Four

I am a citizen of the United States of America. As such, I would like to unequivocally declare that I am profoundly disgraced by the fact that, for the past four years, "my" nation has been waging an illegal and inhumane war.

What do I mean when I say that the war in Iraq is "illegal"? I am by no means an expert in the subject of international law. However, as I understand it, the legal pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the unproven belief that Saddam Hussein had violated United Nations Security Council resolutions 687 (1991) and 1441 (2002) by refusing to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As virtually everyone now knows, no such weapons existed. Other lies were certainly spread during the build up to the Iraq War (e.g., conflation of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda). However, it is my understanding that this particular lie regarding non-compliance with the Security Council resolutions is most significant from a legal perspective, as it leaves this pre-emptive war without any shred of legal justification.

Specialists in international law may feel free to correct me if I have spoken in error. Either way, it remains a fact that the war in Iraq has been waged at a phenomenal cost to both the people of Iraq and the people of the United States. For citizens of the United States, a small number of lives have been lost and an enormous amount of money has been diverted to the pockets of the elite within the military industrial complex. For the people of Iraq, the toll has been much higher, in terms of both lives and in the devastation wrought upon the entire society. I was opposed to this war from the very beginning. Indeed, I opposed it before its very beginning, from the time that the drums of war began to be beat upon to gather support. I first marched against this war in September 2002, six months before the violent conflict began, joining the ranks of Bread and Puppet in Washington D.C. I marched against it in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2003. And, when the deplorable assault finally commenced four years ago today, I immediately dropped what I was doing and engaged in a spontaneous anti-war demonstration in Times Square, New York City. The following day, I participated in another such demonstration in Tempe, Arizona.

For months before this pre-emptive war began, a pre-emptive anti-war movement of an impressive size made its presence known. The message was clear: DO NOT INVADE IRAQ! Obviously, we failed. Despite possibly being the largest anti-war movement ever assembled before a war began, we were still a small minority within the United States. According to polls, most of the country -- approximately two-thirds -- was in favour of going to war to take away the [non-existent] weapons of mass destruction, to bring "freedom" to the Iraqi people, and to destroy imaginary terrorists. When the war began, our anti-war minority continued to be quite vocal, with a resolute message to ending the war immediately and bringing the troops home at once.

Four years have passed since then. Everybody knows that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. I hope that everybody knows that Saddam Hussein was not in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden -- indeed, there was no love lost between the two men. And it has become painfully clear that the notion of bettering the lot of the Iraqi people with this war was, at best, a foolish delusion. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a monster -- indeed, the United States once supported him in his proxy war on Iran for just that reason. Yes, he oppressed the Iraqi people and fattened himself on their backs. Certainly, he was a tyrant and an evil man. But does anyone truly believe that the average Iraqi citizen is better off now? Chaos, a devastated infrastructure, and religious civil war have wracked the nation of Iraq far worse than Saddam Hussein ever did.

Back home, in the United States of America, the Republican Party still clings to their dogma: "Stay the course." The form of this message changes, an escalation or "surge" being the most recent incarnation. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is split along a continuum between parroting "Stay the course" at one extreme and the "Troops out now!" message of the anti-war movement at the other. It would seem that the anti-war movement is no longer primarily the domain of the left-of-center and has begun to seep into the mainstream.

This development would be almost encouraging, except that the primary anti-war message has remained essentially the same -- Troops Out Now! -- for the past four years. The situation in Iraq has changed drastically; the anti-war message has not. Take a moment to think why this message may now appeal to a sizable part of mainstream U.S.A. Newspaper headlines have reported one U.S. casualty after another, for four years. Iraqi lives might not count so much, but three thousand dead "Americans" do get our collective attention. And some people do understand that there were better uses at home for the hundreds of billions of war dollars that have been squandered on the military industrial complex, ostensibly for Iraq. Also, with an ear to the wall, you can quite commonly hear the rationale: "We should leave now because we don't want to be entrenched in a civil war in Iraq."

The times have changed, and I no longer believe that "Troops Out Now!" is the right path to take. I simply cannot accept that there is a shred of moral responsibility in walking away at this point, leaving behind a disastrous mess of our own making. Leaving now is truly the easiest thing to do -- we save an obscene number of tax dollars and the lives of "our" people, while condemning the Iraqis to a hell that our government instigated. As resourceress eloquently put it: We broke it; we bought it. Yes, this "purchase" will cost a tremendous amount of money -- as well as more lives -- to fix, but I believe that fixing it is the only conscionable course of action that we can take.

Does this belief align me with the conservatives? Hardly. Even if we ignore the fact that I distrust their motives for continuing to wage war, I fully condemn their "Stay the course" approach because I do not believe that blindly throwing more troops and more money into Iraq -- and into the pockets of military contractors -- will improve the situation in any way.

So what do I believe is the right way to proceed from here? This is a question that I have given considerable thought to recently. Not surprisingly, my answer is still a work in progress. Nevertheless, here it is: I believe that we need to begin by asking the United Nations to assume control of the situation in Iraq. A dominant U.S. presence in the country gives the [correct] impression that our troops are there as agents of a foreign occupier. Incidentally, this also is an excellent way to breed terrorists. The United Nations should put together a representative body, including the Arab and Muslin governments, to decide how best to proceed in quelling the civil war and restoring the infrastructure in Iraq. This effort should not be directed by the Security Council, which is a complete farce for reasons that I hope are blindingly obvious. With a representative international body heading the damage control effort (which includes working to end the civil war), an air of international legality will be granted to the external efforts in Iraq. More importantly, it will no longer be seen as a foreign conquest of a Muslim nation by the United States or even a coalition of Western non-Muslim peoples. Does this mean that, with control ceded to the United Nations, the United States now has the moral freedom to wash its hands, save its money, and go home? Not in the slightest! Again: We broke it; we bought it. The United States has a responsibility to provide the lion's share of the money and at least a proportional share of the person-power to the U.N.-controlled operations in Iraq. It is our duty to provide whatever assistance we can to make reparations for the atrocity that we have unleashed.

Do I believe that this is likely to happen in the near future? In all honesty, no. However, I do believe that it is the right course of action and, as such, it is what those of us in the peace movement should be aiming for. Four and a half years ago, as an anti-war movement, we worked hard to prevent the outbreak of war; I believe that those efforts were worthwhile, despite their failure. I believe that we should now abandon the mindless, unchanging anti-war message and, instead, should strive to make the best possibility into reality. I also believe that both the "Stay the course" and "Troops Out Now!" paths will simply deepen the tragedy that has already occurred. Additionally, I am not convinced that the alternative path which I have outlined above is altogether unlikely in the not-too-distant future. It will certainly not happen in the next twenty-two months, while George W. Bush is in the White House. However, his administration will end before this conflict is resolved. If a sizable peace movement rallies behind a productive idea now -- rather than endlessly reciting the slogans of four years ago -- perhaps it can have enough impact on an increasingly war-weary public to put somebody in the White House who would consider such a course of action. Yes, I am an Anarchist and, as such, loathe to relegate the task of solving problems to an elite class of politicians. However, it is virtually certain that a non-hierarchical society will not take widespread root within the United States in the next two years, so waiting for that to happen as a pre-requisite for taking action in the current crisis is also a fool's course of action.

Finally, let me say that I am by no means certain that the path I have outlined above is the best of all possible ways to proceed. However, I am sure that it is better than any of the methods currently put forth for consideration, either by the politicians or by the large "grass roots" demonstrations organized by groups such as United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) or Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER). If you agree with the ideas that I have outlined, please do take steps to circulate them and bring them into being, probably starting with your local peace activists. If you disagree with those ideas -- and if the situation in Iraq is something that you care about at all -- then think of a better plan and try to implement that, instead. Or at least discuss it, as discussion may reveal some even-better path to follow. But, please, let's hear no more of this "Troops Out Now!" idiocy lingering on from the 2003 anti-war movement. It is mindless, outdated, and a sure means of condemning the citizens of Iraq to a very long term in hell.

Four

I am a citizen of the United States of America. As such, I would like to unequivocally declare that I am profoundly disgraced by the fact that, for the past four years, "my" nation has been waging an illegal and inhumane war.

What do I mean when I say that the war in Iraq is "illegal"? I am by no means an expert in the subject of international law. However, as I understand it, the legal pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the unproven belief that Saddam Hussein had violated United Nations Security Council resolutions 687 (1991) and 1441 (2002) by refusing to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As virtually everyone now knows, no such weapons existed. Other lies were certainly spread during the build up to the Iraq War (e.g., conflation of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda). However, it is my understanding that this particular lie regarding non-compliance with the Security Council resolutions is most significant from a legal perspective, as it leaves this pre-emptive war without any shred of legal justification.

Specialists in international law may feel free to correct me if I have spoken in error. Either way, it remains a fact that the war in Iraq has been waged at a phenomenal cost to both the people of Iraq and the people of the United States. For citizens of the United States, a small number of lives have been lost and an enormous amount of money has been diverted to the pockets of the elite within the military industrial complex. For the people of Iraq, the toll has been much higher, in terms of both lives and in the devastation wrought upon the entire society. I was opposed to this war from the very beginning. Indeed, I opposed it before its very beginning, from the time that the drums of war began to be beat upon to gather support. I first marched against this war in September 2002, six months before the violent conflict began, joining the ranks of Bread and Puppet in Washington D.C. I marched against it in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2003. And, when the deplorable assault finally commenced four years ago today, I immediately dropped what I was doing and engaged in a spontaneous anti-war demonstration in Times Square, New York City. The following day, I participated in another such demonstration in Tempe, Arizona.

For months before this pre-emptive war began, a pre-emptive anti-war movement of an impressive size made its presence known. The message was clear: DO NOT INVADE IRAQ! Obviously, we failed. Despite possibly being the largest anti-war movement ever assembled before a war began, we were still a small minority within the United States. According to polls, most of the country -- approximately two-thirds -- was in favour of going to war to take away the [non-existent] weapons of mass destruction, to bring "freedom" to the Iraqi people, and to destroy imaginary terrorists. When the war began, our anti-war minority continued to be quite vocal, with a resolute message to ending the war immediately and bringing the troops home at once.

Four years have passed since then. Everybody knows that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. I hope that everybody knows that Saddam Hussein was not in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden -- indeed, there was no love lost between the two men. And it has become painfully clear that the notion of bettering the lot of the Iraqi people with this war was, at best, a foolish delusion. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a monster -- indeed, the United States once supported him in his proxy war on Iran for just that reason. Yes, he oppressed the Iraqi people and fattened himself on their backs. Certainly, he was a tyrant and an evil man. But does anyone truly believe that the average Iraqi citizen is better off now? Chaos, a devastated infrastructure, and religious civil war have wracked the nation of Iraq far worse than Saddam Hussein ever did.

Back home, in the United States of America, the Republican Party still clings to their dogma: "Stay the course." The form of this message changes, an escalation or "surge" being the most recent incarnation. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is split along a continuum between parroting "Stay the course" at one extreme and the "Troops out now!" message of the anti-war movement at the other. It would seem that the anti-war movement is no longer primarily the domain of the left-of-center and has begun to seep into the mainstream.

This development would be almost encouraging, except that the primary anti-war message has remained essentially the same -- Troops Out Now! -- for the past four years. The situation in Iraq has changed drastically; the anti-war message has not. Take a moment to think why this message may now appeal to a sizable part of mainstream U.S.A. Newspaper headlines have reported one U.S. casualty after another, for four years. Iraqi lives might not count so much, but three thousand dead "Americans" do get our collective attention. And some people do understand that there were better uses at home for the hundreds of billions of war dollars that have been squandered on the military industrial complex, ostensibly for Iraq. Also, with an ear to the wall, you can quite commonly hear the rationale: "We should leave now because we don't want to be entrenched in a civil war in Iraq."

The times have changed, and I no longer believe that "Troops Out Now!" is the right path to take. I simply cannot accept that there is a shred of moral responsibility in walking away at this point, leaving behind a disastrous mess of our own making. Leaving now is truly the easiest thing to do -- we save an obscene number of tax dollars and the lives of "our" people, while condemning the Iraqis to a hell that our government instigated. As resourceress eloquently put it: We broke it; we bought it. Yes, this "purchase" will cost a tremendous amount of money -- as well as more lives -- to fix, but I believe that fixing it is the only conscionable course of action that we can take.

Does this belief align me with the conservatives? Hardly. Even if we ignore the fact that I distrust their motives for continuing to wage war, I fully condemn their "Stay the course" approach because I do not believe that blindly throwing more troops and more money into Iraq -- and into the pockets of military contractors -- will improve the situation in any way.

So what do I believe is the right way to proceed from here? This is a question that I have given considerable thought to recently. Not surprisingly, my answer is still a work in progress. Nevertheless, here it is: I believe that we need to begin by asking the United Nations to assume control of the situation in Iraq. A dominant U.S. presence in the country gives the [correct] impression that our troops are there as agents of a foreign occupier. Incidentally, this also is an excellent way to breed terrorists. The United Nations should put together a representative body, including the Arab and Muslin governments, to decide how best to proceed in quelling the civil war and restoring the infrastructure in Iraq. This effort should not be directed by the Security Council, which is a complete farce for reasons that I hope are blindingly obvious. With a representative international body heading the damage control effort (which includes working to end the civil war), an air of international legality will be granted to the external efforts in Iraq. More importantly, it will no longer be seen as a foreign conquest of a Muslim nation by the United States or even a coalition of Western non-Muslim peoples. Does this mean that, with control ceded to the United Nations, the United States now has the moral freedom to wash its hands, save its money, and go home? Not in the slightest! Again: We broke it; we bought it. The United States has a responsibility to provide the lion's share of the money and at least a proportional share of the person-power to the U.N.-controlled operations in Iraq. It is our duty to provide whatever assistance we can to make reparations for the atrocity that we have unleashed.

Do I believe that this is likely to happen in the near future? In all honesty, no. However, I do believe that it is the right course of action and, as such, it is what those of us in the peace movement should be aiming for. Four and a half years ago, as an anti-war movement, we worked hard to prevent the outbreak of war; I believe that those efforts were worthwhile, despite their failure. I believe that we should now abandon the mindless, unchanging anti-war message and, instead, should strive to make the best possibility into reality. I also believe that both the "Stay the course" and "Troops Out Now!" paths will simply deepen the tragedy that has already occurred. Additionally, I am not convinced that the alternative path which I have outlined above is altogether unlikely in the not-too-distant future. It will certainly not happen in the next twenty-two months, while George W. Bush is in the White House. However, his administration will end before this conflict is resolved. If a sizable peace movement rallies behind a productive idea now -- rather than endlessly reciting the slogans of four years ago -- perhaps it can have enough impact on an increasingly war-weary public to put somebody in the White House who would consider such a course of action. Yes, I am an Anarchist and, as such, loathe to relegate the task of solving problems to an elite class of politicians. However, it is virtually certain that a non-hierarchical society will not take widespread root within the United States in the next two years, so waiting for that to happen as a pre-requisite for taking action in the current crisis is also a fool's course of action.

Finally, let me say that I am by no means certain that the path I have outlined above is the best of all possible ways to proceed. However, I am sure that it is better than any of the methods currently put forth for consideration, either by the politicians or by the large "grass roots" demonstrations organized by groups such as United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) or Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER). If you agree with the ideas that I have outlined, please do take steps to circulate them and bring them into being, probably starting with your local peace activists. If you disagree with those ideas -- and if the situation in Iraq is something that you care about at all -- then think of a better plan and try to implement that, instead. Or at least discuss it, as discussion may reveal some even-better path to follow. But, please, let's hear no more of this "Troops Out Now!" idiocy lingering on from the 2003 anti-war movement. It is mindless, outdated, and a sure means of condemning the citizens of Iraq to a very long term in hell.