Why I Was Right About Iraq

Slate is running a series in which former liberal hawks either excuse themselves for, or, in the case of Andrew Sullivan, apologize for, their former support for the invasion of Iraq. Others have weighed in, too -- Anne Marie Slaughter, here on the HuffPo, and a few, so I hear, in the New York Times. So far, no one has contacted me, always against the war, and asked me why I was opposed. I guess they are tired of hearing from me. But I had a logic and a history, too, and maybe I should be consulted about what's next. Therefore, I am offering my own case history. I was against the Iraq War by Christmas, 2000, just as, we have found out, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush were for the Iraq War before the 2000 election.

In the May, 2000 issue of the old political magazine, George, I maundered on about my opinions of the presidential race at some length (a well-paid length, I have to say, which is why I committed myself). I figured the four candidates (Gore, Bush, McCain, Bradley) were all about the same -- well-off baby-boomers who would continue Clinton's prosperous and vaguely corrupt middle-of-the-road regime. I thought Gingrich and his nutty friends had been routed, and that Clinton's popularity, in spite of the chaos of his administration, meant that the the rightwing would back off.

Ha! Call me ashamed of these views. On the one hand, I wasn't paying close enough attention. On the other, I didn't know Bush was telling mainstream audiences one thing and evangelical audiences another. I also didn't expect a crooked election.

In my view, Greg Palast has made an excellent case that the Republicans set up and executed a fraud in Florida in 2000. There were two halves of the fraud -- stripping the voter rolls ahead of time and blocking the recount afterwards. Possibly, the plan was simply to hand Florida to the governor's brother as a kind of present. I don't know that the Republicans stole the whole national election -- I suspect they just got lucky. What antagonized me was not the loss of the election, it was the pushy sneering and gloating with which the Republicans declared the triumph of their dishonesty. The adding of insult to injury signaled to me that Bush and Cheney and their supporters were ruthless cheaters -- that ruthless cheating was a deep and permanent character flaw that all of them shared.

Their agenda was visible by February, when they began to order American planes to fly over Iraqi territory, an attempt to draw Saddam Hussein into hostilities. He didn't bite, but I always remembered the attempt. Once again, dishonesty, bullying. And then there was Enron.

People who don't live in California probably don't remember the California energy crisis as well as we do. The fact was, the whole thing stank to high heaven. It was evident while it was happening that Californians were being extorted and swindled and that it was Bush/Cheney cronies who were doing it. With Bush and Cheney in the White House, they knew they could steal from their largest customer base with impunity, and they did. Another sign of the mentality of the administration.

How does this add up to opposition to the Iraq War? Wasn't I terrified by the attack on the World Trade Center? Yes, I was, but no one ever said that the Iraqis were behind the attack. Saudis were behind the attack. I thought of the attackers as comparable to the Baader-Meinhof gang of the 70s and 80s -- of a certain nationality, but not representative of that nationality. I never got Al Queda and Bin Laden mixed up with Saddam Hussein. I knew that one was Islamist and the other wasn't. It would be like getting Bill Clinton mixed up with Jerry Falwell. Mistaken identity.

I didn't know much about Iraq, but I knew a couple of things from the previous Iraq War. 1) Iraq was not in the midst of a civil war. Saddam was a tyrant, but the political situation was stable. Therefore, there was no unrest for the US to exploit. The US could only create unrest as a prelude to remaking the country as it wished. Saddam was pretty high on the tyrant list, but he wasn't the only tyrant around. The liars and cheaters in the White House were simply focused on him for reasons of their own. I knew this then. And I knew that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were liars and cheaters who associated themselves with liars and cheaters. 2) Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. It didn't matter what fuzzy pictures the Bush administration showed us, Saddam had already showed us, in 1991, that he couldn't even get many Scud missiles to Israel. Was I now to believe, after twelve years of sanctions, that he had built himself not only weapons but also a delivery system? Never believed it for one moment. And those who were telling me he had done so had proved themselves liars and cheaters. 3) Bush and Cheney were hungry for war. Nothing they said could hide their eagerness. The story they put out, they had found out things, and they had explored all options, and now the invasion was a last resort, was evident bullshit. They never for one second had the demeanor of men who were thinking things over and weighing least bad options. They were hot to attack and impatient with anyone who stood in their way (the name Hans Blix springs to mind). The drumbeat began before the election of 2002 and continued through the winter. The Downing Street Memo later proved that they intended all along to attack, but their body language gave it away every time they were on camera.

In other words, I was against the Iraq War because I distrusted the motives of its architects, because the story they cooked up was full of holes, and because when they were telling that story, their body language revealed their bad faith. I was also against the Iraq War because I could imagine myself as an Iraqi. Let's say China decided that regime change in Sacramento was necessary, so they landed an army at San Francisco and Los Angeles and carpet bombed us into throwing Arnie out. Would I embrace them? Would any American embrace them? The shock of invasion would certainly arouse anger and resistance. So, I saw, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld had no realistic understanding of human nature to add to their other personal failures.

Being against the Iraq War wasn't hard -- it was easy. The Iraq War made no sense, even as a wish. All wars cause death and destruction. To wish for a war on one's own soil is suicidal but sometimes necessary. To wish for a war on someone else's soil is to wish death and destruction on others, that is, it is like being an accessory to a murder. How hard is it not to want to be an accessory to a murder?

But, say the converted liberal hawks, now what?

Here's what. First, we recognize that the Bush administration committed a crime in the name of the American people. Then we do what it takes, both psychologically and financially, to repair the crime. The very first thing that this means is that every American who has in some way profited from this crime must relinquish the fruits of the crime. That means the oil companies. That means the contractors. That means the US government. We cannot keep anything that the Iraqis owned before we took it away from them. We cannot have their land. We cannot have their oil or its profits. We cannot have any sort of power over them. Here is what is preventing the US from leaving Iraq -- the US still wants something from Iraq and the Iraqis that we have no right to. It is the desire to salvage some part of what the Bush administration thought would be easy to claim that is keeping us there, and it is the unspoken complicity of the Democrats and the "prowar liberals" in this that makes it so hard for them to accept the failure of the enterprise.

The reason that the Iraqis are involved in a civil war is that, in addition to longstanding rivalries, some of them placed their bets on the US war machine and others did not. Bets on the US war machine were bad bets, and those who made them stand to lose. In every invasion, there are those who collaborate with the invaders. If I were to collaborate with the Chinese invading California, I would know that I was in grave danger, after the Americans drove off the Chinese, of being hanged as a traitor. We owe these people asylum and a new start. Those who don't want to leave have to figure out how to get along. They might not do it. We can help them do it by not taking sides. By backing out of the regions that we occupy, and then offering our services only when asked. The soldiers and the contractors still in Iraq can occupy their time by cleaning up the mess of equipment and pollution they have created. They can stop being soldiers and start being janitors. It is going to take a long time just to drag away all the war-making equipment, just to sweep up the debris, just to put back together the broken things. That's what we should be doing now. By this, I don't mean remaking the government in the western image or in some way that will insure that the Iraqis have our type of government. We need to insure that they have the sort of government they want. No conditions.

All of the above is not easy. In fact, given the determination of every single faction of the US power clique that some sort of benefit to the US must be achieved, it's impossible. Therefore, this is what I predict. Neither the executive nor the Congress have the moral fiber or the tenacity or the courage to see the Iraq war for what it is, and so the situation will continue to disintegrate, dragging the US economy and government with it. It will turn out that the Republicans wrecked two nations and the pro-war liberals let them do it. And it will turn out that the rest of the world will come to believe that the US got what we deserved.

Comments

[BrickSykes]

Wonderful, Jane! Of course, we can all claim to've known all these things prior to 9/11 now that the affair is really History. I'm not deriding your story in the least, though, and join you in condemning this National disgrace that Bush's Corporate Buddies have brought us. All in 'Our Name', too, of course.

Otherwise, I wish you'd said something about the 'Peak Oil' notion which, in my mind, was driving the entire 'enterprise'. We too easily forget our recent empire-building History. We have treated Iraq and the entire Middle East just like we handled the exploitation of the Amazon, Latin America in its entirety, Southeast Asia, today's Middle East, and tomorrow's Africa. Wherever there are resources to be stolen (in the names of Democracy and Capitalism, by the way) you will find the USA in all its sad Militaristic Splendor. "We" make a fair piece of change on the Tools of War in the process, too. To America's modern 'Robber Barons' it is simply 'Bidness as Usual'.

The rest of the World will not be 'Fair' to any of us for a very long time...and deservedly so.

Thanks, Jane,

Brick

[idontthinkthisishelping]

Can I brag? Even as late to the party as I was? In November, 2001 (or December?) A&E (or Biography?) ran a week long series on something like "miscreant felon former child sit-com actors." Monday was someone like Todd Bridges. Tuesday was someone like Danny Bonaduce. Wednesday was "Why Saddam Hussein is the biggest motherfucking asshole in the history of motherfucking assholes and need to be taken down NOW." Thursday was either Ron Howard or Sally Field, I can't remember which.

As soon as I saw the promo for the week, I immediately got on the phone with my broker and bought Catepillar and Halliburton. If I had a stockbroker. And had paid my phone bill.

[nellie]

Excellent no-holds-barred recap of this tragic and deliberate fiasco.

[ForRichardorPoorer]

Excellent article. I'm keeping this one.....

[stringer]

I agree. At the time we had Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector who the Bush Administration hated, come speak at our University. He was pretty low on the totem poll of inspectors, no Hans Blix or anything, but he had been there and seen things for himself. It was clear from what he had to say that there were no weapons. At this point most of us who went to the speech began asking questions. There were no answers to those questions.

When people refuse to answer questions I generally assume they have something to hide. It's usually a safe approach. Asking tough questions is the only way to get to the bottom of anything. This is one of the reasons I actually defend Chris Matthews even though I do consider him a borderline-sexist, moronic, blowhard. He asks tough questions that need to be asked. A lot of people forget, leading up to the war, Hardball was one of the few programs who actually bothered to ask questions about the WMDs. When Matthews didn't get answered he announced he wasn't sold on the war.

[Snerdgronk]

JSA: "...The [No Fly] zones were to protect the Kurds and Shia from being slaughtered by their nation's leader "

SG: After (R) nation's leader blunder, which insighted the Kurds and Shia to rebell, promising support and then left them stranded ...

JSA: "... The zones were to protect the [...] humanitarian efforts in those areas."

SG: ... "SANCTIONED" humanitarian effort, of course.


Snerd

[Snerdgronk]

DeadNeck: "i'm convinced that we invaded Iraq to establish a front on which to fight jihadism. We chose Iraq as a battlefield, not as an enemy ... Now that we've been committed to that logic, though, how can we possibly leave without first restoring stability to Iraq?"

SG: You'll forgive me for saying, "There's a (sick) logic to that." ... given that US presence is creating the instability it's supposed to be fighting

DeadNeck: "... Withdrawal would be just as profoundly immoral as the invasion was."

SG: So ...doesn't that mean that withdrawal is as immoral as staying the 'coa(R)se'?


Snerd

[JulieSA]

"Their agenda was visible by February, when they began to order American planes to fly over Iraqi territory, an attempt to draw Saddam Hussein into hostilities."

Not exactly. There were things called the No-fly Zones, north and south. US and UK planes overflew these zones EVERYDAY for 11 years, and were fired upon almost daily. The zones were to protect the Kurds and Shia from being slaughtered by their nation's leader, and to protect the humanitarian efforts in those areas.

[Snerdgronk]

Yes Jane, you do make a reasonable case for a reasonable position. However, 'reasonable reality' is not an American characteristic these 'daze' ...

"Media"-ated (R)eality is a cha(R)acteristic, though. Ame(R)ica lives in a constant Orwellain, post modern, 'spin cycle'.

Currently, in the MSM jou(R)nalistic 'thinking', 'Objectivity' means two things. One, now that 'Reality' is on equal footing with '(R)hetoric', newz means never objecting to any claim (post modern relativism). Secondly, newz means giving a platform to anyone who does 'object' to any claim (spin).

In Empirical Reality we have 70% opposed to the "W"a(R). In Imperial (R)eality we have, "... So!?"

In 'Sum', you make the best conceptual and factual case, Jane.

... So!?

Snerd

[magen]

A pretty much perfect summation of how we got here and why they've been wrong all along.

Yet in today's MSM bizarro world, the people who were wrong from the start, and have a proven track record of being consistently wrong ever since, are still being consulted for their opinions.

Uhm, apology not accepted, warmongers.

[noamjunior]

to say "Greg Palast has made an excellent case that the Republicans set up and executed a fraud in Florida in 2000" is an understtement .

It would be more correct to say that Palast uncovered factual evidence that the GOP committed fraud in Florida

[plutorage]

Jane, I just heard Wolf Blitzer announcing that there is a pivotal, yes pivotal, battle going on in Iraq.

And yet when the facts are reported on who is involved it turns out that the battle being fought is simply one more battle in a war that started 1400 years ago.

For some reason Americans are convinced that, after 1400 years, they, the great white fathers, will bring civilization to Arabia and it will look like them.

The best way to understand the Iraq war is to see it as a 21st century Crusade. I guess the thirteenth crusade, or would it be the 15th? Think of Blackwater as the Knights of Malta.

How do crusades end?? We know the answer. It bores me.

That is why just now I am reading a "post Crusade" book, Tuchman's "Distant Mirror" about the 14th century. Maybe I'll learn something new. Right now I am in the middle of the Black Death. Oddly the doctors of that age did not understand contagion - contagion from rats and fleas in the case of bubonic plague. However, the towns that survived were the ones with strong rulers who burned down houses with occupants inside the minute plague was discovered in the house.

[Boblw56]

Wow! You are so right! We Great White Fathers are so generous to give these heathen savages back what they already had. I'm certain that the hundreds of thousands of civilians we've either murdered or have caused to be murdered would be so grateful! Let's find another country to invade illegally right away!

[Muddin]

HuffPost's Pick

Did you know that 47 countries' have
reestablished their embassies in Iraq ?

Did you know that the Iraqi government
currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?

that 3100 schools have been renovated,
364 schools are under rehabilitation,
263 new schools are now under constructio and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq ? that Iraq 's higher educational structure consists
of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers,
all currently operating? that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in
January 2005 for the re-established Fulbright program?
That the Iraqi Navy is operational?
They have 5 - 100-foot patrol craft,
34 smaller vessels and a naval infantry regiment.
That Iraq ' s Air Force consists of three operational squadrons,
Which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft
(under Iraqi operational control) which operate day and night,
and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers?
that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?
that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000
fully trained and equipped police officers? that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq

[Muddin]

that produce over 3500 new officers every 8 weeks?
there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq ?
They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals,
83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities
and 69 electrical facilities.
that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5
have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?
that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq
and phone use has gone up 158%?
that Iraq has an independent media that consists of
75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?
That 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a
televised debate recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!

WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW?

BECAUSE OUR MEDIA WON'T TELL US!

Instead of reflecting our love for our country,

we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib

and people throwing snowballs at the presidential motorcades.


Tragically, the lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves two purposes:

It is intended to undermine the world's perception of the United States thus minimizing consequent support;

and it is intended to discourage American citizen
Above facts are verifiable on the Department of Defense web site.

http://www.defenselink.mil/

[PiratePrentiss]

The Media is doing all this? The same media that was complicit in spreading the lies that started the War. The same media that does not report the deaths of Iraqi civilians or soldiers? The same media that is owned by corporations tied to the Defense industry? The same media that brings us FOX News and Rush Limbaugh?

[ConnieInCleveland]

Oh, I feel so much better. We paid for the bombs that destroyed their country, now we are paying for rebuilding it. We will be paying for years to come.

Great stories about the country being rebuilt avoid the conversation about why they need to rebuild at the expense of every American and our grandchildren. The war profiteers have aquired great wealth for their grandchildren. All the money spent on this war and the aftermath should not be taken lightly. The same ones that started the war are the same ones who have profitted? Halliburton, ring a bell?

[magen]

Funny how just about everything you mention in this post can be said to be GETTING WORSE right here in the good ol US.

But the neo-CON chickenhawks would rather send our billions to Iraq.

[Tumult]

You understand that in nearly every case all those things were operational under Saddam. Remember Saddam the evil dictator? The one that when Bush Sr was in the White House we were told would be insane to remove because it would be handing Iraq over to Iran and would ignite a Shi'ah firestorm in the middle east. The one the US and NATO supplied with weapons for years so he could fight Iran. He was the secular leader that the Islamic Fundamentalists from both sects (including Al-quaida) wanted to assassinate.

And you missed something, electricity, how many hours a day is the electricity on in Baghdad?

Thanks for playing, we actually made a significantly larger country and population worse off than the Palestinians. The World should love us. Wait why does the US State department still say " As much as possible, avoid luggage tags, dress and behavior that may identify you as an American."?

[BatedBreath]

Is there anything on there about the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis by the Shia?

or the de facto Islamic rule in the south around Basra?

or the lack of progress on an oil agreement?

or the ideological strife between warring Shia elements?

or that the Iraqi army and all it's new officers can't take care of the current uprising by themselves?

Is there anything on there comparing the current state of Iraq to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, e.g., number of schools, number of hospitals, number of doctors, number of professional people, etc., etc., etc.?

[Muddin]

that produce over 3500 new officers every 8 weeks?
there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq ?
They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals,
83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities
and 69 electrical facilities.
that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5
have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?
that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq
and phone use has gone up 158%?
that Iraq has an independent media that consists of
75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?
That 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a
televised debate recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!

WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW?

BECAUSE OUR MEDIA WON'T TELL US!

Instead of reflecting our love for our country,

we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib

and people throwing snowballs at the presidential motorcades.


Tragically, the lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves two purposes:

It is intended to undermine the world's perception of the United States thus minimizing consequent support;

and it is intended to discourage American citizen
Above facts are verifiable on the Department of Defense web site.

http://www.defenselink.mil/

[dadw5boys]

If this is all true why can't our troops get clean water. The very most essential thing in the desert.
Why is Al Sadar allowed to stay in the country. Round him up and all his supporters and send him packing or inturn them to thier own little camp.

[nellie]

You might want to read the lead article on the Huffington Post home page.

[ideasmatter]

Mr. Muddin,

With all due respect, but even where your numbers are correct, they are meaningless because they do not refer to the totals or to the prewar situation. Here are some more statistics (several also from the US Defense Department) to put yours in perspective.

Iraqi Ministry of Education, November 2006: 30% of Iraq's 3.5 million students were attending classes. The pre-war level was nearly 100%. (Hopefully the numbers have improved since the surge).

Total number of schools nationwide: 15,021. (Iraq Ministry of Education). If we've renovated 3100 in five years, we'll be done in another 20 or so.... But with the quality of work that the Defense Department contractors have been delivering that won't be soon enough.

Unemployment: 17.6 percent to 38.1 percent, in some provinces as high as 50 percent. (Defense Department.)

Ministry of Water Resources: 32 percent of Iraqis has access to clean drinking water, and 19 percent to a good sewage system. (March 30, 2008). To be fair, before the war the situation wasn't great either (50%). More did prior to the UN sanctions.

4.5 Million: Number of Iraqi refugees both inside and outside the country. [Washington Post, 3/17/08] That is 17% of the population, equivalent to over 50 million Americans!

61: Percent of Iraqis that believe the U.S. military presence makes the security situation in Iraq worse. [Agence France-Presse, 3/17/08]. Maybe it is time we start listening to these Iraqis.

[Durango]

Excellent, excellent ,excellent.

Your views are as close to mine as anyone I have heard from. Thanks

[rroy]

I,like Ms Smiley,and ,regretfully,not enough others,was against this war from the very beginning.I could never fathom how a country that had recently brought the only other-then-super power to it's knees,could comprehend as a threat a dinky tin horned war lord dictatorship that was nothing more than a mouse that roared.
Sadly,I do not see how we will extricate ourselves from this quagmire without having done lengthy,perhaps, irepairable harm to our status as a world power.
It seems the world could forgive the collosal blunder of Vietnam if ,for no other reason,it was not collasal enough to destroy us.But even super powers can aspire to and achieve the goal of The Peter Principle-reach it's own level of incompetense-something rapidly appearing within our reach!