Don’t Get Mad,
Get Going!
by Gabriel Ash
Dissident Voice
January 11, 2003
Will there be war
in Iraq? Wrong question. There has been war against the people of Iraq since
1991. This war never stopped; it is a war fought by the "civilized"
world with gentle, civilized weapons such as malnutrition, water contamination,
prevention of medical services, etc. The better question is: will the war in
Iraq be escalated to a ground invasion?
It seems almost
inevitable, but there is still room for reading the tea leaves. Dealing
rationally with the arguments put forth by the White House in favor of war is
difficult. They are ridiculous. It must be particularly tough for corporate
journalists committed to not insulting the administration. What can you say,
beyond rolling your eyes, when Bush recently warned of Iraqi plans for
transatlantic remote-controlled aircrafts attacking American cities? Can you
perhaps mention Saddam is also building photon torpedoes? How can you argue
with "secret evidence" of Iraqi nuclear capability which the
administration refuses even to hand over to the weapons inspectors? Can Cheney
at least tip Hans Blix about the whereabouts of Iraq's alleged secret sites
with "warm, warm, warmer, cold again, warm, warmer"?
In despair, some
even try to peer into Bush's soul, maybe by gazing into his deep, anxious eyes.
Is Bush a cowboy, a frat boy, an all-American boy, or just a
mentally-challenged boy? What does it mean for America that Bush used to
torture frogs when he was young? Is he a dry drunk? Does he share the belief of
some of his fundamentalist fans in the soon-upon-us Rapture, Armageddon,
Apocalypse now? If he does, does he believe himself to be one of the horsemen?
Will he be inclined to hasten the end of the world? These and many other
questions will be resolved in the next episode of "The Empire."
Dwelling too
much on these questions is not recommended. First, gazing into Bush's soul can
be hazardous to your health. You might be sucked in by the vacuum. But the more
important reason is that it serves little purpose. At best, one is led to ponder
the deep dysfunctionality of American politics that allows someone like Bush to
rule the world. But it is too late for that.
The goal of
understanding what goes on behind the scenes in Washington should not be to
reinforce our status as powerless spectators of a magnificent drama.
Unfortunately, most of the analysis in the media is exactly that. The really
crucial question isn't, "will there be war," but "how can we
prevent war."
The
administration is quite unified about the right of the U.S. government to
exercise unlimited power over the whole world. But there are different currents
behind this unified facade. Here's what I understand is going on:
First, there is
the axis-of-pure-evil, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle & Co. This is the
War Party. Their song is bomb Iraq though the justification keeps changing
monthly. The War Party was all for bombing Iraq already before the war in
Afghanistan (in fact, before the 2000 elections). It engaged in a sustained
effort to launch an attack around November, which was frustrated by Bush's
decision to go through the Security Council. The War Party did another attempt
to launch the war by defining Iraq's anti-aircraft fire at American and British
jets as a "material breach" of the inspection resolution. That did
not work either.
The War Party is
still looking for excuses to launch the invasion. The next date is January 27
when the inspectors' report is due. If, as it is quite likely, the inspectors
find nothing, there might be attempts to invent or inflate findings. Or we
might even be treated to another blood libel, just like the false baby
incubator story that preceded the war in 1991. Who knows? Perhaps there'll be a
"shocking discovery" that the Iraqi officers' cantina is making soup
stock from baby bones.
Then there is
the axis-of-banal-evil, Rove-Card-Bush & Co. That is the Bush Re-election
Party, obsessed with avoiding a replay of the first Bush one-term presidency.
The Bush Re-election Party supports the war, but is weary of overspending
political capital. In the face of international pressure and lukewarm domestic
support, the Bush Re-election Party is seeking to outmaneuver the opposition to
the war by co-opting fence-sitters. Before attacking, it seeks to
"market" the war: domestically with outlandish lies and
internationally with cash promises and arm twisting.
Finally, there
is the axis-of-evil-with-a-disarming-smile, mostly Powell & Co. -- the I'm
a Player Too Party. Powell favors the more traditional foreign policy style of
Papa Bush and Clinton. He is eager to show how much the U.S. can gain by
hardball diplomacy alone. But his only leverage is his ability to save Bush
precious political capital. At worse, he can be the Republican ambassador to
MTV.
The differences
between the above three parties are minimal but crucial -- they refer only to
what each party sees as its highest priority.
Within the War
Party, there are two distinct wings: the "Pentagon uber Alles" wing
of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice, and the "Israel uber Alles" wing of
Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Faith & Co. The Pentagon wing wants Power with a
capital P: unlimited and unchecked, over the whole world -- they call it now
"full spectrum dominance." Domestically, to make such foreign policy
possible, the Pentagon wing wants to return to the good old days of the Korean
war and the early Vietnam war, when the government was secret and
unaccountable, and the public much more docile and naive than today.
Members of the
second wing share this vision, but emotionally, they seem to be motivated by
something else: they believe that an aggressive U.S. empire is necessary for
the "survival" of Israel, for which they have an inordinate and
unseemly attachment that appears to trump all other considerations. The
remarkable resemblance between the advice they give Bush today and the wildest
dreams of Israel's most extreme hawks is not a coincidence, and neither is the
fact that the Sharon government in Israel is the only other government in the
world that is positively salivating about the prospects of war.
The Pentagon
wing, Cheney and Rumsfeld, control the brawn, but it is the second wing, the
committed Zionists, that provide most of the strategic brain of the War Party.
The War Party
seems to be the administration's motor; no doubt it has set the agenda
regarding Iraq. But Powell succeeded in forcing the U.S. to seek a Security
Council resolution and renewed arms inspection instead of striking
unilaterally. This has delayed the war by a few months. The delay cannot be
credited to Powell's influence, which is minimal. It must be credited to the
rise of an anti-war sentiment and the fear that a unilateral war would not be
approved by a majority of Americans. The party that makes the final decision is
still the Bush Re-election Party, not the War Party.
This is our
opportunity. We can hope to stop the war by raising the amount of political
capital Bush must spend. The War Party needs to start the war within the next
two months. After that, in the summer, the cost of logistics and the advancing
elections timetable might make war impractical. So, it might be now or never.
This is the time for action, not speculation.
There will be a
march in Washington D.C. on January 18th. The last march was big with about
100,000 people showing up. This one has to be big, too, preferably huge. We
need to be there. We need to send a message to the White House that there is a
large anti-war movement already. We need to make Karl Rove understand that this
movement will grow even bigger if the war is escalated, that it will expose the
price Americans will pay for the war, and that it will eventually cost Bush the
election. We must make Karl Rove make Bush worry that his presidency doesn't
end up like Johnson's or Nixon's.
The march is
organized by the International Answer coalition. It and various other groups
organize transportation and many will also organize a nightover if required.
Many other groups will participate with their own banners. The weeks ahead are
marked for sustained anti-war actions all over the world, so there will be
plenty of opportunities for people who cannot travel to Washington to
participate in expressing their objections to the war.
The anti-war
movement is a coalition, not a party. There is no abiding ideology and no
required readings. Opposition to the prospect of this U.S. aggression unites a
broad spectrum of Americans of different and even opposing political stripes:
socialists, anarchists, liberals, feminists, Quakers and members of almost
every other American faith, army veterans, minorities' rights activists,
libertarians, conservatives, environmentalists, isolationists, etc. There are
also many, many people who are just citizens who smell something fishy.
You don't have
to agree with International Answer or with me in order to join the anti-war
demonstration. All you have to agree with is that you have an opportunity and a
duty to stop the coming slaughter.
Here are a few
other reasons to participate:
* The war will
devastate Iraq (again), kill tens of thousands of innocent people, and an
unknown number of American GIs, mostly from minority groups and from working
class backgrounds (none of the white hawks in the current White House has ever
been near enemy fire. They all had the opportunity and chose not to. Dying in
uniforms is a privilege almost totally reserved for minorities and poor
whites.)
* The war will
be a naked act of aggression against a country that hasn't attacked the U.S.,
that has no plans to attack the U.S. and no capabilities of attacking the U.S.
* The war will
be a boon to terrorist organizations recruiting people willing to kill
Americans.
* The war will
hasten the scraping of the Bill of Rights and the suspension of American democracy.
* The ten
commandments say murder is wrong. So is stealing. Killing Iraqis in order to
steal their oil is a double offense.
* The war will
train more young Americans in murder and dehumanization, a training that quite
a few of them -- such as Timothy McVeigh, the D.C. sniper and many other less
remarkable victims of militarization -- will later turn against their spouses,
children and neighbors.
* The war will
cost hundreds of billions in direct costs and potentially trillions in the
likely economic disruption that will result. That means lower standards of
living for everyone.
* The war will
suck the air out of what's left of America's social services, and will
therefore contribute to misery, insecurity and crime all over America.
* The war will
damage U.S. international standing and relations with friendly countries. It
will make American foreign policy more expensive and more difficult.
* By making
peaceful diplomacy difficult, it will make war even more attractive; hence, the
war will engender more wars.
* The war risks
bringing chaos to the Middle East, boosts the rise of militant Islam as the
only alternative to American colonialism, and plunges the Middle East into a
new century of bloodshed.
The war, or
everything that will go wrong with it, will be soon blamed on "the
Jews," thanks to the good work of Perle, Wolfowitz & Co.
War is hell. We
don't need a reason to resist it. We need an excellent reason to support it. So
far, nobody has offered any serious one.
So make plans to
be in Washington Saturday the 18th. Better yet, spread the news to friends,
family and neighbors. Bring your own big party to Washington and earn points
towards the real peace prize.
This is our
chance to save tens of thousands of lives. We don't get such chances every day.
Of course, there
is much more one can do instead or beyond going to one demonstration. To start
with, here is a list of websites with information on other anti-war groups:
If you find every other group too liberal, too radical,
too religious, too secular, too anything else for your taste, then why not
start your own?
Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel. He is an
unabashed "opssimist." He writes his columns because the pen is
sometimes mightier than the sword - and sometimes not. This
article first appeared at Yellow Times.org. Gabriel encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org