The Nation's John Nichols looks at a piece by the Center for Media and Democracy that notes some major progressive organizations - some of which say they represent the anti-war movement - are backing the Obama administration's major troop buildup in Afghanistan. This is an outgrowth of the dynamic I examined in my book, The Uprising - the dynamic by which some organizations seem torn between their movement goals and their partisan allegiances.
Here's what Nichols says:
There is significant discomfort with the expansion of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and opposition has been expressed by political leaders abroad and at home (including Democrats and Republicans in Congress). This is a time when genuine anti-war groups could be expected to harness that discomfort and build a stronger movement to shift U.S. policy.
As such, it is a time of testing for organizations that came to prominence opposing not just George Bush and Dick Cheney but the wrongheaded war-making of the White House -- no matter which party happened to occupy the Oval Office.
Afghanistan is a complicated situation, but I think Nichols point is right on, and actually bigger than any one issue. On many issues that the Obama administration tacks to the right on, the progressive movement will have to decide whether it is going to be a propaganda machine for the administration, or whether it is going to be an independent movement.
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