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Three Years of a War Based on Lies Is Enough!
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Kristina Gronquist, W A M M
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To initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
—Nuremberg Tribunal
WAMM Demands an Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq
The tide has turned on the popularity of the war on Iraq. A majority of Americans, 59 percent according to a recent CBS poll, believe U.S. troops should leave Iraq as soon as possible. The once swaggering flight-suited president who led the nation into this morass faces his lowest approval ratings ever. Even die-hard war supporters are coming around, evidenced by the change in the debate. Few are still debating the worthiness of the war now that the reality of the nonexistent WMDs has been (long) exposed. A positive development is found in the fact that the debate has significantly shifted. Discussing the reasons for going to war has been replaced by a more timely discussion – an urgent one actually – that focuses on how soon to get out of the quagmire and by what process.
Ironically, some of the strongest voices for a quick pullout are not coming from the opposition party, or even within certain factions of the peace movement. The spiritless Democrats have not taken the helm in calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops and appear frozen, incapable of challenging the Bush Administration’s war policies and missing a key opportunity to distinguish themselves from the tottering Administration. As Bush’s war policies unravel faster each passing day, the American public searches for clarity in how to proceed. Except for the Black Congressional Caucus, few Democrats have been articulate and outspoken in challenging Bush’s illegal war. Because the majority of Democrats wholeheartedly supported attacking Iraq, now they are embarrassed to admit their huge political blunder by demanding the troops withdraw. While an immediate troop withdrawal is the only right and moral thing to do, it would draw undue attention as a major policy turnaround. For most Democrats, pride and political capital weigh in heavier than the price of the increasing war dead. Tragically, just like Bush, they refuse to admit their mistakes.
Unfortunately, some factions of the antiwar movement have also been timid about calling for an immediate troop withdrawal, erroneously buying into the illogical concept that we have to “stay and finish the job.” What job is that, exactly? Another mistaken argument bandied about by liberals and conservatives alike is the notion that we have to stay to avert a failed state that will lead to a bloody civil war. However, anyone closely following daily events in Iraq, perhaps through Juan Cole’s excellent website, “Informed Comment,” or the foreign and alternative press, can clearly see that current conditions in Iraq already resemble a blood-spattered failed state with a raging and vicious civil war. Who has the crystal ball to predict that this horrific situation could get worse instead of better if the root cause of the violence, the antagonistic U.S. troops, depart?
Others propose staying until the U.S.-led Iraqi forces are more “fully trained” and the government miraculously becomes “stable.” But the media’s portrayal of the government as a fledgling “democracy” that is able to serve the interests of all Iraqis is patently false. According to United Nations official Justin Alexander, U.S. influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq was excessive and “highly inappropriate.” The political process is not opposed by the resistance because they are opposed to “democracy” but because they are opposed to a lack of it, and thus do not want to be beholden to a system they do not view as legitimate or inclusive. Dr. Marinos Diamantides, senior lecturer of law at the University of London, said the entire drafting process could be illegal under international law.
We need to challenge the notion that Western, predominantly Caucasian/Christian U.S. citizens have any right at all to call the shots about what the future of the Iraqi people should be. We did not have that right initially when we went to war in violation of the international community, and we do not we have that right now either. It is distressing, to say the least, to find liberals, as well as people who consider themselves to be “progressive” and “antiwar,” so easily falling into the same racist “manifest-destiny” mindset as the neoconservative imperialists who led us into Iraq. From our armchairs, our meeting halls, our coffee shops, and our comfortable bomb-free environments, we have absolutely no preordained mandate to determine the future of Iraq. If it was not our right in 2002 before the war – as we marched in opposition – how is it acceptable now in 2005 to try to determine Iraq’s future? Those who are stating that U.S. troops need to pull out slowly, in a year, or two (or more) in order to “save Iraq” from itself insult the dignity and intelligence of the Arab and Muslim world, which does not need our interference in their affairs and can self-determine their futures on their own.
Those calling for the war’s hasty end may surprise you. Vietnam war veteran, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, after returning from one of several trips to Iraq, said: “We should start figuring out how we get out of there, our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think, the further destabilization will occur.” Rep. John Duncan, Jr., a Republican from Tennessee, urges conservatives to oppose the “undeclared and unnecessary war,” not only because of the deaths but because “there is nothing conservative about this war; it means massive foreign aid, huge deficit spending.” CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate in February that the war in Iraq has become a recruitment and training ground for more and more terrorists who will go back to other countries. Walter B. Jones, Jr., Republican Congressman from North Carolina, who coined the term “freedom fries” to mock the French for opposing the war, has now made the declaration that he wants out of Iraq, a war he once prominently supported but does no longer because the President did not tell him the truth when invading that country.
Having the U.S. military leave Iraq does not mean shirking responsibility for the terrible destruction they have wrought there. Monies earmarked for maintaining a troop presence and building U.S. bases must be redirected to a massive reparations program, to repair the infrastructure damage and compensate grieving Iraqis whose loved ones have been imprisoned, maimed, and killed. Detainees held there without charge by the occupying forces must be freed.
It may seem enough to support an immediate end to this war with an immediate troop withdrawal because of the terrible damage that has been done to Iraqi families, communities, cities, and towns. The economic, social, and ecological landscape of Iraq is in ruins. Women and children live in fear, unable to go about their daily routines. Hospitals are in shambles, while doctors and other professionals are at their wits’ end, exiting in droves. The list of problems there, because of our government’s ill-fated war, cannot be covered without numerous pages of words spelling out many heartbreaking true stories.
But there is another profound and urgent reason to end this war now, and that reason is to save us from destroying ourselves, as a nation, to save us from becoming so utterly desensitized to violence and mass killing of the “other” that we fall ever deeper into the abyss of authoritarianism and fascism. The tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the right-wing websites and pro-war blogs (complete with obscene photos of dead Iraqis accompanied by sarcastic, cruel captions) which belittle and celebrate the killings of people who are resisting, expose what the Nation magazine has dubbed the “Porn of War.” The darkness revealed therein cries out to us to stop the war now, not later. The alternative is to descend into an even more psychologically dark, fragmented, and compassionless society.
This illicit war, with its illegal detentions and systematic torture; its Big Brother messages, such as “You’re either with us or you’re against us,” has not only created a living hell for Iraqis, but will, in the end, lead to hell here. Unless we stop the madness, this war will destroy the warriors well before it destroys our alleged foes. In this vein, Women Against Military Madness is unafraid to state clearly and unequivocally: “U.S. Troops Out Now! |
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© 2005 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete November 2005 Index - click here
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