My acceptance of veterans as fellow antiwar activists may seem at odds with my opposition to the role of ‘retired’ FBI, CIA, Pentagon, & State Department officials in the antiwar movement. But the differences are considerable. Most veterans come to the antiwar movement in their youth & because of their experience with war. The ‘retired’ officials all came after their retirements with comfortable pensions & after a lifetime of service to US militarism in the ranks of its leadership.
I don’t buy the political metamorphoses of Ray McGovern, Ann Wright, Colleen Rowley, & all the rest of them & I certainly don’t think the leadership of the antiwar movement should be handed over to them when their politics are libertarian & they all support the Assad & Putin regimes. But especially since McGovern admitted in a Mother Jones interview that their organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity actively collaborates with active duty FBI, CIA, Pentagon, & State Department officials. Their misleadership may have everything to do with the fact that the antiwar movement which once mobilized millions now is lucky to get a few thousand out nationwide at a time when the US has wars going on in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya & is saber-rattling against Venezuela.
Call me sectarian, but I’ll be damned if I’ll march behind ‘retired’ spies & war criminals & call them my leaders.
