Historians Against the War
Historians Against the War is a network of history teachers, scholars, and activists seeking to bring historical analysis to bear on U.S. foreign policy and its social/political impact.
HAW Statements
HAW has issued several statements on which membership in the organization has been based.
Founding statement
Historians Against the War (HAW) was founded in Chicago, Illinois at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. A group of historians drafted the following statement which 2209 people subsequently signed:
We historians call for a halt to the march towards war against Iraq. We are deeply concerned about the needless destruction of human life, the undermining of constitutional government in the U.S., the egregious curtailment of civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad, and the obstruction of world peace for the indefinite future.
2003 U.S. Occupation of Iraq
After the start of the 2003 Iraq War, HAW drafted a new Statement on the U.S. Occupation of Iraq:
historians, teachers, and scholars, we oppose the expansion of United States empire and the doctrine of pre-emptive war that have led to the occupation of Iraq. We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history involved in the administration's conduct of a war that violates international law, intensifies attacks on civil liberties, and reaches toward domination of the Middle East and its resources. Believing that both the Iraqi people and the American people have the right to determine their own political and economic futures (with appropriate outside assistance), we call for the restoration of cherished freedoms in the United States and for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
2006 statement on Israel/Palestine/Lebanon fighting
HAW's Steering Committee issued this statement on July 27, 2006 on the Israel/Palestine/Lebanon fighting.
was published in September 2006, summarizing the discussion and including a sampling of the responses.
2009 revised mission statement
In the spring of 2009, the steering committee of HAW drafted a new mission statement and put it to the vote of the signatories of the original statement. It passed with overwhelming support.
Organizational structure
HAW is led by a 20-member steering committee elected by the membership every January. The steering committee is allowed by its rules to invite additional members. The steering committee is headed by two co-chairs (currently Jim O'Brien of the University of Massachusetts Boston and Marc Becker of Truman State University). The steering committee forms ad hoc working groups as needed to organize events, draft statements and do other work.
Currently, voting membership is defined as encompassing all those who have signed the 2009 HAW mission statement.
HAW conferences
HAW has held two national conferences , the first in 2006 and the second in 2008.
Empire, Resistance, and the War in Iraq (2006)
The first HAW conference "Empire, Resistance, and the War in Iraq: A Conference for Historians and Activists" was held at the University of Texas, Austin, February 17–19, 2006. This was the first scholarly conference in the U.S. to examine the origins of and opposition to the war in Iraq in historical perspective. It featured a plenary session with Howard Zinn.
War and Its Discontents (2008)
The HAW's second conference “War and Its Discontents: Understanding Iraq and the U.S. Empire” was held at Georgia State University in Atlanta in April 11–13, 2008. It was co-sponsored by the Peace History Society. About 150 people came for the conference, and about 200 additional people to the Friday evening keynote plenary featuring Bill Fletcher Jr. and Naomi Klein. In addition to four plenary sessions, 21 panels and workshops were held in four time slots on Saturday and Sunday. Presenters included people from 46 different colleges and universities as well as several high schools and non-academic activists.
Publications
HAW's first publication was Stuart Schaar and Marvin E. Gettleman, Annotated Bibliography of English-Language Sources and Studies on The Middle East and Muslim South West Asia, subsequently revised Spring 2007[1]
In 2004, HAW member Margaret Power produced Torture American Style .
In June 2006, HAW member Carl Mirra edited Join Us? Testimonies of Iraq War Veterans and Their Families for HAW’s Oral History Working Group . A shortened on-line version was carried in Artvoice, an alternative weekly in Buffalo, NY. Mirra also put together Conducting Oral History with Iraq War Veterans and Their Families: A Brief Guide for the Oral History Working Group .
Alan Dawley wrote Why Peace Movements Are Important for the History News Network in March 2006 .
HAW also published The Bush - Cheney Years, A Historians Against the War Roundtable at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 3, 2009, New York, NY, with contributions by Alice Kessler - Harris (Columbia University), David Montgomery (Yale University), Vijay Prashad (Trinity College), Ellen Schrecker (Yeshiva University), Barbara Weinstein (New York University) .
HAW also issued an occasional electronic Newsletter. One in October 2005, edited by Jeri Fogel, consisting of documents and reflections on HAW members’ participation in the September 24, 2005 antiwar demonstration in Washington; and one in January 2006, edited by Alan Dawley, consisting of reports on HAW’s participation in the AHA convention in Philadelphia. In September 2006, the name of the electronic newsletter was changed to HAW Notes.
Teach-ins
HAW stimulated dozens of campus teach-ins, forums, and other events on campus related to the Iraq War . In the fall of 2006 over forty campuses held educational events or teach ins to educate students and faculty about the war and what they could do to oppose it. Part of the organizing effort was to compile and post a list of about sixty experts on the war, on US foreign policy, and on the antiwar movement who were willing to speak at campus events.
HAW co-sponsored with War Times a September 19, 2008 teach-in on the Iraq War in Berkeley, as part of a week of Bay Area events marking the 40th anniversary of 1968 and its social movements worldwide.
HAW’s involvement with United for Peace and Justice
HAW was a member of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) since its founding in early 2003, only a few months after UFPJ was founded. Van Gosse and Andor Skotnes attended the first UFPJ National Assembly in June 2003 in Chicago, where Van Gosse was elected to the UFPJ Steering Committee to represent HAW. On the Steering Committee, HAW functioned as the de facto representative of the academic sector. HAW mobilized its members and marched as a contingent in major UFPJ demonstrations. UFPJ publicized HAW's first major publication, the Torture pamphlet. Van Gosse and Rusti Eisenberg were very involved in setting up the Legislative Working Group of UFPJ in spring-summer of 2005, one of its most successful initiatives.
HAW organized a small contingent for the Washington demonstration called by United for Peace and Justice on January 27, 2007. About forty people either marched in the contingent or gathered with HAW at a meeting place across the street from the mall. The large Historians Against the War banner got a lot of notice from bystanders and other march participants.
HAWblog
HAW runs a blog at http://blog.historiansagainstwar.org/. The blog became a focus of controversy in libertarian and conservative circles when in the process of discussing a 2009 change to the mission statement two members David T. Beito and Thaddeus Russell used the blog to denounce the mission statement . Rather than posting their objection in the comments section as other members were doing, they posted their complaints as a new posts at the top of the blog. When HAW web editor Marc Becker moved their post to the comments section, they reposted it again at the top of the blog. Fearing an attempt to subvert the organization's attempt to discuss a new mission statement, HAW's steering committee decided to remove their privilege of creating new posts. Beito and Russell contended that this move was ideologically motivated. Charging that the steering committee intended to maintain HAW as a closed "leftist social club," Beito and Russell both resigned from HAW .
HAW at the AHA
HAW has a regular presence at the annual meetings of the American Historical Association (AHA).
2006
At the 2006 AHA annual meeting in Philadelphia, HAW voted to join the "Urgent Appeal to Save Iraq's Academics" that publicized the indiscriminate killing that has taken the lives of 250 Iraqi colleagues as well as the United Nations University report that 84 percent of Iraq's institutions of higher education have already been burnt, looted or destroyed. HAW also debated resolutions scheduled for the AHA Business Meeting opposing the "so-called" academic bill of rights. HAW played the lead role in this effort, initiating discussion, delegated drafting the text to Ellen Schrecker, and gathered almost one hundred co-sponsors. The “Resolution opposing Academic and Student Bills of Rights and Similar Regulations of the Academic Community,” was approved by HAW, the AHA Business Meeting and received unanimous approval from the American Historical Association Council. HAW also sponsored two breakfasts and an evening social.
HAW also sponsored a well attended roundtable on "Historical Perspectives on Bush's Foreign Policy." Alan Dawley chaired the session and discussion which produced vibrant and vital debate and discussion on the central question of how U.S. foreign policy can be changed after elites run the country into a war. The speakers were John Prados, "How We Were Hoodwinked on Iraq," Rusti Eisenberg, "Historical Lessons from the Vietnam Era," and Larry Wittner, "The Role of Peace Movements in Ending Wars."
John Prados talked about splits in ruling circles as a factor in undoing the policy of war. In his opening comment, he showed how the Bush inner circle was so fixated on going to war with Iraq that it did not request CIA intelligence for fear that it might upset the applecart by showing there were no weapons of mass destruction.
To Rusti Eisenberg, on the other hand, there was no point in looking to the “National Security/Welfare State” for a change of course. Having learned virtually nothing from the Vietnam experience, the Bush circle is almost as irrational as the Nixon-Kissinger team in pursuing a policy that is doomed to fail, though not before slaughtering countless innocents. The only hope for change is a mass movement that will pressure elected representatives to change course, just as Congress cut off funding for Vietnam. For those wanting to believe that the peace movement can effect policy change, Larry Wittner offered some hopeful evidence. In an insightful review of the role of peace movements in ending U.S. wars from 1812 to Vietnam, he argued that even warmongers like Reagan had to change course in response to the world-wide movement against nuclear weapons. Having been invited to comment, Bruno Cartosio (editor of the Italian U.S-studies journal Acoma) affirmed the importance of social movement in mobilizing opposition in Italy even before the Iraq war began.
In numerous exchanges between audience and panelists, analysis of the way to end war was deepened, often in reference to the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era. One important issue that emerged in discussion was that of “linkage” among movements. Where some felt strength lay in a single-issue focus on war, others felt world-wide opposition to the anticipated Iraq war was as strong as it was because it grew out of the post-Seattle anti-globalization movement. This raised the question of whether the ultimate causes of war lay in the needs of capitalist expansion, the imperatives of the National Security State, the tribalism of US v. Them, or some other cause.
2007
The AHA’s annual business meeting, January 6, 2007, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the HAW-initiated resolution deploring the Iraq War’s effect on open inquiry and democratic processes and calling on historians “to do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.” The AHA Council referred the resolution to the membership via an electronic ballot and set up a blog for members to post comments prior to the voting. The results, announced on March 12, showed that about 2,000 AHA members had voted, and that slightly over three-quarters had voted in favor of the resolution. This is the first time that the AHA has taken a position against any US-led war.
2008
At the January 2008 AHA convention in Washington, DC, HAW sponsored a panel on military resistance which included Carl Mirra and Margaret Power.
2009
At the January 2009 AHA convention HAW sponsored a panel discussion on “The Bush-Cheney Legacy.” Van Gosse and Margaret Power organized the panel and chaired the session. The panelists were Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, Vijay Prashad, Ellen Schrecker, and Barbara Weinstein. HAW also co-sponsored a small reception held by the Peace History Society.
2011
At the January 2011 AHA meeting in Boston, HAW members spoke panels focused on "The Public Uses of History and the Global War on Terror" [2] and "The Global War on Terror: Historical Perspectives and Future Prospects." [3]
Other academic conferences
In September 2007, Several SC members (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Margaret Power, Enrique Ochoa, and Walter Hixson) took part in a HAW-organized panel at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) annual conference in Montreal. The topic was “U.S. Imperialist Policies in Latin America and the Middle East.” Greg Grandin, Rula Abisaab, and Malek Abisaab also took part in the panel.
HAW also has had a frequent presence at the meetings of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the Left Forum in New York.