Whenever I see the bumper sticker saying, “War is not the answer” (and I see it frequently since one adorns my own car), I mutter to myself, “What was the question?”
I am not being merely facetious. The question has to be raised every time a nation chooses to go to war—as the sad history of our human race since it first organized itself into political entities, even those as rudimentary as tribes or clans, demonstrates. When faced with the question of whether or not to go to war, the answer chosen far too frequently and enthusiastically is war. I propose to spend most of my time discussing with you why our government—and to be candid the great majority of our citizens—responded, totally irrationally, in my opinion, to the attack by a group of principally Saudi Arabian terrorists on New York and Washington by deciding to invade, first Afghanistan and then Iraq. However, before doing so, I would like to take a few minutes looking back a bit in history—not too far back, because there is a lot of history and not a whole lot of time.
Blessed War
The current wars have, unfortunately, a distinct religious dimension to them. Thus, we have to look back at the early history of the region of the Tigris and Euphrates in which the Iraq war is being waged. This pertains not only to the jihadists who proclaim Islamic justification for their fighting, but also to officials of our own secular democracy (so-called) in which Army Lt. General William Boykin is deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Boykin has proclaimed in public speeches in full uniform that he knows we will defeat any Islamic foe because their god is false and ours is the true one. Onward Christian soldiers.
President Bush proclaimed his war in the Middle East a “crusade,” apparently blissfully unaware that for Arab peoples and most other Muslims worldwide the word brings to mind the brutal European Christian invasions of the region during the Middle Ages and the more recent era of European colonization. And then there is the increasing influence of ultraconservative evangelical Christians in the American armed forces to take into account. I would remind you of this year’s scandal at the Air Force Academy where the commandant and his staff made life extremely uncomfortable for cadets who did not fully and publicly subscribe to the evangelical positions held, not only by the commandant, but also by an apparent majority of the cadet corps.
Recently, retired US Army Colonel and West Point graduate Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University and the author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War reviewed Robert Kaplan’s paean to America’s professional soldiers titled, interestingly, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground. Kaplan hails these soldiers for what he calls their “unapologetic, literal belief in God….” As Bacevich reports, Kaplan “…endorses the muscular Protestant fundamentalism that over the past thirty years has tacitly established itself as the quasi-official religion of America’s armed forces, its abiding theme not love thy neighbor but smite thine enemy.” Kaplan says, “The true religious soul of present day professional soldiers is located in the martial evangelicalism of the South.” If this be true, and there is much evidence to support the statement, we citizens of the United States, have a “commander-in-chief” (an office we will talk about later) who not only proclaims himself a “born-again Christian,” but also relies to a very great extent on a political base—encouraged by the likes of Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, together with Chuck Colson of Watergate fame—that seems to believe that the United States is carrying out the will of the God of the Old and New Testaments when it wages war.
This is something of a novelty in American history. There may have been no atheists in foxholes in past wars, but Bill Mauldin’s GIs—Joe and Willie—were usually not shown at prayer, and during the nearly ten years during the 40s and 50s when I was a Marine enlisted man and then an officer I cannot recall a single instance, in or out of combat, where there was any reference from my superior officers to religion or God. Sure there were chaplains, and God knows (literally) that to this day I remain grateful for the many services they provided to me and my fellow Marines when we needed them, but I could not imagine one coming into a barracks to hold a prayer service.
I have spent perhaps too much time on this aspect of the American military, which, as noted, seems to mirror the recent rise of religiosity in American life—the so-called third Great Awakening, but I think it important that we be aware of it. In past struggles for peace, as in the Vietnam era and even in the Reagan-Bush 1980s, we could be fairly certain that the churches and churchgoers would be in the forefront. True, many would be quite late in coming, but eventually most would stand up for justice and common sense.
This no longer seems to be true. Many of the faithful appear to long for Armageddon where “they can battle for the Lord”—as a past American militarist, Theodore Roosevelt, once proclaimed. But the mixture of religiosity and militarism is a dangerous one. From the day in 310 when the Emperor Constantine was, so to speak, born again and (as the story goes) saw a cross in the sky with the words “In hoc signo vinces” (In this sign you will conquer), all the major wars of Europe were fought in the name of God. Things got still worse during the Reformation when Christians of one persuasion thought, or were persuaded by their religious leaders to think, that God required them to slaughter Christians of other persuasions.
This led, after the killing of a third of the population of Germany in the Thirty Years War, to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, by which the rulers of the emerging nation states of Europe agreed to take religion out of the go-to-war equation and to establish some rules for the more humane waging of armed conflict. Nonetheless, when national leaders—kings, presidents, dictators—go to war, they always assure their people that God supports their cause. “Gott Mit Uns” in Germany; “God Bless America” here. In modern times and in secular states this idolatrous tradition has been played down. It is dismaying to see it again on the rise.
Some Bishops Dismayed
Among those dismayed are the bishops of the Church of England. Recently they issued a report titled: “Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post-9/11.” In condemning the invasion of Iraq they express their belief that it was carried out “as much for reasons of American national interest as it was for the well-being of the Iraqi people.” To this far-too-mild criticism with its charitable but questionable allowance that the well being of the Iraqi people was ever of any concern to this administration—or to its Democratic predecessor—the bishops add a notable rebuke. They express concern about the “strong sense of moral righteousness” behind US policy in the Middle East, which, they said, is “fed by the major influence of the Christian right,” whose “reading of current history in the light of apocalyptic texts is illegitimate.” The bishops stressed that “those texts need to be read in a different way altogether; namely, as a critique of imperialism, rather than a justification for it.” “Churches,” they concluded, “have a particular message here based on biblical insights about fear and how playing on the fear of enemies makes for unwise policies….it is not terrorism but American foreign policy and expansionism that constitute the major threat to peace.”
Take that to church with you, Mr. President.
Subverting the Constitution for War
I mentioned a little earlier that we would discuss the office of commander-in-chief. True, the Constitution (Article II, Section 2) says that the President is the commander-in-chief of the Army and the Navy. It does not, we should emphasize, say that he is commander-in-chief of the United States or the people of the United States, only of the armed forces. Until relatively recent years, particularly the administrations of both Bushes, it was rare that a president referred to himself as such or argued, as both have done, that when acting in this capacity presidents have special powers—especially to order the armed forces into action, covertly or openly—and can ignore constitutional restrictions on executive power.
Most important, of course, Congress has the sole power to declare war. One must note here that Congress, in its continuing and increasing corruption and cowardice has danced away from this awesome responsibility. No US war has been constitutionally declared since December 1941, and two of the major ones embarked upon—Vietnam and now Iraq—were “justified” by spurious intelligence and blatant presidential lies. Yet in both those instances Congress, which has the power of the purse, not only failed to protest presidential usurpation of its prerogatives, but also meekly continued to vote the money needed to pursue constitutionally unapproved war.
President George H. W. Bush, brushing off the feeble efforts of Congress in the wake of Iran-Contra to gain at least a minimum of supervision over covert wars, grandly declared that when he, as commander-in-chief, deployed undercover members of the armed forces in such endeavors he was under no obligation to report the activities to the Congress. Hardly a bleat of protest came from then-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence David Boren—an Oklahoman some of you know. Indeed, in 1989 the first President Bush also launched an invasion of Panama, beginning it with sneak air attacks on the hapless citizens of the El Chorillo barrio in Panama City—killing hundreds of civilians, by the way. Next came the First Gulf War, for which congressional and United Nations approval, was indeed received. It should be noted though that the considerable congressional opposition to this enterprise was largely overcome by the administration’s unscrupulous use of the Hill and Knowlton public relations company. Under a multi-million dollar contract with the government of Kuwait, Hill and Knowlton helped present to a shocked Congress a totally fictional account of Iraqi soldiers tearing newborn infants from incubators in Kuwait and throwing them on the floor to die. When Congress voted, it was unaware that the story, which featured the “testimony” of a tearful girl, later acknowledged to be a daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador here, was made out of whole cloth.
The war itself, arguably a justifiable reaction to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait—an invasion for which Iraq stupidly believed it had gotten permission from US ambassador in Baghdad April Glaspie—was followed by the imposition of a brutal sanctions regime on Iraq. Those sanctions, controlled principally by the US (the Clinton administration), persistently denied to Iraq the importation of the most common and critical medicines and public health materials. This led, most authorities agree—including the UN official who supervised the sanctions until he resigned in disgust—to the premature deaths of about 500,000 Iraqi children. Infamously, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when questioned about this in a televised public hearing, responded, “We think it was worth it.”
Ah, the women that come out of Georgetown University—Madeleine, Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
Let us go back to the current war, one in which the President—absent constitutional declaration or United Nations authorization, but with congressional permission to act at his discretion and continuing congressional appropriation of the funds necessary to wage it—continues to emphasize his role as commander-in-chief. We the people are told, from the editorial pages, from the pulpit, from the electoral hustings and from every VFW and American Legion convention, that this is war, he is the commander-in-chief, and it is our duty as American citizens, although we might not agree with the policy, to stand behind him.
Support the commander-in-chief, put those yellow magnetic ribbons on your car and support the troops. If you don’t want to do that, don’t forget folks, there is that Patriot Act—hundreds of pages of it unread by our representatives who nonetheless voted for it almost unanimously—which can make it very difficult for you should you wish to protest outside of defined protest zones. Suffice it to say, in order to allow our commander-in-chief to preserve those liberties and freedoms, terrorists’ hatred of which (we are told) inspires them to attack us, we must allow him to suspend them—but only for the duration of the war on terrorism which, by official definition, will go on forever.
Let’s return to the rhetorical question I posed in my opening remarks. If war is not the answer, what was the question? War on Iraq was certainly not the answer to the questions relating to what to should do in response to 9/11. Iraq had nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with it. Nor was it the answer to the question regarding what should be done to meet the putative threat that Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors. Iraq was a militarily and economically broken country held together only by the political genius of an admittedly brutal ruler, Saddam Hussein. Nor, as we grow increasingly aware with each passing day, was war the answer to the regional problems of the Middle East which grow ever more acute.
Was it an effective answer to what I believe was the real question being asked by the decision makers in the Bush administration; namely, how can we (the US and our principal partner, Great Britain) gain permanent control over a good portion of the petroleum and natural gas reserves of the Middle East? Hardly. The war has created mortal enemies in the area—Iran will serve as an example—which are moving effectively to deny to the US any access to their resources and creating tensions that may lead to yet another unnecessary and counterproductive war.
Stop The War
So, the war against Iraq and Afghanistan has not been a genuine or effective answer to anything. Accordingly, we must ask ourselves another question. What do we, the people of the United States do about it? The answer, for me, at least, is clear.
We stop piously pretending that we are doing God’s will. If we are believers we acknowledge that we are in no way doing God’s will. If we are non-believers we acknowledge that we are in violation of the principles of humanity and of international law. The war has cost, up till this moment, well over 2200 deaths of United States troops and military contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan and at least $300 billion in direct military expenditures. Even if the cost had been much cheaper, however, the venture was by any legal or moral measure absolutely wrong.
Which raises yet another question. If war in Iraq and Afghanistan was the wrong answer two years ago, what is the right answer now? I believe, and I hope most of you do, that the right answer is for the United States to stop participating in the wars there. I put it this way because I do not believe that ending our participation will end the civil wars we have precipitated or aggravated in both countries.
And how do we stop participating in the wars? We simply pick up and leave. We support the troops by bringing them back home. More broadly, we support the troops and our country, not only by getting our forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also by applying the brakes to the intensifying militarization of our United States.
And how do we make this come about? My Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues and I spoke out strongly and often against the war long before it was launched, since it was quite clear to us that the intelligence adduced to “justify” it was bogus. Then, we were a minority. Today those Americans who believe the war to have been a serious mistake are a clear majority, if the Gallup and other polls are to be believed. In a democracy, this should be enough. But wait.
Commander-in-Chief, excuse me, President George Bush, has famously and accurately claimed that there has been a moment of accountability on this matter. It was last November in a national election that he won. Not only did he win, but also 90 per cent of the “spineless Congress critters,” as Jim Hightower accurately defines them, who had voted for the war and for the Patriot Act, and for the supplementary military appropriations to support the war, were re-elected. Ninety-five percent of Republican Party elected officials support anything the commander-in-chief wishes to do. Many Democratic Party elected officials—especially those of the Democratic Leadership Council persuasion—not only support the commander-in-chief in his war, but say they would continue to prosecute it—and with still more troops.
Defeat the War Demagogues, Right and Left
So the question is what do we, the majority, do? I can tell you right now from some experience in Washington that we have no influence on the Republican Party. We have some, but not decisive influence, on the Democratic Party. The only way to get these United States to cease and desist, in the specific instance of getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the more general but certainly no less important task of getting out of this militaristic, imperialistic, moralistic rut in which we are stuck, is to use our organizational skills and, most importantly, our votes, to make our influence in the Democratic Party decisive. The only way that this can be done is to unmask and get rid of those Democrats who persist in betraying us.
In 2004, it turned out that “Bush Lite” candidate Kerry was an ill-chosen alternative. In the congressional election next year and in the 2008 presidential election no candidate, Democrat or Republican who does not acknowledge both the folly, the unconstitutionality, and—most important—the immorality of the war in Iraq deserves any measure of your support.
Let them know it.
