Liberals With Bats

Turning the Tide Vol. 19, #1
It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: Editorial
Anti-Racist Action

It has recently become fashionable among some pundits to declare that the war in Iraq is over, that the Bush presidency is effectively over, or even that the U.S. Empire is dead or dying. Frank Rich opined in the NY Times that the war in Iraq is over, it's just that Bush doesn't realize it. Kim Scipes wrote for Z Magazine that "It's the Beginning of the End-For the Empire, Not Just the War." In CounterPunch, Gabriel Kolko recently wrote a piece entitled, "Defeated in Iraq, Bankrupt at Home, Despised Around the Globe (And That's Just the Good News): The Decline of the American Empire." Perhaps this is a reflection on the left of Bush's belief that he can rule by fiat, or what the Czar in Russia called a "ukaze" - the idea that declaring it makes it so, as in his infamous declaration on Iraq: "Mission Accomplished." Perhaps the left is so tired of defeats and defeatism that it wants to simply declare victory. But as Bush has learned to his chagrin, saying something is so doesn't make it so. Although defeatism has plagued the people's movements (at least in the US) since the days of COINTELPRO, it will not be overcome by simple declarations of success. As African revolutionary Amilcar Cabral said, "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories."

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