Kevin Martin, Peace Action
October 18, 2007
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Mother Jones: After American troops withdraw, will the violence in Iraq escalate?
Kevin Martin: I don't even think it is a fair question. There is no guarantee with anything in life. Anybody who says, "Oh, if we pull out on this timeline or do it exactly this way, Iraq is suddenly going to look like Sweden," is fooling himself.
MJ: Should the peace movement offer a contingency plan for peacekeeping?
KM: That's not our job. Our job is to generate political pressure to get the U.S. out of there and end this nightmare that the U.S. is responsible for. You are trying to hold us to a higher standard of accountability than anyone is holding the Bush administration to, and I'm wondering why. In my organization and the umpteen antiwar coalitions that I am in, this is in no way a priority that we think about or talk about. I'm not saying that we wouldn't care. But, again, that's the job of generals in the Pentagon, of people in the U.N., of others who'd be involved in some sort of interim peacekeeping force. We are not responsible for dreaming up a perfect world. We are responsible for trying to end the damn war and putting the political pressure on our government, which is extremely difficult when you have a feeble Congress and a dictator president.
MJ: Should having international peacekeepers ready to intervene be a precondition for withdrawal of U.S. troops?
KM: No. Because to me, while these are interesting questions, you are getting into a lot of details that, even if you try to answer every single one of these, there's no guarantee that that builds the political pressure that's needed.
The problem is we have a dictator as president, especially as far as Iraq and foreign policy are concerned. You can have elegant blueprints for all of this kind of stuff, and it doesn't mean that it is going to add up to increasing the political pressure that's needed to end this quagmire and change the policy. It may be interesting for certain people in the public who are kind of sitting on the fence saying, "I'm against the war; it's terrible, but if we pull out it's going to be a mess." And they may feel reassured if they knew there was contingency planning, or whatever, but so what? Is that going to help generate the political pressure that is necessary to change the policy? That's the real challenge.
MJ: But what about people who fear genocide in Iraq?
KM: I don't think that's the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the majority of the public is against Bush's policies and against the war, but they're not active on it. So within the peace movement, there is a lot of frustration, and a lot of people who are pressing people to take more radical, nonviolent action. It's about our organizing intensity. That to me is what's more important than trying to satisfy the fence sitters who don't want to be involved because they don't want to be held responsible if there is genocide. I just don't think that's the real challenge.
MJ: But doesn't the peace movement have a moral responsibility to think about this?
KM: You are expecting perfection of the peace movement when we don't have the capacity or the resources, nor control policy.
MJ: Is there a contradiction between this approach, of not wanting to talk about the genocide issue in Iraq, and the left's past support of military intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda?
KM: I don't agree that "the left" supported intervention in Rwanda. There is no consensus on that by any means. There's the Save Darfur Coalition that we signed onto, but it has not been a big priority of ours. I don't think U.S. troops are wanted for that. I don't think people in Africa want U.S .troops and we don't even have any troops to send; they are all in Iraq, for Pete's sake.
Kevin, you really need to know that Arabs in the world really do want to kill you and it's not because your stubborn president is an imperialist. Praise God that President Bush will never relent in doing what is best for our Nation.
And to your education. I don't care who gets in the white house, Hillary, Obama, Mccain. There is not one of them, no matter what they are saying right now to the fringo's gone mainstream by the help of the free press propaganda machine, ... there is not one of them that will really be bringing the troops home in any quick fashion.
Please don't let your readers forget, that Scott Ritter was contradicting our CIA years before President Bush got in office. President Bush did not create any intelligience that our 3 letter agencies had not had under President Clinton. Saddam confided in his FBI translator that he tried desperately and that if there was any way possible he would have obtained a nuke and sent it to be delivered to you Kevin and me.
There were none dissenting who knew the reality of danger posed by Saddam's bluffing and keeping us from having unfettered access to regions of his country that He kept hidden for 11 years. Except, of course Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy. However, not Hillary, not Edwards, and not John Kerry. They to their credit then, not now, understood that we had to go in and quickly.
The media likes to say it is not their responsibility to be the mouthpiece of the administration and that they didn't do their due diligience to keep this war from happening.
No the truth is they are a mouthpiece for getting Democrats elected, distorting truth in favor of character assassination against republicans and keeping any news that might give you an objective view of these situations burried and far from ear shod.
And I mean not just in front of the cameras. Down to the camera men, sound people and interns. You wouldn't believe the bias and hatred for conservative politics which lies in those who bring you the news. The worst part is that none of them really have any idea what conservative ideology is really about.
And neither do you.
They all have these cult skewed perspectives and they socialize together to keep repeating party talking points from democratic politicians and really couldn't debate a single issue for anything deeper than perhaps two lines.
That's a shame. By the way, Kevin, I do hope you enjoy the freedom that you have to put down President Bush since you and your media buddies have gained so much confidence from the fact that Our Homeland Security Departments incredible vigilence has been so blessed by Grace to have protected you from another attack for so long.
Good luck. I hope you don't get to witness the consequences of your lack of open minded ness (liberal?) by seeing another universalist in the white house during another horrific attack, whereby the media as confused as they were on 9-11 won't know what to tell her to do. She'll be clueless and then we'll see years and years of appeasement and weakening of our sovereignty until we wake up and elect another strong leader who will not relent in doing what is right in the face of coward name callers like you who try to intimidate noble men by thinking that telling them they are unpopular and not doing what everybody wants them to.
You don't speak for everyone. Keep in mind all that propaganda that tells you you are from the media is distorted. The rest of us may be sick of you but until people like you fear the enemy, you'll keep giving them the keys to the back door, undermining those who protect you.