It’s funny how so many people in the peace and justice movement, in which I\u2019ve been an active participant for the past decade, have been sucked into various distractions in recent years. This didn’t happen very often during the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n
The most recent distraction is the Bowe Bergdahl fiasco, which is pure politics. If a Republican were in the White House, it would be the Democrats causing a stink \u2013 this is simply a matter of the party that’s not<\/i> in power using an issue to gain political points.<\/p>\n
If there were nothing else to read about, think about, discuss and take action on, maybe getting sucked into this political theater would be understandable.<\/p>\n
But there are plenty of things today that need the immediate attention of people in the antiwar community \u2013 issues on which the establishment doesn’t want people to focus. Things like: <\/p>\n
So, the US is arming al-Qaeda in Syria, is continuing to devastate Iraq, is crushing democracy in Egypt, is teaming up with neo-Nazis in Ukraine and is re-colonizing Africa.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And most of the antiwar left is silent.<\/p>\n
Or doing protests to “Shut Down Guantanamo,” which was a cool and timely thing to do\u202610 years ago.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, at the very top of the G7 agenda last week was Ukraine. World leaders understand that what is occurring in Ukraine is a defining moment for western powers, Russia and China.<\/p>\n
Even the USA Today<\/a> on Monday wrote that a key reason the stock market is thriving is because the crisis in Ukraine has not yet devolved into a new Cold War.<\/p>\n The powers that be fully comprehend that what’s happening in Ukraine today is paramount to whether or not the US continues to maintain its stature as the world’s sole superpower. So they must be thrilled that progressive commentators and groups are falling way behind, and not driving the narrative.<\/p>\n It really makes you wonder that if Mitt Romney had become president, would the left be silent if he teamed up with neo-Nazis and al-Qaeda? Would antiwar groups be doing protests for Bowe Bergdahl<\/a> if Democrats and Republicans swapped roles in the political game?<\/p>\n What\u2019s going to shake the antiwar community from being distracted and walking into the traps set by those who want people to bicker over Republicans and Democrats? The Stop the War Coalition<\/a> in the UK, the International Action Center<\/a> in New York, and Antiwar.com are a few of the entities that have stayed on point and are getting out in front of the real issues. What\u2019s it going to take for others to do the same?<\/p>\n Chris Ernesto is cofounder of <\/i>St. Pete for Peace<\/i><\/a>, an antiwar organization in St. Petersburg, FL that has been active since 2003. Mr. Ernesto also created and manages <\/i>OccupyArrests.com<\/i><\/a> and <\/i>USinAfrica.com<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s funny how so many people in the peace and justice movement, in which I\u2019ve been an active participant for the past decade, have been sucked into various distractions in recent years. This didn’t happen very often during the Bush presidency. The most recent distraction is the Bowe Bergdahl fiasco, which is pure politics. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23624,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622\/revisions\/23624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23622"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}