It’s Parade Day

Here’s the view from the far left – Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University and Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations. Writing at Huffington Post, he says,

I was recently at a dinner in DC at which a prominent neo-conservative columnist took issue with a politician who said the Iraq War was immoral. The pundit argued that our intentions of removing a mass murderer and promoting democracy were highly moral. But if we have learned anything from this war, it should alert us to be wary of such oversimplified claims of moral clarity. Even if we grant purity of intentions, this is shallow moral reasoning. We should judge morality in three dimensions — intentions, means and consequences — and this war fails on the last two counts.

There’s a very narrow range of permissible opinion in this somewhat free country, and Dr. Nye has taken it to the limit. He does not commit the impeachable offense, however. His credentials are still in order. He says our intentions were honorable – at least he doesn’t say they weren’t. He’s pushing it a little bit, but he does not cross the line.

Intentions were not honorable. Not for a minute. It’s not hard to piece it all together – all you have to do is read what the authors of this war wrote. Project for a New American Century spelled it out.

While the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for US military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”

Lest there be any doubt, here’s where we’re going next:

“Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve; retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region”.

Bases – we need bases. Troop presence. There’s a strategic resource there, but I’ll not mention its name.

PNAC was out of power when they wrote the above words, but its authors came to occupy the highest positions in and around the Bush Administration – Richard Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Richard Perle, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

In March of 2003 we were told that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that we needed to invade that country to contain those weapons. That was a lie, easily ascertainable for a simple reason relating to the use of force: The US does not attack strong opponents. Had Iraq possessed those weapons, the US would not have attacked. (Indeed, in 1991 when Iraq did possess those weapons, the US backed down.) In the hands of a small power, such weaponry provides a creditable deterrent. However, the previous twelve years had been spent removing the weapons – the UN did a remarkable job, and paved the way for invasion.

It was supposed to be a cakewalk. Twelve years of sanctions had debilitated the Iraqi population – Bush promised to lift those sanctions right after the invasion. That was supposed to produce gratitude. But the Iraqis seemed to have swallowed hard on years of deprivation – they were unable even to fix their sewers and power plants destroyed in Gulf War I. They were deprived of food and medicine. There were 1.5 million deaths due to disease and starvation, probably a conservative estimate. The Iraqis did not seem to buy into our professed noble intentions. By November of 2003, it was apparent that there was a strong resistance movement.

The world also knew what the Bush Administration knew in March of 2003 – there were no weapons.

In November of 2003 Bush changed his tune. Things had not gone according to plan. Mission was unaccomplished. Therefore, we were no longer after weapons. We invaded to bring democracy to Iraq.

Such a brazen lie should have been greeted with chortles and ridicule – but witness Dr. Nye above. With perfectly straight faces, all the people around Bush changed their tune, the media changed its tune, academia started singing the new song – welcome to America, where we have freedom of speech and the good sense not to use it. We sing in harmony and dance around the obvious.

I’ll go ahead and say it, as I make my living doing other stuff: The US does not care about democracy, never has. If it did, it would be promoting it in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and it is not.

It’s been four years now. Today is the anniversary. We still can’t talk about why we did it, but heck – I’m used to that. We still can’t talk about why we did Korea or Vietnam, or Panama or Kosovo or even little Grenada – I can pretty well guarantee that twenty years from now, if things go according to honorable intentions, that the US will still have its bases in Iraq and will still be pulling the strings of its Vichy government.

Today is a day to talk about honorable intentions and messianic missions and love of freedom.

Enjoy the parade.