N O R T H C O A S T T IM E S E A G L E , MARPRIL 2005
P A G E 13
WARS
The war was not forced upon the United States by a
declared enemy but by its own President and an acquiescent
Congress, as well as by a coterie of neocons who had urged
invasion of Iraq since the U.S. failed to depose Saddam Hussein
at the end of Gulf War I. Also in the sparse coalition of willing
allies were American business interests who hoped to reap
gazillions of dollars from in postwar Iraq, especially in oil,
military supply and reconstruction contracts.
The Bush administration was determined to make war
against Iraq from the start and only went through the motions
of United Nations approval essentially because of worldwide
dissent and protest. The President failed at diplomacy, which
had been his intent. He barely went through the motions, show
ing his contempt for the UN throughout; he was unable to justify
his “feckless and unnecessary" desire for war.
The people who wanted war with Iraq were ideological
conservatives in the White House whose theolitically inspired
historical vision is that perpetual warfare (a Christian jihad) is the
means to protect and expand the American neo-empire which is
being called the 'New World Order', a term also used by Adolf
Hitler for his Nazi nightmare of world dominance (the also-called
‘Thousand Year Reich’) back in the 20th century.
It is not too difficult to cut through the smoke and mirrors
and realize the people of the USA have been hoodwinked about
the war in Iraq — from absolute certainty that “weapons of mass
destruction” were about to be launched against our sacred soil to
the Bushites’ abnegation that they had not “intentionally" misled
the nation about the presence of WMDs.
The Bush administration stalled a 9/11 investigation
by Congress until after the Iraq invasion. The report showed
Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11 or with Al Qaeda.
If the report had been released in January 2003 as scheduled
it would have revealed there was no reason to attack Iraq. This
was coupled with the Bush administration’s fabrication that Iraq
was about to purchase weapons grade uranium from Niger.
Just after his reelection last year, Bush declared an end
to the search for WMDs. Daniel Schorr’s question on NPR of
why there hasn’t a great wave outrage over news there are no
WMDs in Iraq was answered by a woman who wrote that the
media neglects to publicly broadcast the anger and betrayal
felt by so many.
President Bush asserts America’s cause of preemptive
invasion as moral and just. But there really is no such thing as a
just war, only defense or revenge against unjust acts of violence
or aggression. A certain cause might be considered just, but no
such claim can be made for the carnage that results.
Every community in the USA is divided over the Iraq
War and despotic policies of the Bush administration. Portraying
opponents of the war (or the Bush Presidency) as heretics and
apostates and threatening to constrain them with repressive laws
is not quite the freedom and human rights the war on terrorism
is claimed to be. The President seems to brashly disregard any
“evil" among his avaricious friends and patrons and their blatant
warprofiteering, and sermonizes about freedom and democracy
while these same cohorts make an intolerable grab for power in
the form of corporate autocracy that severely erodes much of
the basic fiber of democracy. A greater schism than already
exists in the U.S. might result as large numbers of Americans
feel betrayed and the craftily engineered campaign against
dissent and dissenters backlashes despite increasing draconian
laws legislated to squelch dissent.
The unilateral U.S. surge to absolute military superiority
isolates it more than ever. Its projection of unprecedented power
might prove to be what most Americans do not want; the public
doesn’t desire to be the world’s foremost aggressor nation, nor
does it wish to assume the risks. The power of the American
democracy lies in the hands of the citizenry which eventually will
A few veterans o f the Iraq War have formed Iraq
Veterans Against the War, helped and nurtured by members
of the still extant Vietnam Veterans Against the War. IVAW
is yet minuscule but already despised by the neocon warmakers
o f the Bush administration who disparage them as “misfits" and
o f course “traitors." But they will grow as more women and men
return from the war, maimed in spirit and conscience as well as
in body and mind. “We are few but we are crazy," is a Spanish
adage — indeed, if a person returns from a war who is not crazy,
he or she is truly crazy.
The following is an excerpt from a longer article written
last year in this newspaper about the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War, ‘Winter Soldiers’.
Antiwar veterans movements have been virtually
unnoticed in American history. Yet that history abounds with
veterans taking arms against their military masters from the
very start. Former colonial veterans of the French & Indian
War fought against their old army and set up a republic two
centuries ago. The Army split down the middle in 1861 and
comrade fought comrade for four immensely bloody years
until the Union was restored. Of more subtle consequence
was the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’ of 1796. Revolutionary veterans
banded together to protest the taxing of whiskey.Their methods
were radical yet peaceful, but the new U.S. Army was sent
to suppress them with force at the order of President George
Washington. Confederate veterans formed armed groups
after the Civil War to resist the plundering ‘Reconstructionist’
governments that took up occupation in the South — an entire
Southern army division defected intact to Mexico but dissipated
before it could fight because neither Juaristas nor occupation
French wanted it: the luckless ambition had been for its officers
to lead a combined Confederate/Mexican army back across the
border to fight Yankees again.
In 1932 the ‘Bonus Army', made up of World War 1
veterans, marched to Washington, D.C. (starting out from
Portland, Oregon) to demand promised war benefits as a
desperate attempt to survive the Great Depression. They built
a shanty-city outside the Capitol and were forcibly dispersed
by the Army; a few were killed, many beaten.
In World War 2 a U.S. Army division in Europe went on
strike until some of its demands against intolerable conditions
were met. The ringleaders were arrested.
Following the war, almost the entire Pacific command
nearly mutinied when it was learned several army divisions as
well as naval forces were to be sent to China to combat the
communist forces of Mao Tse Tung. The mutiny was quickly
HENK PANDER (1991)
have to say “enough” to U.S. imperialism of the sort envisioned
by administration neocons who crave U.S. dominance all over
the world.
The U.S. is in a deep hole in Iraq, more vast and queasy
than the infamous Vietnam quagmire; the war has drained the
empire of troops which might in an extreme scenario force it to
draft pre-teens and elderly veterans to fill the ranks as Hitler did
in the final days of the Third Reich — and yet the President, an
avowed but teflon war deserter, swaggers on the world stage
like a Gilbert & Sullivan generalissimo.
The Bushites, who have lied about not considering a
military draft, will be virtually compelled to instigate one if they
carry out their threats (and ambitions) to make war on Syria,
Iran and possibly North Korea. Perhaps that understanding is
a major reason they are turning toward diplomacy for now,
aware they are unable to carry out their intimidation until the
military is up to strength.
A distinction between ju st wars and unjust wars (made
in medieval times by the Christian church to justify its religious
wars) is equally or more important in regard to a war's conduct
as to its reason. The main distinction is the prohibition of intent
ionally targeting civilians in a war to be considered a ’just’ war,
nor should disproportionate force be used. But as the wholesale
averted by keeping the promise made at the start of the war
that troops would be sent home when it was over.
Also after World War 2, thousands of servicemen angrily
protested a year-long continuation of the draft for occupation
duties in war devastated Europe and Asia, and were only
appeased when they were told that new draftees would replace
them and they would get home sooner as a result.
There have undoubtedly been countless such revolts
against the military system however limited in scope and action,
whether or not successful. With the exception of renegade
officers leading military coups and setting up dictatorships, the
actions of soldiers turning against their nations’ military in the
name of peace and anti-militarism have largely gone unreported
and remain unknown — in that context it would seem that the
only combat veteran in Western history known to attempt the
philosophical collapse of militarism was Socrates.
If there has ever existed a well-researched and
documented history of rebellion within military institutions
objecting to militarism and the ethic of war, it has been well
hidden from curious eyes. What information is known has been
confined to obscure texts and memoranda. However important
the specifics may be in piecing together the pattern, the greatest
importance is the fact that revolt within the military machine
is an enduring tradition in itself. Just as radical opposition has
always existed at the core of every civil/political system, so it
has inside every military arm of those systems.
Within this tradition of revolt can be understood both the
roots and vacuum of the rebellion against the Vietnam War by a
number of its veterans. The roots lie in the constant insurrection
throughout military history; the vacuum exists in the suppression
of that history. Vietnam veterans who opposed the war had to
start from scratch with little workable knowledge of precedent in
what they attempted. Yet because they were left to their own
imaginations, the members of W A W instigated the most signi
ficant revolt against war by war veterans in American history.
The United States could use a newer confederacy of
disaffected soldiers and veterans to act as a conscience to the
raw and sordid perpetuation of warfare. Perhaps it is an explan
ation for the egregious attacks upon the W A W — the dread
that today’s war veterans will form a similar opposition and have
more force and support from lessons learned as a result of the
precedent W A W set. At the same time, W A W should probably
change its name to reflect its newer crops of veterans, perhaps
American War Veterans Against War to encompass future wars
as well as the most recent.
-M IC H A E L M cC U SKER
(NCTE, MAY/JUNE 2004)
bombings by both sides in World War 2 indicate, the differences
are too often degrees of propaganda than reality.
Reasons for not going to war with Iraq were clearly
stated by the opposition prior to the invasion. Some of the more
salient points were that war with Iraq would not make America
safer but would instead increase anti-American sentiment and
perpetuate a cycle of terrorism; destabilize the Middle East,
including Israel/Palestine and neighboring Arab nations; under
mine international cooperation; take the lives of U.S. soldiers
(more than 1500 so far) and innocent Iraqi citizens (accounts
range from 30,000 to 100,00); and would cost from $100-200
billion a month, as well as defy international law, including the
United Nations charter.
The most persistent opposition to war with Iraq was
from realization that multitudes of innocent citizens would be
killed, injured and maimed. Millions throughout the world and
the United States demonstrated against the war before and
after invasion of Iraq Peace activities became more intense as
the velocity toward war accelerated, and every act to prevent or
forestall war was criticized, downplayed and ultimately ignored
by the Bush White House with arrogant disregard for any other
possibility than war.
Dissent against the war has been undermined with the
virtual decree that everyone support American troops in Iraq
whether or not they support the war, which is similar to deploring
a crime but praising the criminal; in this case, taking offense
against the killing should not interfere with encouraging the
killers.
The logic we must support our troops once a war has
begun is an incentive to always start a war — which Germany
was twice punished for doing as well as for supporting its troops.
Politicians say we must support a war while it is being conducted
and discuss opposition to it at the “appropriate time," which they
mean after a war is over — this is absurd; it is during a war that
it must be examined and questioned, something we have held
Germans responsible for not having done.
The real shock and awe of the Iraq War has been the
incessant assault on American civil liberties by the Bush admin
istration which is turning the U.S. into a homeland security state
that relies on martial law rather than democracy. The national
dialogue is reduced to pious simplicities in which “patriotic"
Americans can do no wrong and the rest of the world is either
with us or against us, which includes “unpatriotic” Americans
who disagree. War protesters are equated with terrorists and
implied to be traitors.
The Bushites are taking a great risk threatening the
possibility of continuing (and certainly escalating) war in the
Middle East. It is possible they recognize this is the last chance
for a unilateral grab at world resources — a situation the U.S.
has itself precipitated with its war in Iraq — and although the
UN is in crisis as a result of U.S. actions, it is not quite shattered
and might very well strongly rebound with a sort of world versus
USA faceoff that will most likely force the U.S. to stand down
with what it has already grabbed. Muslims throughout the world
view the war in Iraq as an act of imperialist aggression and are
responding.
The United States is not exporting democracy to the
Middle East — if democracy takes hold it will be because the
people in those countries desire aspects of it adaptive to their
cultures. The real purpose of America's position in the Middle
East is to wrest control of the world’s major oil supply before
its capacity peaks and declines (the global oil peak is predicted
to be this year). If democracy does take root in Islamia, it will
be a petroleum byproduct.
The United States will not quit Iraq until an overwhelm
ing majority of Americans demand withdrawal as they finally did
in Vietnam. By then the nation’s prestige and credibility, which is
the usual rationale for continuing a war, will have long been lost
in the horrors and atrocities American troops will have commit
ted to defend America's prestige and credibility.
Michael McCusker is a USMC veteran o f Vietnam and former
Oregon Coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War
I