Looking Ahead: Inevitably, we
have to recognize that some of us will never agree about how we got to this
point, and eventually we should come to the conclusion to focus our energy and
talents on how to make something good come of this, not just repair the damage.
War is transforming to Presidents
and the public alike: returning to what was before is now impossible. We have turned a corner.
Like many of you, I am angry and heart sick and worried. We are in a crossfire of words, but not
bombs. Since we are not literally
bombarded, we should be discussing what it is we can do to bring opposing sides
together, to avoid not just the years of dissension and distrust that happened
after Vietnam, but to prevent disasters at home where terrorism is making its
mark without bombs.
I am not promising that I have shed my anger, cynicism or
distrust. The image of cremated
and decapitated children and innocent adults will once again be an American political-military
legacy, as it was in Vietnam (and suppressed in Hiroshima) muddying the image
we have sought to uphold of more glorious dreams. There will be further questionable and suspicious moments as
we proceed, and new Deep Throats and painful moments of truth for the
carelessly arrogant. But I am going
to try to overcome my anger and distrust because how we recover from this god-awful
course of events depends on it. For
the past fifty years, American culture and history have marched forward to this
moment in time. Our true character
is being tested once again: we must adhere to our best values, the best of our
traditions, and walk away from the destructive ones.
The first step, it seems, is to recognize the ambivalence among the
sharply divided. Hopefully, we
proceed reflectively from there to interpreting what all this means and what
decisions to make in the near and long term.
My apologies to those on this list who either by international
worldviews and/or real world experiences seem to be ignored in these remarks
and the dominance of the American perspective of the war with Iraq. This is just the ground upon which I can
scan the horizon and either march vigorously or hike cautiously forward. Below are some reflective moments from
a couple of thoughtful writers.
BRAVO to this
former Oregonian, raised in the tiny community of Yamhill:
KUWAIT — With Americans and Iraqis killing each other just
north of here and many of my friends at risk, I've been pained by some e-mail
that has trickled over my laptop computer. Some of it came from an old Egyptian friend, Ikram Youssef,
a Harvard-educated scholar who has a natural empathy for the United States —
and since he once lived in Kuwait, a rich understanding that Saddam Hussein is
a monster. Yet Professor Youssef hopes that this war will end with an Iraqi
victory over America.
"I certainly hope that this campaign will fail,"
he declared. And when even a thoughtful internationalist like Professor Youssef
is siding with Saddam's army against America, I want to leap out of my hotel
window.
The war that the rest of the world sees is different from
the one Americans are viewing. The Pakistani newspaper Awami Awaz exults that
"Iraqi leadership has humiliated the Americans." The Egyptian
newspaper Al Wafd titles an editorial "The U.S. Empire of Evil."
Muslim figures who sided with the U.S. after 9/11 and denounced Osama bin Laden
are now urging "jihad" against Americans.
Within
the U.S. as well, the war has been destructive, further pulverizing the civility of discourse.
Each side assumes the other is not just
imbecilic but also immoral, when in truth I believe that each side
is genuinely high-minded: one is driven by horror of war and the
other by horror of Saddam.
Neither deserves the
sneers of the other. I'm also dispirited today because in some e-mail from
fellow doves I detect hints of satisfaction that the U.S. is running into
trouble in Iraq — as if hawks should be taught a lesson about the real world
with the blood of young Americans.
We doves simply have to let go of the dispute about getting
into this war. It's now a historical question,
and the relevant issue, for hawks and doves
alike, is how we get out of this war (and how we avoid the next pre-emptive war). Americans should be able to find
common ground, for all sides dream of an Iraq that is democratic and an America
that is again admired around the world. Creating a postwar Iraq that is free
and flourishing is also the one way to recoup the damage this war has already
done to America's image and interests.
Unfortunately, the president's budget request this week
showed little commitment to postwar Iraq. He asked for $62.6 billion for the
war and just $2.45 billion for short-term relief and reconstruction, without
addressing longer-term needs. Moreover, while the U.S. has been very careful
until now to avoid civilian casualties, that emphasis is showing signs of
slipping as the war gets tougher.
My intrepid Times colleagues Dexter Filkins and Michael
Wilson are with U.S. marines who were in a firefight in which Iraqi fighters
hid among women and children. After 10 Americans had been killed, the marines became less
meticulous about avoiding civilian casualties. "It's
not pretty; it's not surgical," Chief Warrant Officer Pat Woellhof told
them. "You try to limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's just smash-mouth football."
American military officers now say that the policy is to
strike Iraqi military targets, if necessary, even when
Saddam implants them
among schools and apartment blocks, and that the responsibility for the
resulting casualties lies with Saddam. Such strikes are understandably tempting
now, but they will inflame Iraqi nationalism and make postwar Iraq incomparably
more difficult to govern. One of
the most depressing windows into this surging nationalism occurred on Wednesday
when aid workers handed out food to throngs of hungry Iraqis in a
coalition-controlled town called Safwan. Some Iraqis simultaneously jostled for
food and chanted, "With our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you,
Saddam."
The inspiration for our military strategy in Iraq comes from
the late Sir Basil Liddell Hart, the great British military expert who urged
the approach the U.S. later adopted in its island-hopping advance on Japan in
World War II. Washington adopted a
similar strategy to move on Baghdad.
But as we implement Sir Basil's strategy, let's also adhere to one of
his cardinal points about the need to focus on what comes after the war.
Since we're dropping fliers all over Iraq, we might also release
leaflets over Washington inscribed with this saying by Sir Basil: "It is essential to conduct war with
constant regard to the peace you desire."
And from a
local girl who returned home after 9/11:
American malaise: the
pain of ambivalence over Iraq
By Gabrielle Glaser, in The Oregonian, March 28, 2003
For the first time in
my life, I'm in a strange position: I can see almost everyone's point.
As I talk with
friends, sift through papers and switch channels, I find myself agreeing with
whoever seems to have a cogent argument. I'm
shocked to admit this, but the gamut runs from Michael Moore to William Safire.
At any given moment, I
share outrage over "fictitious election results"; what Halliburton, Dick
Cheney's former employer, stands to gain in postwar Iraq; shady contracts a
French chemical company made with Baghdad; the abandonment of the Kurds. Sometimes, my thoughts feel like one big
dream sequence. As a writer, I'm
accustomed to words shaping my ideas. But these days, I'm swayed by images --
from the past, snippets from friends, eerie desert sandstorms.
Perhaps Rabbi Gary
Schoenberg, co-founder of Gesher, a Jewish outreach organization in Portland,
summed up my dismay about the bizarre juxtaposition of combat and a gentle
Oregon spring: "We've
made war a soap opera and check in regularly to see if our lives have
changed."
The other morning, I
opened the paper to see a stunning photograph of the USS Kitty Hawk. The sea
was glinting in the sun, and aircraft were lined up like the Rockettes. This, I thought, along with the
administration's $74 billion request for war spending, is the reason so many
Americans don't have health insurance.
I called Lynda Holt,
the closest person I have to an aunt, for her point of view. Her late father,
Wallace Larson, served in five battles in World War II and was decorated by
Gen. George S. Patton himself. Larson hated the attention he got for his
heroism. The truth was, he had killed in combat, and it haunted him.
Even so, I expected
Holt to have a certain opinion. She surprised me. "We know Saddam kills
his own people," she said. "I am taking a leap, but I think our
economy is killing people here." Holt, of Albany, volunteers at a service organization for the
elderly and regularly sees seniors struggling to make ends meet. One woman in her 70s, widowed at a young
age, worked for decades to support her family. Now, she sits in a darkened
mobile home to keep her electric bill down and stopped taking drugs that cost
her $250 a month. Next, she told Holt, she'll cut back on food.
"How can we have a dynamic impact on
the suffering of others when so many are suffering here? How can we talk about
'democracy' when democracy is failing our own?"
I also called Eric
Khoury, a friend and psychiatrist who recently moved from Portland to Napa,
Calif. Khoury is also angry about politics. "We are dealing with forces bigger than
ourselves,"
he said. "On the news, you see what looks like an infomercial for the
military industrial complex. An embedded journalist sits in front of an
enormous bomb saying, 'This has the power to obliterate everything and everyone
in the region!' It
doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the future of the human race."
After attending a
recent peace march, Khoury discussed the war with his young son, Alexander. The
boy has been taught to "use his words" to resolve conflict and was
perplexed by the notion that adults were not. Alexander wanted to convey his
fears about people getting hurt, so the next day, father and son drew posters.
Alexander's says: "No War!" Khoury drew a peace sign. "That experience brought me down to
a kind of psychological
ground zero,"
Khoury said. "I felt as if I was making a difference by helping to raise a
socially conscious child."
That notion makes me
sympathetic to demonstrators (although not ones who drive SUVs). Is this really
about liberating Iraq? Will the country's oil wells, post-Saddam, really be
"the property of the Iraqi people," as President Bush claims? (Using
that argument, are the oil wells of Midland, Texas, the property of the
American people?)
And then there is
Rachael Atterbery, a friend from Roseburg whose husband, Mike, is on a nuclear
submarine -- where, she can't say. Her stoicism inspires both guilt and admiration.
"I understand that they don't want violence," she said of the
marchers. "But I'm going to support the people who've put their lives on
the line. I don't want to live in a country where people are paid to protest,
or not protest -- whatever their dictator decides they ought to be doing that
day. "Terrorism is
real," she said, "It doesn't just happen in other countries
anymore."
And so it is that I agree with her, too. We know Saddam is not benign: He sends
$25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. His regime flouts the
Geneva Convention, hasn't cooperated with the United Nations and gassed as many
as 5,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988. I'm not convinced about his
links to al-Qaida, but it's possible to imagine Iraqis selling their biological
and chemical weapons to any one of the many who hate us -- if it hasn't been
done already.
I have my own
reminders of that danger. For the past six years, I lived in a small town
outside New York; nine of its residents were killed on Sept. 11. I think about
those dark weeks daily, and e-mails from a grief-stricken friend make it
numbingly real despite a recent move back to Oregon. During the anthrax scare, my husband inhaled powder enclosed
in a letter mailed to a colleague. The New York City Health Department issued
him a two-week supply of Cipro. (The letter was later ruled a hoax.) A few
pills remain in the amber bottle, a frightening memento in our medicine
cabinet.
When I was growing up
on a farm in the Willamette Valley, danger was always far; Vietnam, farther.
One day, though, the world arrived in a form I recognized. The image of Kim
Phuc, the girl who ran screaming from fire and napalm, seared into my
consciousness. It
was 1972; she was 9, I was 8. Despite her agony, Phuc triumphed; in
1997, she was named a goodwill ambassador at the United Nations.
But only the most resolute can overcome
the anger ordinarily resulting from such atrocity. How will children charred by coalition bombs
(and their humiliated parents) not end up loathing us, "free Iraq" or
no?
My friend, the Sept.
11 widow, is perhaps too
tired to feel rage.
In a recent dispatch, she struggled with the dull reality of life without her husband. Her three kids need shuttling between
school, sports events and grief counseling (something other war orphans lack). Maybe it is her concern for her
children's future that touches most profoundly on my uneasiness. Because from
it, who can't draw larger questions?
"Will they be OK?" she wrote. "I just want someone to
tell me they will be."
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