Democrats Need the Voice of the Dissenters to Confront the Surge Myth

by Marc Pilisuk (578 words)

The Democratic convention in Denver rolls on as if this country were not in the midst of two unpopular wars. The voices calling for traditional democratic goals,-- education and health care reforms, and clean energy play well but will have anemic returns without the promise of redirecting the ungainly military budget. And the Democrats falure to take n the surge will give the republicans a big boost

Important voices from our two wars are missing from the speeches. The soldiers and civilians who have already died were not spoken for. The civilians who have been picked up on streets, “renditioned” by redesigned aircraft to black sites around the world, where they were tortured in a policy sanctioned by the US government were not mentioned. The soldiers and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war who courageously took part in the winter soldier hearings and told of the actual acts of brutality that they witnessed and were told to perform, the women soldiers and contractors who were drugged and raped and then ordered to keep quiet were not heard at the convention. Missing also were the vast number of American leaders and scholars who were correct in trying to prevent an aggressive attack against a country that had not attacked the US and who are continuing to tell us that nobody wins an occupation. We did not hear from the millions in Jordan who have been forced to flee Iraq. or that the women of Iraq have been forced back to the humiliations of Shia law or from those many Shia, Sunnis and Kurds who believe that those who cooperate with an occupying foreign army are traitors... (be the first to examine the full text of this commentary by contacting PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com)

Marc Pilisuk (mpilisuk@saybrook.edu), Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, The University of California, and Professor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, Berkeley, and is author, with Jennifer Achord Rountree, of Who Benefits From Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System (Greenwood/Praeger, 2008).