For­eign pol­i­cy played a minor role in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that focused on jobs, jobs, jobs. But like it or not, the Unit­ed States is part of a glob­al com­mu­ni­ty in tur­moil, and U.S. poli­cies often fuel that tur­moil. The peace move­ment, which lost steam dur­ing Obama’s first term because so many peo­ple were unwill­ing to crit­i­cize the pres­i­dent, has a chal­lenge today to reac­ti­vate itself and increase its effec­tive­ness by form­ing coali­tions with­in the pro­gres­sive movement.

This revi­tal­ized peace move­ment must address five issues.

68 , 000 troops and almost 100 , 000 pri­vate con­trac­tors there at a cost of $ 2 bil­lion a week. And Oba­ma is talk­ing about a pres­ence of U.S. troops, train­ing mis­sions, Spe­cial Forces oper­a­tions and bases for anoth­er decade. But the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans think this war is not worth fight­ing, a sen­ti­ment echoed in a recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al ​ “ .” It is indeed that time. The peace move­ment must push for an imme­di­ate with­draw­al and for rul­ing out any longterm pres­ence in Afghanistan. The first is Afghanistan. Despite Obama’s talk about get­ting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 , the U.S. mil­i­tary still has sometroops and almostpri­vate con­trac­tors there at a cost of $bil­lion a week. And Oba­ma is talk­ing about a pres­ence of U.S. troops, train­ing mis­sions, Spe­cial Forces oper­a­tions and bases for anoth­er decade. But the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans think this war is not worth fight­ing, a sen­ti­ment echoed in a recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al Time to Pack Up .” It is indeed that time. The peace move­ment must push for an imme­di­ate with­draw­al and for rul­ing out any longterm pres­ence in Afghanistan.

Sec­ond, drone attacks are out of con­trol , killing thou­sands, many of them civil­ians, in Pak­istan, Yemen and Soma­lia, cre­at­ing wide­spread anti-Amer­i­can sen­ti­ment and set­ting a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that will back to haunt us. Anti-drone actions have sprung up all over the Unit­ed States at Air Force bases where the drones are pilot­ed, at the head­quar­ters of drone mak­ers, at the CIA and in Con­gres­sion­al offices. Our job now is to coor­di­nate those efforts, exe­cute a mas­sive pub­lic edu­ca­tion cam­paign to turn around pro-drone pub­lic opin­ion, and call on our elect­ed offi­cials to start respect­ing the rule of law. If we strength­en our ties with peo­ple in the nations most affect­ed and join in with those at the U.N. bod­ies who are hor­ri­fied by drone pro­lif­er­a­tion, we just might get some glob­al stan­dards for the use of lethal drones.

60 per­cent of Amer­i­cans Third, loom­ing on the hori­zon is a pos­si­ble Israeli attack on Iran that would draw the U.S. into a dev­as­tat­ing region­al war. Almostper­cent of Amer­i­cans oppose join­ing Israel in a war with Iran . We must make sure Oba­ma and Con­gress hear that voice above the din of Amer­i­can Israel Pub­lic Affairs Com­mit­tee lob­by­ists gun­ning for war, and steer clear of drag­ging us into yet anoth­er war.

3 bil­lion a year that helps under­write these abus­es. But we can con­tin­ue to shift pub­lic opin­ion and gain allies in Con­gress, with an open­ness to reach­ing out to fis­cal conservatives Fourth, and per­haps hard­est of all, will be to get some trac­tion on chang­ing U.S. pol­i­cy toward the Israel/​Palestine con­flict. The grass­roots move­ment to stop uncon­di­tion­al sup­port for Israel is boom­ing, with groups like Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine and Jew­ish Voice for Peace build­ing net­works across the coun­try. The Boy­cott, Divest­ment and Sanc­tions cam­paign is gain­ing momen­tum not just in the Unit­ed States, but glob­al­ly. We’re unlike­ly to see the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion and Con­gress offi­cial­ly call for a halt to set­tle­ments, human rights abus­es or the ongo­ing siege of Gaza, much less cut off the $bil­lion a year that helps under­write these abus­es. But we can con­tin­ue to shift pub­lic opin­ion and gain allies in Con­gress, with an open­ness to reach­ing out to fis­cal conservatives

call­ing for cuts in for­eign aid.

Final­ly, there’s the bloat­ed Pen­ta­gon bud­get. At a time when the nation is look­ing at how best to allo­cate scarce resources, all eyes should be on the bil­lions of dol­lars wast­ed on Pen­ta­gon poli­cies and weapons that don’t make us safer, from more than 800 bases over­seas to out­dat­ed Cold War weapons to monies giv­en to repres­sive regimes. We need a ratio­nal look at the Pen­ta­gon bud­get that could free up bil­lions for crit­i­cal social and envi­ron­men­tal programs.

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The overwhelming majority of Americans think this war is not worth fighting.