Anti-war lobby would rather bash GOP than end war

Excerpted from thehill.com

An Iraq war veteran who put a military face on the anti-war movement is lashing out at the group he once worked for, saying the anti-war lobby is more interested in bashing Republicans than ending the war.

"...The main agenda of these well-financed anti-war groups, I think, is nothing short of the prolonged character assassination of all those who disagree with their message," John Bruhns wrote in a column published just before Thanksgiving in the Philadelphia Daily News, his hometown paper.

Bruhns’s scathing broadside did not name specific anti-war groups. But from May to October he was the legislative representative for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), a coalition of liberal groups including MoveOn.org and unions.

In an interview with The Hill after his departure Bruhns said he’d left on good terms and that AAEI is "playing a necessary role." He did hint at his dissatisfaction, saying, "I can’t continue to attack members of Congress to pass legislation that isn’t going to get passed."

He now says, "I was not honest when I walked away and … painted a rosy picture of my departure."

Since leaving, Bruhns has continued to travel from his home in the Philadelphia suburbs to Washington to lobby, and has posted entries about Iraq on Huffington Post and elsewhere.

In his column, Bruhns stressed that he remains adamantly against the war, and says he admires the rank-and-file activists who work with AAEI. His problem, he said, is with the leaders, though he declined to name any names.

"We did raise a lot of awareness and did a lot of good," Bruhns said. "But at the end of the day, we went after only Republicans."

Bruhns wrote that both activists and elected officials worried too much about Democratic orthodoxy and not enough about figuring out what it would take to end the war.

"The groups I worked for wouldn’t spend one dime to promote legislation considered outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party," he wrote.