Photo courtesy of debaird's Flickr page - Mission Accomplished?: https://www.flickr.com/photos/debaird/1309512
You see the headlines dominating the news today, and it always seems like ISIS is among them. ISIS seems to come from out of nowhere, and suddenly is taking over huge parts of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is a criminal pseudo regime, and a potentially genocidal one.
Yes, ISIS is awful, really. No arguments from me.
But here's the thing: we have gone to war in Iraq twice already (three times if you include the air raids during the Clinton years of the nineties). And each time, the result of our actions has served to make the situation in Iraq worse.
A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans favor military action against ISIS.
It is understandable that many would feel a need to get rid of them, and I am sure that, in this case, the intentions would be far more honorable and truthful than they were when George W. Bush and his regime actively pined for an unjustifiable war in Iraq.
Yes, an unjustifiable war.
A war that, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, has returned to news headlines recently, as a result of Jeb Bush, brother to former President George W. Bush, as well as de facto presidential candidate for 2016, stated that knowing what we know now, he would go ahead and make the same decision to invade Iraq, like his brother did. Since, he has stumbled quite a bit in trying to explain himself, fumbling for answers and, generally, giving non-answers. Just like his brother did, essentially.
He was blasted by both Democrats and Republicans after that, although I suspect that was an example of political opportunism, rather than sincere regret for our actions in Iraq. After all, I am sure that it was not just Dick Cheney and his entourage who made a ton of profits from the war that they created. When the vote is 98 to 1 in favor, you can bet that personal ambitions of Congress members took precedence over what was truly best for the country. Political opportunism at its finest.
That was still disgusts me, even after it has been over a decade since it broke out. It was such an obvious mistake on such an obviously wrong assumption (really, a fabricated justification is more apt), and it should have been obvious to almost anyone and everyone, if they paid attention.
But that kind of political awareness is not a specialty for far too many Americans in this day and age.
The war was waged, even though the reasons that we were supposedly fighting the war for in the first place were soon thoroughly discredited. No WMD's. No links to 9/11. No real major terrorism that existed in Iraq at all during the days of Saddam Hussein. In fact, terrorism really began to be a problem in the country after the American invasion, which destabilized the country, and which brought militant Islamic fundamentalists from all over the world into the country to fight this evil western invader, this Great Satan.
Over one hundred thousand Iraqi lives lost, and they have a reason to hate Americans now. Over 4,000 American lives lost, and just a ton of people on both sides maimed and seriously injured.
But those chickenhawks who aggressively pursued the war got what they wanted. They got the war in the oil rich nation, gained a military foothold in the oil rich region. Many corporations got numerous no bid contracts, and the money kept pouring in.
They are criminals.
No, this is not an exaggeration, or some extremist point of view. They fabricated the reasons for an unjustifiable war, against the wishes of the world. They relentlessly pined for war, even when there was no solid evidence that Saddam possessed the mass arsenal of deadly weapons that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, among others, swore they were certain he possessed.
War is supposed to be an absolute last resort, but it was almost the first option that they mentioned and kept pushing for.
Eventually, they got their way by relentlessly and shamelessly repeating their lies so much, that people began to mistake it for the truth.
But that is half the story, because let's be honest: Americans love war. They love the high-priced military toys and high-grade technology. And yes, they love war, even when there really is only questionable legitimacy for the reasons behind this.
You have your doubts? Americans overwhelmingly supported military action in Vietnam in the beginning, even though there was general uncertainty as to the specifics regarding the situation in that country. Americans were overwhelmingly in favor of the invasion of Grenada, even though, again, the reasons for that invasion were generally unknown to the public prior to the actual invasion. Ask most Americans to point out Vietnam or Grenada on a map, and they likely cannot do it.
Yet, Americans approved of the military actions in those countries, at least at first. Opposition to the Vietnam War increased as things turned out badly. But approval ratings were high for Grenada in 1983, as they were once again for another overnight invasion in 1989, this time in Panama. Then, approval for military action was phenomenally high for the first Gulf War. Ditto for the war in Afghanistan. And then, for the second Gulf War, a majority of Americans approved the military action, despite already being tangled up in the war in Afghanistan, and despite the lack of proof, and most of the rest of the world being staunchly opposed to war.
Approval numbers went down in both Afghanistan and Iraq as American fortunes in those wars soured.
Still, again, a recent poll showed that a majority of Americans favor military action against ISIS. And not that long ago, a poll of young Americans showed that a narrow majority would have done the same exact thing in invading Iraq as we did back in 2003, even knowing what we know now. In other words, even without the stated justifications for the war, they were in favor of the war.
And Americans wonder why it seems that they are hated more and more around the world?
Really, it is not that hard to figure out.
So, that is why it is so absurd and outrageous when you have the brother of the president that led the country to war on false grounds saying that, knowing what he knows now, he would still go to war.
Oh, sure, he backtracked a bit. Or tried to. He claimed that he did not understand the question, that he had misspoken, and he claimed that there was no way of knowing what he would have done. Eventually, when the big media, for once, did their job and actually kept after him to get to the bottom of it, he finally said that knowing what he knows now, he would not have invaded Iraq. But he sounded bitter as he said it, like his fun was spoiled for that day.
But the reasons for war can change, of course. Especially if they are fabricated. And Bush is not the only one who seems ready for war. Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker already stated that he will pursue preemptive strikes.
Hopefully, he never gets in office to see that through.
Yet, somehow, it is all too easy to see further military action in yet another country. Maybe - and that's a big maybe - the American people grew a bit war weary after the two simultaneous wars, and the impact that these had on the reputation of the country around the world, as well as the hefty price tag of the war (the two wars were estimated to have cost $6 trillion combined).
But with some very prominent presidential hopefuls already pining for an unspecified war, and other prominent politicians arguing for war against ISIS, you can kind of tell where this is all going.
That is why it is so crucial for Americans to understand the absolute bankruptcy of the arguments used to justify the Iraq invasion.
Too many Americans refused to listen when it mattered most prior to the ill-fated war in Iraq. But now, with the war drums still faint, but growing once again, we Americans need to come to grips with the reality of just how flawed the rationale for the invasion was in 2002-03, and how costly that mistake proved to be, lest they repeat that same mistake in the near future.
Original Iraq War Skeptics Find the Rekindled Debate Maddening by Sam Stein and Michael Calderone, May 20, 2015:
No comments:
Post a Comment