In The Newspaper
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Same war, new excuse
Tom Boyd
A year ago our nation was involved in a mass debate (lackluster and misinformed as it may have been) about the pros and cons of removing Saddam Hussein from office by military force. A year later I find that the logic behind supporting the war has flip-flopped. I find that those who support the war do so now for very different reasons than they did before the war started.
A year ago I outlined the arguments for and against supporting the war. As an American I felt it was my duty to support our government in a critical hour. Although it was impossible for the average citizen to be well informed on matters of espionage and intelligence, there were a few general unknowns that limited my allegiance to the cause. Hereâs what I said in March of last year:
If we are there to liberate Iraqi citizens, then why arenât we âliberatingâ the oppressed people of the Congo, or Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong (who are being imprisoned and killed by the thousands for practicing a peaceful form of spirituality), or the Southern Sudanese Daki peoples, the Liberians, or any of the other hundreds of groups that live in oppression and turmoil in this world? And where were we during the Rwandan genocide?
Iâm not satisfied by the âliberationâ argument, and people who cling to it are suspiciously naÃve.
So Iâm hoping that the reason we are risking our citizensâ lives, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of Iraqi citizens is because NOT doing something now would create a greater risk down the road.
And Iâm praying that our government can show us legitimate evidence of this by warâs end.
If they do, then President Bush has not betrayed our trust.
And if there is no legitimate evidence that Hussein is part of an aggressive enemy network with overseas strike capability and weapons of mass destruction, then we are unfortunate, irresponsible citizens of a corrupt country.
So thatâs what I said then.
Now the truth is out, and I must unhappily say that Hussein was not part of an aggressive enemy network with overseas strike capability and weapons of mass destruction, and that we are unfortunate, irresponsible citizens of a corrupt country.
The diehard George W. Bush supporters (who tend to follow the creed of âmy country right or wrongâ) have developed a few proxy arguments to replace their pre-war, pro-war diatribes.
Primarily they are falling back on the âliberationâ argument, claiming that weâve done a great thing as a nation by removing an evil dictator from his throne.
Thatâs true, but Iâve never supported the âliberationâ argument and I donât support it now. For every mass grave pointed to in Iraq, for every beating and torture chamber built under Saddamâs regime, I can point to several more mass graves and torture chambers in Guatemala, perpetrated with the documented knowledge (and sometimes assistance) of the CIA during the 1970s, â80s, and early â90s as part of the global Cold War effort.
If you donât believe me, ask Henry Kissinger about it, or just spend about $600 on a round-trip plane ticket and go look at the mass graves yourself. Theyâre still there, and so is Gen. EfraÃn RÃos Montt, the dictator who ruled Guatemala during that time and who is generally held responsible for mass killings of untold numbers of Mayan peasants in the Guatemalan mountains.
But who cares about Guatemala, right? Most Americans canât even point to it on a map.
What bothers me about the current state of our nation isnât that we are focusing on Iraq instead of Guatemala (a country of little concern in world economics and politics). What bothers me is that our leaders lied to us, and continue to lie to us. Our leaders think our nation is made up primarily of complacent, under-informed citizens who care more about saving 20 cents on Tyson chicken at Wal-Mart than they do about their complicit role in the deaths of an estimated 7,690 civilians half a world away.
And theyâre right.
And that makes me ill.
Still, it would have been better if George W. had been honest. He should have simply told us that he was going into Iraq to take out one of his familyâs great enemies, gain control over contracts to develop the oil reserves in Iraq, give those contracts to Dick Cheneyâs friends, bolster our energy resources, intimidate other world leaders with the old âmight-over-rightâ philosophy and, in the meantime, create a U.S.-friendly puppet government in a troubled region.
Seriously, those are pretty good reasons to go to war (and theyâre the real reasons anyway), so why not just come out and say it?
And while he was at it, why didnât G.W. tell us how much the war would cost? Why didnât he come out and say that the money promised to his âLeave No Child Behind Actâ would be dramatically reduced in order to pay for ongoing war efforts in Iraq? Why not admit that the reason Iraq was honored with âliberationâ is because of its vast resources and relatively advanced infrastructure? Not to mention its flat, desert terrain - which makes it much easier to monitor by air and satellite than, say, the jungles of Vietnam.
Instead, we were asked to support a war under false pretenses. We were purposefully made to feel afraid and defensive. We were told the war was over when it was not. And we are now being asked, again, to blindly put our trust in G.W. Bush and follow along his war-mongering path.
It is an insult to our intelligence.
But unfortunately, we must stay the course.
Now that we have gone in and occupied this faraway country, we must try our best to save it, unify it, make it peaceful and prosperous in order to appear benevolent in the long run.
And this effort will require many years, and many billions of tax dollars. And it will continue to capture the attention of the American people, pulling their focus away from some very important, pressing issues: like world historyâs largest deficit, an unfavorable balance of trade, an unconstitutional Patriot Act, a skyrocketing drop-out rate in public schools (which is a direct result of the misnamed âLeave No Child Behind Actâ), growing corruption among the national news media and the FCC (which blurs the line between propaganda and television news), and relaxed environmental policies nationwide (despite an alarming change in global climate that even the Bush administration has publicly admitted is partly a result of human-burned fossil fuels and rapid worldwide deforestation).
I could go on, but we have a long election year ahead of us, so I wonât.
But I will say that the ongoing domestic negligence of the current administration comes part-and-parcel with a foreign policy technique that has alienated a majority of the worldâs leaders, consolidated anti-American sentiment, made world travel more dangerous for American citizens, and increased enrollment in terrorist organizations worldwide.
So all across America the debate is beginning to stir once again (lackluster and misinformed as it may be). The Iowa Caucus happens Jan. 19, and the Democrats are beginning to muster their attack on the Republican citadels in Washington D.C.
In the end it comes down to how every citizen thinks, and how every citizen votes (except for in the last election, when the man who won the popular vote didnât win the presidency).
So whatâs it going to be?
Send comments or epithets to Tom Boyd at (970) 390-1585 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
