Peace Out

2. Then there's what you might call the "good war" dilemma. During the 2008 campaign Democrats argued in near unison that Afghanistan was a worthy conflict, in contrast to an illegitimate and immoral fight in Iraq. Whereas the left saw Iraq as the product of Bush's sinister deceptions, the Afghanistan campaign has long enjoyed broad legitimacy thanks to that country's direct link to the September 11 attacks. When Bush cited 9/11 and Al Qaeda to justify fighting on in Iraq, the left simply got more angry. This time, the argument actually works. One case in point: liberals who opposed the Iraq War were emboldened by the support they drew from military veterans who hated the war. Today, the liberal veterans group VoteVets.org is quiet on Afghanistan, saying it acknowledges the strategic importance of defeating the Taliban.

3. To a distant American viewer, Afghanistan simply doesn't inspire the visceral horror of Iraq in its most violent days. Western viewers have largely been spared ghoulish videos of beheadings and charred bodies. Spectacular car bombings, which make for gripping television footage, are far less common in Kabul than they were in Baghdad, and there are fewer reporters there to cover them. In the Taliban, America is fighting a relatively defined enemy, and we don't feel caught in the middle of an uncontrollable civil war as we did in Iraq. Moreover, civilian deaths in Afghanistan, while troublingly high—they reached a peak of 261 in May—are dramatically lower than they were in Iraq in 2006, when there were 3,159 in July alone. And while U.S. casualties have risen to tragic new levels (77 dead in August), that figure peaked at 131 in Iraq in May 2007.

4. Finally, there's the fact that, to those who listened carefully, Obama did, after all, warn Americans that a hard road lay ahead in Afghanistan—and that he was determined to follow it. Some people may not have absorbed the implication of Obama's view that Afghanistan is "the central front in the war on terror," or his vow that he would quickly send more troops to the country. But it was clear where Obama stood then, and thus difficult for liberals to scream betrayal now.

Of course, a portion of the far left opposed invading Afghanistan from the start, and sees Obama as a tool of the corporate establishment. But even the ANSWER coalition, the hard-core leftist group that spearheaded huge protests in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, has had early trouble mustering substantial protests against a figure as popular among liberals as Obama. That's undoubtedly why antiwar leaders are increasingly shifting their message to target far-less-revered congressional Democrats. "It's not a frontal assault against Obama on our part," one ANSWER organizer recently explained to NPR. Likewise, a Codepink leader recently explained on the group’s Web site that "Congress, not Obama, bears a heavy weight for these wars." Unfortunately for them, it's a lot less fun for a young liberal activist to denounce Harry Reid outside the Capitol than it was to shout "War criminals!" at the Bush White House. There are, however, increasing stirrings on the left. Some antiwar outfits are showing defensiveness about their lowered profile—a sign of increasing pressure from their followers. ("Yes, Codepink is still here, still against the wars," announces a statement on the group's Web page. The group assures restless members that it has taken such actions as "holding a weekly peace vigil in Laramie, Wyo.")

Others are taking more action: Win Without War, an antiwar coalition headed by former Maine congressman Tom Andrews, has founded the Afghanistan Action Network, designed to mobilize opposition to a conflict, the group says, that "could become President Obama’s Vietnam—an unending conflict that could become an albatross around the neck of a nation and president we all need to succeed." Oct. 8 is the eighth anniversary of the first American airstrikes on Afghanistan, and some antiwar activists are trying to mobilize showy demonstrations to mark the occasion. But they may find poor turnout among liberals who still view Barack Obama as their potential savior.

© 2009