The Rev. Robert Moore, Princeton
To the editor:
I write in response to Paul Budline’s Feb. 7 As I See It column entitled “Where have all the protests gone?”
Mr. Budline certainly seems to have an ax to grind. But as the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan said: People are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.What Mr. Budline alleges about the Coalition for Peace Action is factually wrong. At his request, I’ve spent time meeting with him, explaining our work, and even giving him documents about our finances.
Nonetheless, he seems to take an approach of “Don’t bother me with the facts, I already know what I think.”
I’m proud of the fact that in the 30 years I’ve served as executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action, whenever we’ve exercised our First Amendment right and patriotic duty to protest policies we believe are wrong, we’ve been nonpartisan, equal-opportunity protesters.
When President Clinton ordered the bombing of Kosovo, we repeatedly protested. When President Obama ordered a troop buildup in Afghanistan, we protested. As recently as last Oct. 7, on the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War, we criticized President Obama’s Afghanistan policies at a Statehouse rally.
Of course, we’ve also protested when Republican Presidents engaged in illegal, unnecessary and immoral wars like the one in Iraq. In those protests, we’ve often worked closely with veterans of those wars. As recently as Dec. 29, we had an Iraq War veteran speak at our celebration of the last U.S. troops finally coming home from Iraq.
It’s true that there have been fewer protests against the Iraq War in recent years. That’s because the extensive efforts of the U.S. peace movement were finally paying off in moving us toward the end of U.S. troop deployments. The agreement to bring them home by the end of 2011 was signed by President Bush in 2008.
Mr. Budline alleges that we in the peace movement have an attitude of “contempt and pity” toward U.S. military personnel, and rarely know any of them. In my extensive experience as a leader in the U.S. peace movement over the last 35 years, I’ve never seen such attitudes displayed.
My father is a 20-year veteran of the Navy, fought in two wars (WW II and Korea) and is a long-time supporter of the Coalition for Peace Action.
The facts about the U.S. peace movement contradict what Mr. Budline alleges.
The Rev. Robert Moore
Princeton
