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I am more than a little fed up with unnecessary wars and deaths. My college days were defined largely by an unnecessary war in Vietnam. I was in the first reactivation of the military draft largely because nobody wanted to go off to Vietnam for no clear reason and fight a war. That first draft was a lottery system by birthday and my lottery number was 215. I was in college at the time and could have received a deferment but I decided to waive it and gamble that my number was high enough to keep me from being drafted. Taking the deferment meant being put in a “second priority group” and continued draft eligibility. I was lucky and 215 was never called.
On the campuses those days, almost everyone was a war protestor and, in my state, there were some very large protests at the University of Wisconsin. Those protests permanently changed the face of State Street in Madison – where the local drug store was redesigned to look more like a pill box after the windows were repeatedly broken out. The 1960s and 1970s in the US was an era of repeated demonstrations and protests, many of them violent and many resulting in loss of life. On August 24, 1970 - radicals parked a Ford Econoline van packed with explosives next to Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The explosion destroyed the six story building and killed a researcher who was in the building at the time. The target was the Army Mathematics Research Center.
One unnecessary war in Vietnam, was apparently not enough and the United States went on to prosecute 2 more in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of those wars took a tremendous toll in terms of mortality and morbidity to American military personnel and the civilian population and infrastructure of both countries. Both wars are often rationalized after the fact that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were not good for the populations of either country, but that is not the reason that either war was initiated. Iraq was invaded on the false premise that it had "weapons of mass destruction". Afghanistan was invaded because the US military failed to catch Bin Laden as he fled across the country.
That brings me to the current era of protests and the expected protests tomorrow at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. There is a lot of speculation in the press that it may resemble the protests that occurred at the Democratic National Convention in August 1968 – also in Chicago. The 1968 convention followed the assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert F. Kennedy earlier that same year. There were 10,000 demonstrators in Chicago confronted by 23,000 law enforcement and National Guard. The focus of the protests was the war in Vietnam with a secondary issue of lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. Despite violent confrontations between protestors and the police – no deaths or serious injuries were reported. There was subsequent legal action that involved charging 7 of the organizers with conspiracy to riot – and those charges were eventually dropped. In that original protest, many of the organizers had celebrity status and some of the concepts they presented during the protests gained notoriety. The more radical and violent groups of the 1970s like the Weather Underground did not participate in the protest.
The overall dynamic of the protest was focused on a lengthy and questionable war in Vietnam. The protest made sense because friends and family members were being drafted, killed, and injured in a war that was unnecessary. There was an immediate impact on the American people and political leaders in the United States were accountable.
Reviewing the dynamics of the protestors who may be present at the DNC tomorrow. The current armed conflict in Palestine is an active war prosecuted against Hamas by Israel. The war was initiated by an attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens on October 6, 2023. That attack consisted of killing, maiming, and raping civilians as well as hostage taking. The specific details can be found here. Hamas is embedded in Gaza and Palestinian noncombatants are essentially hostages to the Hamas war effort. Since that time, Israel has counterattacked and waged war against Hamas with the resulting destruction of much of the infrastructure in Gaza as well as over 40,000 civilian deaths. The leaders of Hamas and Israel have explicitly stated that their goal is to eliminate the other side completely. In other words – kill everyone on the other side and eliminate any state that they might occupy. These are explicitly stated goals and not my speculation.
Along the way, there has been a protest movement in this country that started on campuses. It has characterized the war in Gaza as genocide perpetrated by Israel. The precipitating event by Hamas is either rationalized or ignored. There have been many cases of Jewish students who are US citizens being harassed and threatened. The situation on campuses led to the resignations of University Presidents who had a difficult time determining the boundaries of free speech and antisemitic hate speech. At the same time, the situation in Gaza is a horrific human tragedy in terms of lives lost, war time injuries, families disrupted, starvation, lack of medical care and disease. The Israeli army routinely kills noncombatants – not just civilians but aid workers, and journalists. There have been many cases of deaths where they were no obvious military targets and there is a statement about an investigation of what happened. Spokesmen say that Israel is trying to minimize damage to the civilian population, but there is minimal evidence that is happening.
At some point, the protestors in this case decided to put blame on President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. I anticipate seeing varying degrees of this at the DNC tomorrow. As a war protestor from the 1970s, these protestors seem to have it all wrong. The current White House staff has been trying to broker an immediate cease fire and peace agreement for several months now. The US government is behind stopping the bloodshed and advocating for peace in an area where there have been decades of senseless wars. There is no more senseless war than one where each side is actively working to completely obliterate the other. That is a mode of thinking from before civilization existed and it may end up threatening to end civilization.
If you really want to protest something – protest the primitive thinking of total war promoters in both Israel and Hamas. Hold the leaders with that line of thinking accountable. Their goal of annihilating the other side as a solution is unrealistic and serves only to fuel future terrorism and state sanctioned revenge. It makes no sense at all to protest the peacemakers and call them names. Protest the real warmakers here - the leaders of Israel and Hamas.
And don't fool yourself into thinking that the leaders of both Israel and Hamas are not looking at the American presidential election and trying to figure out how they can use it to their advantage. That may include what happens at the DNC protests.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Addendum 1: I heard a protestor interviewed today (August 19) on BBC World News. Unfortunately I cannot locate a transcript or audio clip so this is my recollection of what he said. He said that both parties in the US were responsible for supplying arms to Israel for a long time and that meant that Biden and Harris were currently responsible. He had not heard anything new from Harris and therefore he remains hopeful but suggested that people will not vote for her unless she changes positions on Israel. When the interviewer asked him if he wanted Trump to win he said: "Oh no - I don't want Trump to win but if he does it is because of the policies of Biden and Harris."
Well no it is not. Trump wins if there are insufficient votes for Harris and the situation is more complex than trying to resolve and Arab-Israeli dispute that has been going on for decades in a few months before the election. The protestor is also overestimating the leverage that the US has in this situation as well as the fact the combatants here are sworn to obliterate the other side and at no time have given a hint of becoming more reasonable.
I am in the process of reading a book on how the US has become a grievance culture. Pick a cause, feel aggrieved, and go on the attack. It has become a cultural norm probably best exhibited by the stolen election meme used by the MAGA Republicans. This protest appears to have humanitarian motives, but it really minimizes the work that the Biden-Harris administration in concert with other countries are doing to secure a cease fire and take steps to end the hostilities. Either way the additional point is missed that unless the needle is threaded with this agreement - it can easily become an election issue. The protestor in this case does not want Trump, but he also does not want to do anything to help Harris. That is a conveniently unrealistic viewpoint. Deciding to not vote probably hurts Harris more than Trump because the GOP has the leverage of the electoral college - they have won the presidency with fewer popular votes.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Update (9/2/2024): The citizens of Israel seem to have no problem placing the accountability for the ongoing war directly on Netanyahu and his refusal to negotiate. I hope this was noticed by American protestors placing blame on the Biden-Harris administration who are advancing the peace plan. Palestinians and Hamas have no luxury of influencing the leader of Hamas because there is no democratic process.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hostage-deaths-pushed-israel-breaking-155646402.html
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