have a tangible impact on their lives, the CIA worried that, eventually, these citizens might be roused to action, forcing their representatives to pull out of the war.

As the memo warned, based on the events in the Netherlands, “politicians elsewhere might cite a precedent for ‘listening to the voters.’” Something had to be done to ensure that governments kept up their support for war even against the will of their own citizens.

The memo highlights two strategies. The first is rather straightforward: The U.S. should do a better job communicating the fact that most Afghans at the time supported NATO forces and focus on the benefits that Afghan women were seeing from the Taliban’s temporary defeat. But the second strategy is a bit more subtle.

The CIA saw that so long as the War on Terror was associated with George W. Bush, it would remain unpopular with Europeans. They needed a sophisticated, cosmopolitan face for US policy in the war.

Coincidentally, Barack Obama had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only months into his presidency for his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons” and his work to create “a new climate in international politics.” It was a match made in heaven. As the CIA enthused, “The confidence of the French and German publics in President Obama’s ability to handle foreign affairs in general and Afghanistan in particular suggest that they would be receptive to his direct affirmation of their importance to the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] mission—and sensitive to direct expressions of disappointment in allies who do not help.”

From that moment on, the left and the military-intelligence apparatus were joined at the hip. Obama famously expanded drone warfare, which infamously included the assassination of U.S. citizens. During his administration, the NSA resumed and even expanded its widespread spying on Americans, as well as on allies. By the end of his administration, the FBI was illegally spying on a certain anti-establishment political candidate: Donald Trump.

So today, it’s no wonder that the anti-war left has disappeared: The left is firmly wedded to the military-intelligence apparatus, so much so that it has trained that apparatus on its critics at home.

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1 posted on 09/28/2024 6:08:49 AM PDT by DoodleBob

To: DoodleBob

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3 posted on 09/28/2024 6:16:03 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America.)

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4 posted on 09/28/2024 6:16:27 AM PDT by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)

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5 posted on 09/28/2024 6:21:26 AM PDT by RasterMaster ("Towering genius disdains a beaten path." - Abraham Lincoln)

To: Telepathic Intruder

6 posted on 09/28/2024 6:42:08 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)

To: Codeflier

7 posted on 09/28/2024 6:42:33 AM PDT by adorno (CCH)

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