The War Didn't Go Wrong; It's Always Been Wrong

If the Pentagon had been able to subdue the Iraqi population, few in Congress or on editorial pages would be denouncing the war. As in so many other respects, this is a way that the domestic U.S. political dynamics of the war on Iraq are similar to what unfolded during the Vietnam War. With the underpinnings of war prerogatives unchallenged, a predictable response is that the war must be fought more effectively.

That's what the great journalist I. F. Stone was driving at when he wrote, a few years into the Vietnam War, in mid-February 1968: "It is time to stand back and look at where we are going. And to take a good look at ourselves. A first observation is that we can easily overestimate our national conscience. A major part of the protest against the war springs simply from the fact that we are losing it. If it were not for the heavy cost, politicians like the Kennedys and organizations like ADA would still be as complacent about the war as they were a few years ago."

In the United States, while the lies behind the Iraq war become evermore obvious and victory seems increasingly unreachable, much of the opposition to the war has focused on the death and suffering among U.S. soldiers. That emphasis has a sharp political edge at home, but it can also cut another way -- defining the war as primarily deplorable because of what it is doing to Americans. One danger is that a process of withdrawing some U.S. troops could be accompanied by even more use of U.S. air power that terrorizes and kills with escalating bombardment (as happened in Vietnam for several years after President Nixon announced his "Guam Doctrine" of Vietnamization in mid-1969). An effective antiwar movement must challenge the jingo-narcissism that defines the war as a problem mainly to the extent that it harms Americans.

Countless pundits and politicians continue to decry the Bush administration's failure to come up with an effective strategy in Iraq. But the war has not gone wrong. It was always wrong. And the basic problem with the current U.S. war effort is that it exists.

CounterPunch

I am proud to say I opposed this from day 1.

Opposed the illegal invasion when opposing it wasn't cool.

Kool Aide for the brain dead, yes.

attacking the Iraq sacred cow. The effectiveness of Republicans over the past 25 years has been their attack on liberal sacred cows. As a liberal, I think they were wrong, but sadly very effective. That is until bu$h attacked our greatest sacred cow: America doesn´t go to war because we want to.

Now is the time, and we´re seeing it, for wise politicians to kill this sacred cow because it´s not working for America.

I wonder how?

It's not enough to recognize that the war is harming Americans and American interests -- we as a nation must recognize that the policy which spawned this war was wrong to begin with, and we must change that policy on the basis of moral values and national honor.

The doctrine of "preemptive" war in which we claim the right to invade soverign nations on the basis of a perceived future threat is just plain wrong, and this position must be publicly stated in no uncertain terms by our Congressional leaders NOW. We must also reject plans for U.S. military domination of the world.

Democratic leaders have been accused of waffling and lacking a foreign policy vision. Well, they can start by reasserting our adherence to international law and multilateralism, and by explicitly repudiating the National Security Strategy of the Bush administration.

the world could have waited, they could have increased food aid, but the neocons wanted their pre-emptive war. Had to create precident. And had to have a war to create a presidential second term.