Is It Time for War Zealots to Send Their Kids to Iraq?
"The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’
Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men...
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. -- Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910)
Remember how, during the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and General Norman Schwarzkopf constantly appeared on FOX News and Crossfire, warning of impending chaos? And how your most strident pals became mesmerized, and started discussing how the Bush administration could very well be opening a Mesopotamia-sized can of worms?
No?
Ok. How about how respectfully Bill O'Reilly and other entertainment/news show hosts treated antiwar guests?
What? You don't remember that, either?
Well, maybe that’s because many of our fellow countrymen morphed into Ann Bancroft from the closing scenes of The Graduate whenever anyone strayed from the official prewar story about cakewalks and liberation and dancing in the streets. And anyone who disputed the Bush administration's mushroom cloud wisdom was vilified as a traitor, ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist or marginalized as a member of the far left fringe.
(For those who drowned out debate before the war, I beg you: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted.)
Of course, with more than half of all Americans still thinking that Iraq has WMD, it's no wonder there was little patience for mavericks who disbelieved the prime-time propaganda. "What does the persistence of such extraordinary falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free people with First Amendment rights be so totally misinformed?," conservative columnist Paul Craig Roberts asked, referring to a recent poll that showed that a number of citizens remain in the dark about the war in Iraq.
"[T]he U.S. media has been "muzzled by the 'you-are-with-us-or-against-us' mantra. Anyone who tells the truth is in the 'against-us' camp," he explained.
Some tried to warn us ahead of time, however. John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War openly predicted that this would happen, putting the blame squarely on Bush administration throwbacks. "These are all the same people who were running [the prewar propaganda] more than 10 years ago. They'll make up just about anything ... to get their way," he told the Christian Science Monitor, six months before the war began.
And so it came to pass that heavily propagandized armchair warriors became convinced that Saddam Hussein: 1) had weapons of mass destruction 2) was in cahoots with Al Qaeda and/or 3) was tied to 9/11, just as sure as they were convinced that any and all opposition to the war came from granola-munching, tree-hugging, America-hating, Mumia-freeing radicals. Telling them otherwise often led to a flurry of e-mails, filled with assorted droppings from Frontpage Magazine, the Weekly Standard and the likes of Jonah Goldberg, Joel Mowbray and Daniel Pipes. "Americans broadly agree" blah blah blah, "Saddam Hussein" blah blah blah "danger of nuclear attack," Pipes hyped, even as questions regarding WMD claims began to circulate among the inquisitive and open-minded.
(For those who ridiculed such questions, I beseech you: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted.)
But, though not as visible as pro-war cheerleaders Richard Perle or Frank Gafney, the realists who had been appalled by the Wolfowitz Doctrine a decade before started raising red flags. Scowcroft flat-out warned "Don’t Attack Saddam" while Schwarzkopf recited a laundry list of concerns.
And although pro-war automatons are loathe to admit it, the leadership from the first Gulf War correctly assessed regime change complications -- with George H. W. Bush using phrases like "unwinnable urban guerilla war" and "greater instability," and Colin Powell saying an occupation would create an "unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships."
"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit -- we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation," Schwarzkopf wrote in his 1993 autobiography, It Doesn't Take a Hero. And though, he, like Powell, often played the loyal soldier on TV, in a Jan. 28, 2003 interview with the Washington Post, he spoke his mind:
On WMD
"The thought of Saddam Hussein with a sophisticated nuclear capability is a frightening thought, okay? Now, having said that, I don't know what intelligence the U.S. government has. And before I can just stand up and say, 'Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we need to invade Iraq,' I guess I would like to have better information." – Norman Schwarzkopf, the Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2003
As WMD chatter flooded the airwaves, former U.N. official Denis Halliday revealed that the Europeans had "asked for some kind of concrete evidence" proving that Saddam was producing WMD's, but that none ultimately surfaced. Certain that the "weapons inspection issue" was just a "ruse" to hide Bush's real agenda (regime change), Halliday asserted, (a full year before the war began):
"Saddam Hussein is not a threat to the U.S. The experts say that Saddam doesn't have the capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- and even if he could somehow acquire that capacity, he certainly doesn't have the capacity to deliver them.")
Former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton also questioned whether or not the Bush administration was hyping the threat. "My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence. Mr. Bush says he will make his decision to go to war based on the ‘best’ intelligence. You have to wonder about the quality of that intelligence," he told The Christian Science Monitor six months before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counterintelligence, also revealed that, much to intelligence analysts' dismay, "cooked information" was "working its way into high-level pronouncements.")
And, as many now know, Colin Powell flip-flopped from his Feb. 2001 assertion that Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction" and "is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors," while in Sept. 2002, an unidentified U.S. government source told the Christian Science Monitor that this administration "is capable of any lie . . . in order to advance its war goal in Iraq. It is one of the reasons it doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in, because they might actually show that the probability of Iraq having [stockpiles of WMD] is much lower than they want us to believe."
(By the way, for those who called us "naive" for distrusting the WMD rationale: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted. )
On Donald Rumsfeld
"Candidly, I have gotten somewhat nervous at some of the pronouncements Rumsfeld has made. . . He almost sometimes seems to be enjoying [the wartime adoration]. When he makes his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army. He gives the perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him -- or else." -- Norman Schwarzkopf, the Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2003
Before Schwarzkopf shared his doubts about the Secretary of Defense, the National Review was tripping all over itself. On Dec. 31, 2001, the magazine exclaimed: "Who's the 'star' of this war so far? That's a vulgar consideration, given the awful work that has to be done. But there is, undeniably, an answer: Don Rumsfeld. Yes, Rumsfeld: defense secretary, TV personality, sex symbol (no kidding -- more on that in a second), role model, inspiration. As one Washington arbiter puts it, 'Rummy' is the man now. The man to whom the nation turns, the man to whom it listens. Nearly everyone -- Republican or Democrat -- sees him as the right guy at the right time in the right job."
And while America's conservative media swooned, they also mocked anyone who tried to analyze Bush administration pronouncements. Nonetheless, six months before the war, The Sunday Morning Herald exclaimed that "Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President," while Richard Clarke later confirmed Bush's immediate desire to tie 9/11 to Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, renowned journalist Seymour Hersh legitimized earlier reports regarding "The President's Real Goal in Iraq" during a speech before the ACLU. "And so you have a bunch of people [the neoconservatives behind the Iraq policy] who've been for 10, 12 years have been fantasizing since the 1991 Gulf War on the way to resolve problems," Hersh said in July, 2004. "And so they got together, this small group of cultists, and how did they do it? They did do it. They’ve taken the government over. And what’s amazing to me, and what really is troubling, is how fragile our democracy is. Look what happened to us."
(For those who scoffed at "loony conspiracy theories," I once again ask: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted.)
On Ignoring the Experts
"It's scary, okay? Let's face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of concern." -- Norman Schwarzkopf, the Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2003
When Army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki said we'd need several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq, he was rebuked by Paul Wolfowitz for being "wildly off the mark" and then chided by Jed Babbin in the National Review for appearing "to be working against Bush's plan to fight the war on terror."
At the time, Babbin also accused the general of "playing into the hands of opponents" and suggested that, when asked how many troops would be required for an occupation, Shinseki should not have given any approximation, but should have made it clear that "the very premise of an extended 'occupation' is antithetical to President Bush's policy of liberation." King George had spoken. It was no time for loyal subjects to be disloyal.
According to Babbin's report, Paul Wolfowitz was annoyed with Shinseki for making projections that made selling the war to allies even trickier. In short, the general, it seems, had broken the Bush administration's cardinal rule -- he gave an accurate and honest assessment.
"In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption. I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan," Gen. Anthony Zinni later wrote, underscoring the wisdom of Shinseki's judgment.
And as Sen. John McCain admitted last week, "We made serious mistakes right after the initial successes by not having enough troops on the ground."
(To those who called us "Chicken Little" when we raised concerns about the occupation, I implore you: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted. )
On the Occupation:
"I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation, because you're going to walk into chaos." – Norman Schwarzkopf, the Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2003
A couple months before the start of the war, a consortium of conservative Republican business leaders placed a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal. "The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed. But you must find a better way to do it," they told George Bush. "Why would you lead us into a situation where we are bound to fail?. . . You are waltzing blindfolded into what may well be a catastrophe. Pride goeth before a fall."
Career State Department diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigned over similar concerns. "We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known," he wrote. "Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.")
Then, too, back in 2002, Arab League Secretary-general Amr Musa was mocked for warning that an attack on Iraq would "open the gates of hell," but on Sept 14, 2004, he made it official. "The gates of hell are open in Iraq," Musa said.
A year after the war in Iraq began, however, Rumsfeld said he had not foreseen such violence and chaos. "He should not have been surprised," Gen. Zinni said. "You know, there were a number of people, before we even engaged in this conflict, that felt strongly we were underestimating the problems and the scope of the problems we would have in there. Not just generals, but others -- diplomats, those in the international community that understood the situation. Friends of ours in the region that were cautioning us to be careful out there. I think he should have known that."
(To those who sneered at our allies, a reminder: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted.)
On Postwar Planning:
"What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan." -- Norman Schwarzkopf, the Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2003
By the end of January, 2003, the Pentagon had yet to address crucial concerns regarding the length of occupation and how many troops would be required. According to the Washington Post, Rumsfeld deemed postwar planning a "tough question" and added "we're spending a lot of time on it, let me assure you."
But, in time, U.S. lawmakers stopped drinking the Kool-Aid. "The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq," Sen. Chuck Hagel said on CBS's Face the Nation, "and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy." Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Biden noted that disappointment in the Bush administration's "incompetence" extends across the aisle. "****** Lugar, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, John McCain -- we are all on the same page. It is us and the administration. This has been incompetence so far."
(Oh, yes, and to those who dismissed Gen. Zinni, Gen. Shinseki or others who were trying to tell the truth, here's an idea: Do everything you can to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won’t be drafted.)
Though the consequences of ignoring the truth are now painfully evident, to most ardent warmongers, our 3,000 dead entitle us to goose-step into whatever mess the President pursues. Bush is right. Everyone else is wrong. End of story
Except, of course, that the story did not end with 3,000 dead. We now have more than 1,000 additional dead Americans, who have sacrificed their lives for a shifting menu of rationales and a situation that grows darker each day. "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true," Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College recently told the Guardian. "I see no exit. We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation."
General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency upped the ante. "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims," he said. "But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
And in addition to the devastatingly pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, Odom reminded that every rationale for the war has proven bogus. "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost. Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
In Nov. 2003, I speculated that a second Bush administration could mean a return to conscription. Last week, John Kerry did the same. And as the Cato Institute's Charles Pena told the Toronto Star, "I don't think a presidential candidate would seriously propose a draft. But an incumbent, safely in for a second term -- that might be a different story."
On a recent edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, former ambassador to the United Nations (and Vietnam veteran) Richard Holbrooke underscored such concerns:
HOLBROOKE: There are disturbing similarities to the quagmire in Vietnam. And the NIE lays them out very much the same way. We're never going to get to the casualty levels of Vietnam; 1,000 dead is awful, but 55,000 dead in Vietnam was worse.
However, the dilemma that the U.S. government and whoever is elected president will face on January 20 of the next year is very deep and very real. . . Here is the dilemma that the next president of the United States is going to face, whether it's George Bush or John Kerry. And it is very serious. There is now a classic mismatch between resources and mission in Iraq. That's the real similarity to Vietnam.
You, I hate to say it, are just old enough to remember what I'm talking about.
MATTHEWS: Right.
MATTHEWS: But, in Vietnam, we had a half million troops in country.
HOLBROOKE: But the U.S. military will tell you now—and Colin Powell wrote this in his memoirs—we were not given—we were given a mission, but not enough resources to do it.
Now, the administration has said from the beginning that 135,000 troops are enough, although the Army chief of staff, Shinseki, said we need 300,000. The administration is going to tiptoe past the election on this one. But after the election, I would guess, given that NIE you just quoted, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are going to go to the president-elect, whoever it is, and say, listen, if you keep us with the current mission. . . [to] promote democracy, we can't do it unless you give us more troops. But we don't have the troops.
I put that forward not with an answer, Chris, and not—I hope not in a partisan way, but to stress the enormity of the dilemma that the United States is now facing in Iraq."
Given the fact that the U.S. is already conducting a backdoor draft and soldiers are reportedly being threatened if they do not reenlist and the U.S. may be running out of Reserve and National Guard troops for the war on terror, "staying the course" looks increasingly risky. (John Edwards recently promised that "There will be no draft when John Kerry is president," and was greeted with a standing ovation. )
Then, too, according to a plan obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, before the start of the war in Iraq, Selective Service System Director Lewis Brodsky proposed upping the maximum draft age from 25 to 34 and requiring women to register, highlighting, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer explained, "the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft. .".
Far too many Americans still believe that questioning the war in Iraq dishonors our 3,000 dead, despite the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with that tragic day. In their fear, they wonder if terrorists might hit them personally and would gladly give up the rights afforded under the U.S. Constitution. And, since their need for security trumps ideals of liberty, it’s safer and easier to believe that G.W. Bush will protect them.
And although so-called "security moms" seem to believe that terrorists will invade little Johnny’s elementary school, thanks to the war in Iraq, Johnny now stands a higher chance of being drafted than he does of being singled out by "Islamofascists" in Iowa.
But those of us who fought against this war do not believe it has anything to do with protecting America. In fact, not only does this preventative war counter the principles under which America was founded, but -- just as truth-tellers warned -- it has made us less safe.
Yes, there are two Americas and the one that does not want "four more years" wants you to understand: Follow you heart. Follow your principles. But do not expect the rest of us to fall in line.
And, most of all, to those of you who not only applaud the war in Iraq, but hope to widen it into Iran: Do everything in your power to talk your own children into joining the military so those who disagree with this mess won't be drafted.
