Is Anyone Listening?
by
Laurence
M. Vance
by Laurence M. Vance
       
They
should know better. Supporters of this war,
apologists for this war, defenders of this war,
participants in this war – they should all know
better. The evidence is there, but is anyone
listening?
Democrats,
Republicans, Libertarians, Objectivists – they
should know better. Catholics, Protestants,
Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Jews – they should
know better. Ministers, teachers, doctors, managers,
fast food workers, housewives should know better.
Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, and
reservists – they should know better. Flag wavers,
patriots, veterans, yellow ribbon wearers, "God
and country" and "God bless America"
Christians – they should know better. All
Americans should know better. The evidence is there,
but is anyone listening?
They
have the word of Pentagon insiders. They have the
word of Bush administration insiders. They have the
word of the Army War College. They have the word of
army generals. They have the word of members of
Congress. They have the word of the Founding
Fathers. They have the word of war veterans. They
have the word of Iraq war veterans. They have the
word of the vice president. They even have the word
of the president himself. The evidence is there, but
is anyone listening?
Karen
Kwiatkowski retired as a USAF lieutenant colonel
after spending her final four and a half years
working at the Pentagon. She accelerated her
retirement "because of the ethical difficulties
brought on by witnessing the misuse of intelligence
in order to support an agenda for an unnecessary,
unwarranted war of choice against Iraq." She
describes the current U.S. military and civilian
leadership as "politicized, emasculated,
obedient to the bureaucracy and ignorant of the
Constitution." Is anyone listening to Colonel
Kwiatkowski?
Lawrence
Wilkerson, a former colonel in the U.S. Army, a
decorated Vietnam vet, and a life-long Republican
who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of
State Colin Powell, has recently stated that
Powell’s February 2003 speech before the United
Nations that sought to justify the impending war
against Iraq was "a hoax on the American
people, the international community, and the United
Nations Security Council." He further stated
that "there were major doubts inside the
intelligence community about everything that was
being said about the Iraq threat, even as Powell's
speech was being planned and delivered."
Jeffrey
Record, a professor in the Department of
Strategy and International Security at the U.S. Air
Force’s Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama,
and former professional staff member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, writes in Bounding
the Global War on Terrorism, published by
the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War
College, that the war in Iraq "has created a
new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism
and diverted attention and resources away from
securing the American homeland against further
assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda." The
nature and parameters of the global war on terror (GWOT)
"remain frustratingly unclear." The
declared objectives of the GWOT are
"unrealistic." The goals of the GWOT are
"politically, fiscally, and militarily
unsustainable." The GWOT is "strategically
unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver,
and threatens to dissipate scarce U.S. military and
other means over too many ends." Is anyone
listening to Professor Record?
Lieutenant
General William
Odom (Ret.) calls the war in Iraq "the
greatest strategic disaster in our history, not in
terms of its present body count, but rather because
of its radiating consequences for the region and the
world." Invading Iraq "was never in the
U.S.’ interests and has not become so."
Brigadier General Andrew
Gatsis (Ret.), who was awarded numerous medals
for bravery during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, says
about the war:
We
never should have gone in there in the first place
since we weren't immediately threatened. There
were no weapons of mass destruction; Saddam
Hussein’s regime had no connection to Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaeda, and wasn’t responsible for
the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade
Center; and there wasn’t any evidence to back up
the claim that Iraq was building nuclear weapons
capability. All the reasons given by the
administration to justify this war have been shown
to be false.
We
invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
What’s different about what we have done in Iraq
and what Hitler did when he sent his forces into
Czechoslovakia in 1939? This war in Iraq has
already cost the lives of 2,200 Americans, wounded
over 15,000 more, and left at least 30,000 Iraqis
dead, most of whom were non-combatants caught in
crossfires or victimized by Islamist terrorists.
And look at the billions of dollars being poured
into this flawed effort. It saddens me to see all
of this happen to our troops – and all for an
unjust cause.
Is
anyone listening to these generals?
Representative
John
Murtha (D-PA), a decorated Marine combat veteran
and the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress,
has recently called for the withdrawal of American
forces from Iraq, concluding that the war has
increased both terrorism and instability in the
Middle East. He
now terms the war "a flawed policy wrapped
in illusion." On the Republican side of the
aisle, there is the heroic Representative Ron Paul
(R-TX), an Air Force veteran who has opposed the war
from
the beginning. Is anyone listening to these
congressmen?
The
Founding Fathers of this country issued numerous
warnings about the dangers of wars. We know that
Thomas Jefferson said: "Never was so much false
arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which
has been employed to persuade nations that it is
their interest to go to war." But let’s hear
the "father of the Constitution," James
Madison, on how the state uses war to strip its
citizens of their liberties:
If
tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will
be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
The
means of defense against foreign danger
historically have become the instruments of
tyranny at home.
Of
all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps
the most to be dreaded because it comprises and
develops the germ of every other. War is the
parent of armies; from these proceed debts and
taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the
known instruments for bringing the many under the
domination of the few.
The
loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the
provisions against danger, real or imagined, from
abroad.
Is
anyone listening to the Founding Fathers?
Veterans
for Peace, which includes veterans from World
War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and other
conflicts, as well as peacetime veterans, is calling
for the impeachment of President Bush and
Vice-President Cheney. In a letter sent to each
member of Congress, Veterans for Peace stated that
"this administration’s war on Iraq, in
addition to being increasingly unpopular among
Americans, is an unmistakable violation of our
Constitution and federal law which you have sworn to
uphold. In our system, the remedy for such high
crimes is clear: this administration must be
impeached." The president of the group further
says that "we believe that when our government
conducts a war of aggression on Iraq and commits a
growing and appalling series of what must legally be
considered war crimes and crimes against humanity in
the execution of that war, it violates Article VI of
the U.S. Constitution, the War Crimes Act of 1996
(18 U.S.C. § 2441), and numerous international
treaties which are legally binding on our
nation."
Tim
Goodrich, one of the founders of Iraq Veterans
Against the War, charges the president with
"deceit, lack of planning, and arrogance."
He says that
for
a real victory plan, the best course of action
would be an immediate withdrawal of our troops
from Iraq. Our continued presence only serves to
fuel terrorism, not defeat it. Not only would an
immediate withdrawal prevent the unnecessary
deaths of more of our country’s honorable
military personnel, but it would also increase the
security of our nation by allowing our troops to
do what they signed up for; defending the country.
Is
anyone listening to Iraq war veterans?
After
the First Gulf War, then secretary of defense and
now vice president, Dick
Cheney, in a speech at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy in April of 1991,
said about Saddam Hussein and Iraq:
I
think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is
also fallacious. I think if we were going to
remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all
the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot
of force because I do not believe he would wait in
the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think
we’d have had to hunt him down. And once we’d
done that and we’d gotten rid of Saddam Hussein
and his government, then we’d have had to put
another government in its place.
What
kind of government? Should it be a Sunni
government or Shi’i government or a Kurdish
government or Ba’athist regime? Or maybe we want
to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists?
How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to
keep that government in place? What would happen
to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How
many casualties should the United States accept in
that effort to try to create clarity and stability
in a situation that is inherently unstable?
I
think it is vitally important for a President to
know when to use military force. I think it is
also very important for him to know when not to
commit U.S. military force. And it’s my view
that the President got it right both times, that
it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged
down in the quagmire inside Iraq.
Cheney
also made a speech in Seattle at the Discovery
Institute in 1992, and said:
And
the question in my mind is how many additional
American casualties is Saddam worth?
And
the answer is not very damned many. So I think we
got it right, both when we decided to expel him
from Kuwait, but also when the president made the
decision that we’d achieved our objectives and
we were not going to go get bogged down in the
problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.
All
of a sudden you’ve got a battle you’re
fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of
civilians are around, significant limitations on
our ability to use our most effective technologies
and techniques.
Once
we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his
government, then the question is what do you put
in its place? You know, you then have accepted the
responsibility for governing Iraq.
Now
what kind of government are you going to
establish? Is it going to be a Kurdish government,
or a Shi’ia government, or a Sunni government,
or maybe a government based on the old Baathist
Party, or some mixture thereof? You will have, I
think by that time, lost the support of the Arab
coalition that was so crucial to our operations
over there.
I
would guess if we had gone in there, I would still
have forces in Baghdad today, we’d be running
the country. We would not have been able to get
everybody out and bring everybody home.
Is
anyone listening to the vice president? Is the vice
president even listening to himself?
As
the whole world now knows, and President Bush has
himself acknowledged, two of the major reasons given
for undertaking this war in the first place were
simply not true. Iraq was not responsible for the
September 11th attacks. "We have no
evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with
September the 11th," said
the president in answer to a reporter’s
question on September 17, 2003, after hundreds of
U.S. soldiers had already died for a lie. There were
no weapons of mass destruction. "It is true
that most of the intelligence turned out to be
wrong," said
Mr. Bush in a speech on December 14, 2005, at
the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., after
the death count had by then passed the 2,000 mark.
Is anyone listening to the president? Are any
soldiers listening to their commander in chief?
I
am afraid that too many people have the same mindset
as the president, who
says that even "knowing what I know today,
I’d make the decision again. Removing Saddam
Hussein makes this world a better place and America
a safer country."
 Since
human lives are at stake – American lives and the
lives of the U.S. government’s enemy of the week
– those in the military ought to be more diligent
than the average American in finding out about the
justness of a war. And American soldiers who claim
to be Christians ought to be even more thorough in
their investigation. Is anyone in the military
listening?
February
20, 2006
Laurence
M. Vance [send
him mail] is a freelance writer and an
adjunct instructor in accounting and economics at
Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. He is
also the director of the Francis
Wayland Institute. His new book is Christianity
and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State.
Visit his
website.
Copyright
© 2006 LewRockwell.com
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M. Vance Archives
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