Geodog

My Iraq Rant

I have generally avoided writing anything here about Iraq. There are plenty of other good people writing, and I don't have any special knowledge on the subject. However, somebody wrote to me yesterday and asked what I was doing about Iraq. I replied that while I am doing some reading, and I have sent mail and called my Senators (I don't have to wonder how my Representative Barbara Lee stands on the war), and follow up on things like TrueMajority and MoveOn's Virtual March on Washington, but I mostly feel powerless and frustrated. This is not an administration that cares what outsiders think. So usually I try to bury my head in the sand, and hope that it will go away, and instead focus my energies on things that I can effect. However, today I feel the need to write about the situation in Iraq and the situation in this country.

<RANT ON>
My opinions are a sign of how incompetent, as well as evil, the Bush's administration is, for my starting position is close to that of war supporters Josh Marshall and
Ken Pollack. However, while they now very reluctantly support this war, I do not. I can imagine supporting a UN sponsored war to force the dictator Hussein to give up weapons of mass destruction, but I can't support this unilateral war to overthrow Hussein and plant an American "sponsored" government. When we have to openly bribe Iraq's next door neighbor Turkey, the most westernized Muslim country in the world, with $16 - $36 billion dollars in order to override the Turkish public's wishes, it calls into question how much Iraq's neighbors feel threatened by Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and how much they feel threatened by America's "clout in international financial institutions." And of course there is always the semi-secret side deal, giving the Turks the right to occupy Northern Iraq and suppress the Kurds, which is strangely reminiscent of the secret Sikes-Picot Treaty the British, French and Russian allies signed during World War I. That treaty, agreeing how they would dismember the Ottoman empire at the end of the war, at least arguably started this whole mess. And we are repeating it. Is this a coalition of the willing, or a coalition of the willing to be bribed?

On the practical side, I imagine that the US setting up a government for Iraq will it work as well as the United States putting Ngo Dinh Diem in charge of South Vietnam worked, the big difference being that the Vietcong didn't have the idea of coming over to the United States and really bringing the war home to us. And all this at a time when the rhetoric and actions of the Bush administration have alienated so many countries that we do not have the same sympathy or assistance in the supposed "War on Terrorism" that was so important last year. This administration has managed in 2 years to throw away much of the goodwill slowly acquired over the last 50 years. Does anyone doubt that this war will result in less help from our (former) allies, and more terrorist attacks on the US?

On the moral side, who gave us the right to unilaterally go around the world deciding who gets killed and who lives, who is overthrown, and refusing to listen to anyone else' opinion? By what authority to we reserve to ourselves only the right to engage in pre-emptive attacks? There is nothing about establishing an American Empire that is worth on drop of any American's blood (or anyone else' either). The problem with a fundamentalist foreign policy based on believing with a messianic zeal that it is right, and that everybody should do as it thinks right, is what does it do with people who don't think they are right or are that the US is always the good guys? So far the answer seems to be lie to them, bribe them, dismiss them, threaten them or kill them.

Finally, and this, along with the Mobbs appointment, is what was probably the straw that broke this camels back and instigated this rant, the pundits, even fierce critics of Bush, are starting to say that yes, Bush was stupid and wrong, and should have really have tried to seek allies, but now that US prestige and credibility are on the line, we can't back down. This was the argument that Richard Perle made 6 months ago as a tactic to lock George Bush in place, and now it is being adopted by the Punditocracy. That argument is wrong, and it is the argument that kept us in Vietnam bombing civilians long past the point where anybody had any hope of accomplishing anything worthwhile. Please, let's not repeat that example. We all know what hubris leads to -- why are we insistent on re-enacting one of the oldest stories in human history?

</RANT OFF>

Here are some of the articles that I have been reading on Iraq:

Iraq: The Case Against Preemptive War, by Paul W. Schroeder in the American Conservative Magazine. A well written essay as to why adopting a strategy of preemptive attacks is practically foolish and morally wrong. Via JZ.

Of Gods and Mortals and Empire, by William Rivers Pitt. An interesting editorial that links together the war on Iraq with the desire of Richard Perle and his buddies at The Project for the New American Century to create a new pax Americana. The writer sees some hope in the demonstrations and international resistance to the war. The writing is a little over blown for my tastes, but Pitt makes some good points (via The Nana).

Everything that Josh Marshall writes in Talking Points Memo. I don't always agree with him, but he is smart as a whip.

I read Wendell Berry's Essay, A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America after completing this rant, but highly recommend it. Beautiful writing, and a thorough dissection of Bush's National Security Policy.