12/07/05: We can't remain silent - Chuck Baynton

We can't remain silent

The Dec. 4 editorial opposing a Milwaukee vote on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq missed the mark ("Council should reject Iraq measure").

The Editorial Board has forgotten that opponents of their own country's military adventures must always overcome enormous resistance before sanity is restored. Yes, Japan and Germany came to their senses - by about 1946. And Vietnam-era America did, too, after 10 years of war.

When we point to the false rationales for this war, the ongoing effort to suppress information that conflicts with President Bush's fantasies about it and the reasons we believe Bush's plan for its future aren't grounded in reality, we are predictably met with charges that all this analysis is just masked cowardice. "Cut and run" is the fashionable cliché.

The commitment of the anti-war movement is to end the senseless slaughter as soon as possible. That will require changing the minds of a substantial number of Americans. But coming to see one's own country's war-making as nearer to evil than glorious is hard mental work. For many, it will always be too much.

That is why the anti-war movement must state its case early and often, in as much detail as people can hear and in every forum we can possibly get.

Chuck Baynton
Whitefish Bay