The Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) describes itself as an "independent, democratic, grassroots network of students opposing the occupation of Iraq and military recruiters in our schools." It was founded prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and is the largest campus-based antiwar organization in the United States. This article deals with the post-invasion period in Iraq and its occupation. ... Military recruitment is the recruiting by a particular nations military for men (and in some cases women) to fill the ranks of the corps. ... An invasion is a military action consisting of troops entering a foreign land (a nation or territory, or part of that), often resulting in the invading power occupying the area, whether briefly or for a long period. ... Anti war protest in Melbourne, Australia, 2003 Anti-war is a term that is widely adopted by any social movement or person that seeks to end or oppose a future or current war. ...

History

The Campus Antiwar Network was created on January 17, 2003 by delegates from over 70 colleges and universities at twin conferences at George Washington University and San Francisco State University. Its purpose was opposition to the planned invasion of Iraq. Its first national conference occurred February 22-3, 2003, in Chicago. The George Washington University (GWU) is a private university in Washington, D.C., founded in 1821 as The Columbian College. ... San Francisco State University is a branch of the California State University system. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ...

Due to the decentralized nature of CAN, it is hard to measure its size and impact over time. However, it seemed to most members that the organization grew quickly with mass opposition to the war in early 2003, but lost momentum and membership with the twin blows of the failure of mass protests to prevent the invasion, and the exclusively electoral focus of many activists in the period leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Its second national conference, November 1-2, 2003, again in Chicago, had around 200 delegates, and the third national conference, November 2004 in New York City drew an enthusiastic crowd of 100. Then, with the rise to national prominence of Cindy Sheehan, falling approval ratings for President Bush and the war, and the rise of the counter-recruitment movement, CAN's growth accelerated again in mid-2005. Its fourth national conference, on October 22-23, 2005, at UC Berkeley, drew over 650 students, with delegates from 37 schools present to vote on the second, organizational, day. Presidential election results map. ... Cindy Sheehan wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt (Photo: Jacob Appelbaum) Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan (born July 10, 1957 in Bellflower, California) is an American anti-Iraq War activist who attracted international attention in August 2005 for her extended demonstration at a peace camp outside President George W. Bush... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States. ... Counter-recruitment is a strategy often taken up to oppose war. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ...

Structure

The Campus Antiwar Network, as the name implies, is a network of largely independent affiliates which choose their own day-to-day goals and tactics. CAN brings them together, usually only by email and conference call, to share the lessons of experience, discuss and decide on a view of the present needs of the peace movement, assist each other in defending against threatened disciplinary action or prosecution, and plan occasional coordinated actions. E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... A conference call is a telephone call where the calling party wants to have more than one called party listen in to the audio portion of the call. ... This article is in need of attention. ...

However, the organization does have a coordinating committee, elected each year at its national conference. The committee has one representative from each of five regions, five at-large representatives, and two high school representatives, who make decisions by majority vote. Individual CAN affiliates organize as they choose, although each is asked to select two members to give their contact information to the national coordinating committee. The coordinating committee is responsible, as the name implies, for coordinating actions voted on at the national conference.

CAN also has various national working groups:

• A treasury, with an elected treasurer and two assistants responsible for keeping track of income and expenditure.

• A literature working group, staffed by volunteers and responsible for writing and updating political pamphlets as well as a book on the history and actions of the counter-recruitment movement.

• A website working group, staffed by volunteers and responsible for the maintenance of CAN's website.

• A newspaper working group, staffed by volunteers and responsible for writing and publishing a newsletter containing reports on CAN actions as well as strategic arguments, articles on events in Iraq, etc. The first issue was shipped in November, 2005.

• A repression working group, staffed by volunteers and responsible for responding to actions by police and campus security and administrations seen as repressive of antiwar activity or other dissent.

• An action working group, staffed by volunteers and responsible for coordinating national actions, ranging from student [days of action] and [contingents] in national marches, to a planned "Boots on the Backs of Brothers" speaking tour in spring 2006.

A treasury is the part of a government which manages all money and revenue. ... ... The front page of the English Wikipedia Website. ... A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. ... Look up Action on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Action can be used in different contexts: In philosophy, action is effective will In sociology, action can either mean a basic action (one that has a meaning) or a more advanced social action, one that not only has a meaning but is...

Politics

The Campus Antiwar Network is primarily a group opposed to the war in Iraq and the continuing occupation of that country by the United States and its allies. Since its last two national conferences, it has focused on counter-recruitment, opposition to US military recruitment, as a strategy to end the war. The most commonly heard CAN slogans, found on buttons and signs at protests, are "Troops Out Now!", "College Not Combat!", and "Relief Not War!" - the last a response to perceived failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, connected to the war, for CAN members, by the repressive military nature of the relief efforts as well as by the diversion of resources abroad. There have been three conflicts in the late 20th century and early 21st century called Gulf War, all of which refer to conflicts in the Persian Gulf region: Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) (aka First Gulf War). ... Wikinews has news related to this article: Category:New Orleans Disaster Disaster recovery American Red Cross: Official donation site www. ...

CAN formerly chose a broad list of (misnamed) "points of unity," selected by majority vote at its 2004 national conference. These include not only opposition to the war in Iraq and to military recruitment in schools, but also opposition to the war in Afghanistan, opposition to Israel's occupation of Palestine, and other less-popular views. Individual CAN affiliates are involved in actions around these issues to varying degrees, and members may or may not agree with all points; the 2005 conference chose to organize national work around the themes of immediate withdrawal from Iraq and challenging military recruitment in order to build the broadest possible national movement. CAN chapters are welcome to choose their own political positions and affiliations beyond those broad themes. Map of the British Mandate of Palestine. ...

Actions

Past

The Campus Antiwar Network historically has used a variety of tactics: Tactics is the collective name for methods of winning a small-scale conflict, performing an optimization, etc. ...

• The mass demonstration: CAN helped to mobilize students for the national February 15th, 2003 demonstrations prior to the invasion of Iraq, and more recently marched with a contingent estimated by organizers at two thousand people at the September 24th, 2005 protest in Washington, DC. It has also participated in numerous other local and national demonstrations. For example, CAN called for and organized a day of action on December 6, 2005, the date that the Supreme Court heard FAIR v. Rumsfeld, a case deciding the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment's provision denying federal funding to colleges that ban military recruiters. The action consisted of protests at recruiting stations across the country.

• The referendum: CAN helped write and campaign for the "College Not Combat" ballot measure passed by residents of San Francisco on November 2nd, 2005, described by proponents as a statement that voters "want it to be city policy to oppose military recruiters’ access to public schools and to consider funding scholarships for education and training that could provide an alternative to military service." The passage of this measure led well-known Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to suggest on his show, The O'Reilly Factor, that the federal government respond, "Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here [San Francisco] and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

• Direct aid: CAN sent caravans to New Orleans from places such as New York and Chicago, after Hurricane Katrina. These brought supplies and volunteers to work with local Louisiana activists, such as Malik Rahim, towards hurricane relief. The New York students kept a journal of their activities called ["This is solidarity, not charity"]

• Petitions, letters, and phone calls to school and government officials.

• Debates, both in person and through the mediums of paper publications and the internet.

• Creative performances of various kinds, involving, for example, spoken word poetry and hip hop artists.

This page is about protests. ... Scotus redirects here. ... An association of American law schools seeking to overturn the Solomon Amendment. ... Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) is an American politician and businessman who has served as the 21st Secretary of Defense of the United States since January 20, 2001, under President George W. Bush. ... The 1996 Solomon Amendment is the popular name of 10 USC Sec. ... A referendum (plural: referendums or referenda) or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... al-Qaeda (Arabic: , al-Qā‘idah; the foundation or the base), a subset of the International Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders, is the name given to an international Islamic fundamentalist campaign comprised of independent and collaborative cells that all profess the same cause of reducing outside influence... Coit Tower (photo courtesy of Michael Doeff) Coit Tower is a notable landmark dedicated to the San Francisco, California firefighters. ... Aid is assistance, often financial, provided to developing countries by developed countries. ... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... New York, New York redirects here. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ... State nickname: Pelican State Official languages English and French Capital Baton Rouge Largest city New Orleans at last official government census, but probably Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) Senators Mary Landrieu (D) David Vitter (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 31st 134,382 km² 16 Population  - Total... Malik Rahim is a former Black Panther and current Green Party member in Louisiana, who has been active in grassroots Hurricane Katrina relief. ... A petition is a request to an authority, most commonly a government official or public entity. ... Debate is a formalized system of (usually) logical argument. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Spoken word is a form of music or artistic performance in which lyrics, poetry, or stories are spoken rather than sung. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban African American youth in New York and has since spread around the world. ...

Future

The Campus Antiwar Network's October 2005 national conference decided on several nationally-coordinated events for the upcoming year. One occurred on December 6 of that year, but others are still to come:

• A "College Not Combat" petition drive, with petitions asking individual schools to disallow or remove priveleges from military recruiters, and to be delivered the week of March 19, 2006 (the anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq). This will coincide with anti-war actions on campuses marking the anniversary of the war.

• A panel discussion called "Fighting the Empire From Within," featuring CAN activists involved in military "counter-recruitment," war resister Pablo Paredes, and others, at the [2006 World Social Forum] in Venezuela.

• A day of action on May 4, 2006, the anniversary of the killing of four students at Kent State by National Guardsmen during a protest against the Vietnam War. The action is also intended to commemorate the shooting of two students at Jackson State on May 14, but the earlier date was chosen because it is better known and so will get more media attention.

Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over the body of Jeffrey Miller The Kent State shootings, also known as May 4 or the Kent State Massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4... The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or Viet Cong) against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its allies — notably the United States military in support of... The Jackson State killings occurred on May 14-15, 1970, at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. ...

Repression

A number of people involved with the Campus Antiwar Network have faced legal or disciplinary consequences of various kinds for their antiwar activism. These people have been the centers of nationwide defense campaigns on the part of CAN, which argues that their cases prove the threat counter-recruitment poses to the powers that be.

• In March 2004, at City College of New York, four people were arrested at a counter-recruitment protest (after twice, at earlier protests, forcing recruiters off campus) for allegedly assualting campus security, though they claim that the reverse was the case. One, Hadas Thier, was banned from campus and suspended. Charges have since been dropped.[1]

• Charles Peterson at Holyoke Community College was pepper sprayed, banned from campus, and threatened with expulsion after allegedly assaulting a campus security officer while protesting military recruiters; he claims that he merely grabbed back a sign the officer took from a fellow protester. Charges have since been dropped.[2]

• Tariq Khan, a student at George Mason University and Air Force veteran, was arrested for standing near recruiters with a sign saying "Recruiters Tell Lies" taped to his shirt on the charge of trespassing and disorderly conduct. Khan is a Pakistani-American; he reported that one arresting officer told him, "You people are the most violent people in the world." Charges have since been dropped.[3]

• Dave Airhart, a student at Kent State and a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, was fined by city police and threatened with expulsion after hanging a banner with an antiwar message on a climbing wall set up on campus by military recruiters. Charges have since been dropped.[4]

• Seven students at Hampton University were punished for participating in an unauthorized protest and "proselytizing" during a walkout on November 2, 2005. The students were initially summoned for an administrative hearing on November 21st to present a case against their expulsion, with three days notice, but it was then postponed to December 2nd, and finally the school decided only to impose community service.[5]

The City College of The City University of New York (known more commonly as City College of New York or simply City College, CCNY, or colloquially as City) is a senior college of the City University of New York, in New York City. ... // Holyoke Community College Holyoke Community College (HCC) is a state-funded public two year college located in Holyoke,Massachusetts. ... George Mason University George Mason Universitys Fairfax campus George Mason University, also referred to by locals and students as simply Mason or GMU, is an institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with campuses in Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William County, Virginia, all in the suburbs of... The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aviation branch of the United States armed forces. ... Kent State University (KSU) is an institution of higher learning located in Kent, Ohio, which is 1 hour south-east from Cleveland. ... United States Marine Corps Emblem The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is a branch of the U.S. military. ... Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia. ...

Criticism

The Campus Antiwar Network's tactics have been criticized by other people who consider themselves part of the antiwar movement.

Some argue that CAN is excessively radical, often using slogans and posters focusing unnecessarily on controversial issues like the racism of the Iraq war, the bad faith of its Bush administration advocates, or the right of Iraqis to military resistance. This, they say, alienates many of those who should be part of the antiwar movement's audience but may disagree on a particular issue. Radical is derived from the Latin word radix, which means root. In various fields of endeavor, it can mean: Sciences in chemistry, either an atom or molecule with at least one unpaired electron, or a group of atoms, charged or uncharged, that act as a single entity in reaction. ... An African-American man drinks out of the colored only water fountain at a racially segregated streetcar terminal in the United States in 1939. ... Iraqi militants celebrating orders that the surrounding Coalition forces were given to stand-down. ...

CAN has also been criticized, by a smaller number of people, for a reformist focus, and a refusal to engage in illegal, if nonviolent, direct action. This, it is argued, deprives CAN's politics of any real content by making its advocacy perfectly compatible with the existing system. Reformism (also called revisionism or revisionist theory) is the belief that gradual changes in a society can ultimately change its fundamental structures. ... George Bush may refer to: People: George W. Bush, George Walker Bush, the 43rd and current President of the United States of America (2001–present) George H. W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States (1989–1993), and father of George W. Bush George P. Bush...

CAN activists respond, in turn, that they are striking an appropriate balance, which maximizes the number of people involved in the antiwar movement while preserving its core political principles, and makes connections that can involve new groups of people while keeping CAN's founding antiwar goals unchanged.

Additional criticism focuses on the accusation that CAN is controlled by the International Socialist Organization (ISO), in keeping with its tactic of "infiltrating" (or being active in) activist groups -- an accusation both groups would deny. Some non-ISO members have left CAN, claiming the group's agenda and that of the ISO have became unacceptably intertwined. CAN defenders reply that CAN's open and democratic decision-making is incompatible with it being a front group. Moreover, they say that the two organizations share the goal of stopping the war but are organizationally and politically independent, and that while many of CAN's prominent members are also ISO members, there are many others (including members of CAN's coordinating committee) ranging from Democrats to anarchists. Some also argue that there is a long tradition in the United States of attempting to discredit activist groups by claiming they have an affiliation with communists or socialists, and that such charges are often a cover for covert political disagreement. This article is about the International Socialist Organization in the United States. ... A front organization, also known as a front group (if it is structured to look like a voluntary association) or a front company or simply a front (if it is structured to look like a company), is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization. ... The Democratic Party, which is also known as the National Socialist Party, is the longest-standing political party in the world (unless one considers the British Conservative Party to be an extension of the much older Tories). ... In 1872 Benjamin Tucker first met Warren and William B. Greene in Boston at the New England Labor Reform League. ... Red-baiting is the action of accusing someone of being communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, leftist, mainly with the intention of discrediting his/her political views. ... Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. ... Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that society should exist in which popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production. ...

External links

• Campus Antiwar Network: the official webpage.
• Afroamerica: a brief profile of CAN.
• Traprock Peace Center: an extensive history of CAN hosted by the Traprock Peace Center.
• The Nation: a left magazine's article on the counter-recruitment movement and repression.
• Wall Street Journal: an article on the Fair V Rumsfeld hearing on December 6, 2005, and the protests surrounding it.
• Common Dreams: another December 6 article focusing on the counter-recruitment protests and CAN.
• Free Republic: a conservative group's reaction to the December 6 protests.
• Rolling Stone: CAN and Iraq war veteran/Kent State student Dave Airhart in Rolling Stone magazine.
• ZNet: article on protest organized by a CAN-affiliate at NYU that led to a CIA recruiting event's cancellation.
• Left Hook: article on campus polarization that summarizes some of CAN's counter-recruitment organizing in spring 2005.
• DC Antiwar Network: a Washington, DC-based coalition which CAN forms a large part of.
• Military Out of Our Schools: a San Francisco Bay Area-based organization with which CAN has cooperated in several campaigns.