What Happened to the Anti-War Left?

I’ll never forget where I was during the events of 9/11. It was chaotic and confusing that morning as I heard rumors of a plane hitting a building in New York while sitting in my high school classroom in New Jersey. Soon after the rumors were going around, it was confirmed as the teacher rolled out the television and we watched as the buildings were burning, not knowing why it happened or who did it.

What we all knew at the time was that someone was going to pay for inflicting pain on our countrymen and countrywomen. With bipartisanship, we legitimized going into Afghanistan to take out Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist cohorts.

With the same level of animus, we agreed to invade Iraq to take out the heinous Saddam Hussein as the narrative was that he was equally a threat to American life as Osama Bin Laden with his alleged “Weapons of Mass Destruction”.

Looking back at this time, our country felt vengeful, and our government capitulated to our bloodlust as it would also satisfy their military-industrial complex overlords.

My interest in politics stemmed from my reaction to these wars and questioning the necessity for them. I leaned into the left-wing political stance as they appeared to be the side that was adamantly anti-war, and critical of all things revolving around our invasions of these countries.

George Bush was our Anti-Christ figure who wanted the world to burn from our indiscriminate American bombing campaigns and innocent people to suffer under the American military’s boot.

If American safety and freedom are the primary concern, then why are we siphoning Iraqi oil? Why are we focused on setting up a Democratic system for them? What exactly is the plan to get out of their country? And most importantly, where were those weapons of mass destruction that they promised was headed in our direction?

The Democrats, while just as bloodlust as the Republicans initially for these wars, at least gave the façade of feeling regretful. “No War for Oil” was a common sentiment amongst the people who were on the political left, and it appeared that we meant it.

After the ending of the Bush regime, Obama became the potential savior from the horror we are inflicting thousands of miles away. He ran on “no more stupid wars” as he appeared to understand how increasingly unpopular these wars had become amongst Democrats.

Obama went as far as to state he would close Guantanamo Bay’s facility because he understood that the American government shouldn’t be detaining anyone for an indefinite period without a trial and it was questionable as to the intelligence involved or reasoning for detaining some of these individuals in the first place.

This entire debacle was incredibly suspect, and the Anti-war left wanted no part of it anymore Obama was supposed to become the man to carry along our new instructions.

However, when he entered the White House, the Anti-war left suddenly became sedated once their “Bush Anti-Christ” was gone and they proceeded to move on with their lives with political blinders on. Essentially, the Anti-war left sold their cause for a political win.

Barrack Obama not only didn’t end the wars that he promised in his 8 years in office and didn’t close Guantanamo Bay, but he increased the number of conflicts, sanctioned more drone strikes, and even gave authorization to drone strike an American citizen in a foreign nation.

The Anti-war left was more mesmerized by Obama’s speeches and sense of humor than the substance of his policies and advocacies. They fell in love with a charismatic warmonger, and they ignored his political faults for his superficial charisma.

The mainstream media also minimized his faulty decision-making surrounding war as they romanticized Obama’s existence by treating him like their darling celebrity-in-chief instead of their commander-in-chief. They actively obfuscated their journalistic duty to be critical of governmental power regardless of the party.

Nearly every major institution domestically and internationally treated him like the hot girl in school by giving him unearned praise, much like his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize during his first year of being President. It was a blinding love affair for what he represented and what he could become rather than what he was and what he was doing.

The era of “no more stupid wars” never happened as we had hoped as he commanded airstrikes on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Despite all of this, where was the anti-war left? Well, they were applauding him as he told jokes on “The View” and various late-night shows, of course.

When Trump entered office, I presumed the worst as I didn’t support what I thought he stood for and believed he would become even more authoritarian than his predecessor; I was wrong.

Throughout the prior administrations, the media always made North Korea just one nuclear missile from taking out the United States and took diplomacy off the table: Trump did the opposite.

His gesture of crossing the DMZ into North Korea and starting a dialogue with an adversary was a gesture of peace that shocked me coming from a sitting President. It was a sign of at least attempting to de-escalate and it was one that I appreciated (whether it worked or not, is a different story).

Trump was far from perfect and in the beginning, continued some of the status quo behavior like touting his weapons deal with Saudi Arabia to extend their war in Yemen, and bombing Syria after a suspected chemical weapons attack.

However, in Trump’s 4-year stint, he began removing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, brokered historic peace deals between Israel & Sudan, UAE, and Bahrain but most importantly, didn’t start any new wars, making him the first U.S. President to not do so since Jimmy Carter.

Realistically, it’s an incredibly low bar to ask that we don’t enter any new wars by means of boots-on-the-ground invasions, bombing campaigns, or by proxy but it’s something.

For anyone who is legitimately anti-war, you see these as positives. Any gesture to de-escalate or minimize warfare is a win in saving lives across the world and if you’re principled, you’d be happy whether it was “your guy” who did it or not.

This has made me wonder, were they originally outraged by the unnecessary deaths of people across the world, or were they outraged that it wasn’t their guy who was doing it?

You give credit where it’s due and even as someone who didn’t vote for Trump, I appreciate the direction he was heading towards, even with our low bar of said progress.

It took me years to realize that the Anti-war left is malleable based on the politics of the moment. They’re not anti-warmongers, they’re anti-oppositional team warmongers. They’re pro-peace when it benefits their team, not when it can save a life.

Today, the same people rightfully cheer for the people of Ukraine but with the expectation of “any means necessary” warfare escalation. They don’t care that Boris Johnson, with the backing of the U.S. Government, pressured Zelenskyy not to make any peace deals with Russia because the West wasn’t “ready”.

The Anti-war left is dead. They’ve either sold themselves short to become political partisans or have become like me, politically homeless, wishfully hoping that people will care about advocating for peace again.

Diplomacy towards potential peace stopped being an option for them a long time ago.

Their guy is in office now: if war is what he wants, war is what he’ll get. They’ll have his back.

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