Tom Hayden: Anti-War Group Collapses

[marmar]

from The Nation:



article | posted February 9, 2008 (web only)
Anti-War Group Collapses
Tom Hayden


Tom Mattzie, leader of America's most well-financed anti-Iraq organization, has resigned his position and dissolved his well-funded organization, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

Profiled recently by the New York Times as the most important new leader of a pragmatic and well-funded anti-war movement, Mattzie deployed over ninety staff members and spent $12 million last August in an unsuccessful effort to pressure vulnerable Republicans into opposing the war. The group's stated intention at the time was to continue pressuring the political establishment in the coming year.

Mattzie, a skilled campaign operative, has taken an unspecified position in one of the partisan campaign committees associated with the Democrats for the duration of 2008. His organization no longer exists, though some of its staff are absorbed into local organizing.

What exactly happened? Insiders are not talking, The sequence of events is suggestive. The Americans Against Escalation was formed after the Democratic congressional sweep in 2006 to oppose Bush's escalation of 25,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007. Its purpose was to apply campaign-style tactics to pressure moderate Republicans to break from Bush's policies, meanwhile calling on congressional Democrats to set deadlines for troop withdrawals. Neither mission was accomplished, because of Republican unity and Democratic divisions. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080225/hayden2

[Peace Patriot]

1. I dunno. Was it a CIA operation?

When a group with $12 million bucks and paid operatives simply evaporates, you gotta wonder.

Hayden treats it as a political question. Who will keep the pressure on Obama and Clinton, and then on the final nominee, to keep the Iraq War front and center during the campaign? This seems off-focus to me. I'm more wondering where they got $12 million and what they spent it on. Fancy digs on lobbyist row on K St. in DC. Ostensible purpose to pressure moderate Repugs to oppose war. Failed all its stated goals. Vanished in the haze.

Anyway, I don't see why, with a whopping--unprecedented--70% of the American people opposed to the war--up from 56%, a significant majority just before the war started--I don't see why the issue needs lobbyists. Our Democratic and Repuke office holders are fucking deaf. They ESCALATED the war, and gave George Bush and Dick Cheney billions more of our non-existent tax dollars to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights. Why waste money and energy on people who don't give a fuck what we think?

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