2003-04-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

Chaos and ethnic tension and terrorist attacks might not be Rumsfeld’s worst case scenario. I think it is his goal.

Rumsfeld and many of the rest of Bush’s advisers actively want a bigger war and are certain it will succeed. They see the US military as a force that can remake the world into something better and that not using it is a betrayal of the human race. I want to explain their thinking and tactics.

They think the big stick of overwhelming US military force is a magic wand that can turn these non-democratic states into capitalist democracies. Sadly, they are unconsciously following the logic of Stalin who said that everyone imposes his social system as far as his armies can reach.

They have already announced that we will take out any regime that supports terrorism. The public, most liberals included, seem to have accepted this. People are coming to Iraq from Syria and Iran and Lebanon and other Muslim countries to fight against the occupation. Their method of war is what we have conveniently labeled terrorism. That is, being poverty stricken, they will use the only weapons that they have, their lives and bodies. Since they don’t have tanks and fighter jets, or fight in uniformed units, we label it terrorism.

Why do they think that they can bomb a country into a capitalist democracy? They see the states which succeeded in the former Soviet Union as democracies that would not exist except for The USA’s cold war policy of confrontation. They see Germany and Japan as democracies that would not exist without the US having been willing to use force in World War Two, and then to force them to become democracies. Force works, to them.

As Roosevelt must have thought with respect to Japan and Germany, they see a conflict between the US and peoples of the Middle East as inevitable. Why not have it out now they think, when we are strong and they are weak, instead of later, on their terms?

They see the root cause of the anti-Americanism as the undemocratic nature of their governments and poverty, caused by sanctions and dictators. Unwilling to lift sanctions or engage in diplomacy with these governments, the only way they can think of to fix this is with regime changes.

This is not to say that they think all the target undemocratic countries will require war. The hawks think that one strong democracy in the Middle East, along with the credible threat of force from the US, might lead other countries that are starting to reform, like Iran, to accelerate their reforms. They probably believe that once Arabs see that democracy is possible for them then they will beg for it. Sort of like the domino theory in reverse.

If that does not happen, then a quick forced regime change will fix the problem. We now have Iran tucked neatly between US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq would also make a nice staging point for an attack on Syria. My guess is that we used only the two divisions in Iraq to make this threat credible.

Rumsfeld has to know that his comments, along with the war in Iraq, will make Muslim people rally against the US all over the region. The idea that Syria and Iran selling night vision goggles to Iraq (which there is not the slightest bit of proof of) would be a threat to our troops is absurd. When Iran backed down diplomatically and Syria did not they turned all their threats and complaints against Syria. The threats were made for two reasons: To scare other governments in the region and to demonize Syria to the US public, which is falling for it hook line and sinker.

This is where the next war comes in: As I said above, no matter what we do, or any government in the region does for that matter, there will be more terrorist attacks as a direct result of the war. Everyone predicted terrorist attacks in the short term. Perhaps a hotel full of westerners will explode in Basra. Or a US army barracks in Baghdad. The terrorists will probably be from Syria, Libya, Iran or one of the other countries that they want to bomb. It doesn’t seem to matter much as the media has convinced the US public that Iraq had something to do with September Eleventh. They can use the terrorist attack to declare war on whoever they want.

The media will continue to show the falling statue of Saddam and Americans will think we did a good thing even though we will soon declare Marshal Law to stop the protests, which the American media is pretty much ignoring. Images of the statue falling will have the same effect that images of the towers falling did; it will make the US public think war is the answer.

The propaganda war is on. The administration will say the WMD can't be found because some were destroyed (days before the war, but after the UN failed) and the rest are in Syria. This theory first appeared in an article, planted by the pentagon.

Starting now, the government and media will demonize countries they want to invade, particularly Syria. As soon as there is a major terrorist attack in Iraq the public will demand another invasion because of the war on terror. Our dutiful leaders will have no choice but to rise to the call, even if it is no longer a Republican administration. After all, the dems can't be seen to be soft on terror.

A world war seems inevitable, when you combine this war with the war on terror, and I can't imagine that people like Rumsfeld and the others couldn't predict state sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans to occur in Iraq, thus leading us to overthrow another government. In fact, I think they want it; they will use it as an excuse to invade other countries in the same way they used September 11th to invade Iraq.

Thus, they have brought the human race yet catastrphic war. I see little way of avoiding other wars now that this one has started and I think that was Rummy's plan all along. The problem is that we can not win this war; it will only lead us into a deep cycle of violence.

Assuming that their idea of bombing democracy into the Middle East is a good idea, it could never work. The first flaw in their argument is the assumption that the dictators in the Middle East are the “root cause” of Anti-Americanism. Any time you trust a root cause theory you are oversimplifying everything. Anti-Americanism is caused by a variety of factors, such as our unconditional support of Israel, the fact that we just invaded a Muslim country and have already started pumping oil, Britain (which also promised liberation) occupying Iraq for forty years and people like Franklin Graham demonizing the Muslim faith. Changing the governments, through bloody wars with hideous weapons like cluster bombs that will kill for years, is not the way to end hatred. War and imposed governments will create hatred.

Perhaps the biggest reason why reshaping the region with force is doomed to failure is that, much like the Israelis learned in their invasion of Lebanon, we will learn the local people will not tolerate occupation. The Shia clerics, who are the only power structure in Iraq left in place, have managed to unite with the Suni and have been organizing massive peaceful protests. When they see that we will not give up until we force a secular constitution (our version of democracy) they will not stay peaceful long. Our system is not more seductive than their religion.

Germany and Japan, unlike the countries in the Middle East, were religiously and ethnically homogonous. Winston Churchill had so much trouble controlling Iraqi factions that he advocated using mustard gas against the Kurds. Saddam had the same problem and the same solution. We will not use (lethal) gas but still have no way to humanly control the factions. While our military technology has made drastic improvements at winning conventional wars there have been few advances in fighting guerilla wars or occupying a country in a way that won’t lead to hatred of the occupier.

Of course, the hawks are aware of the problem. However, the fighting between factions is what the administration will use to justify a prolonged occupation of Iraq. The government will talk about protecting the Christian minority who had protection under Saddam and establishing peace between the Kurds and Arabs in the north. It will be reminiscent of Britain refusing Ghandi’s demand to leave India because they wanted to “protect the minority Muslims.”

WW2 offers more lessons than not appeasing tyrants. It should teach the world that when the country with the most powerful military wants to invade country after country it should be stopped. Pre-emption is another word for aggression. Any country could potentially become a threat and the list of countries that they want regime change in is long. War after war should not be acceptable to the world. The US is not run by a tyrant (although the patriot act and things like it are making the country more authoritarian by the day), but that does not make our wars of aggression right. We were right in WW2 because we stood up to aggression.

It is also important to remember that we would probably never have seen the democracies (if you can call them that) of Eastern Europe if we listened to people like the Rumsfeld, who did not want to accept Gorbachav and almost led us to nuclear war many times. These same hawks said that a communist Vietnam was a threat to our way of life. They were against pulling out. Of course after needlessly ending the lives of 3 million Vietnamese and 57,000 Americans, we lost the war and it did not threaten our capitalist way of life one bit. In fact, trade and diplomacy with Vietnam (something the hawks are not even willing to try, labeling it appeasement) is what got Vietnam to reform. And the DOD was wrong and the army was right: it really will take hundreds of thousands to occupy Iraq.

Their ideology assumes that life is worthless for people who live under dictatorships so any amount of damage done during the transition to democracy is acceptable. Their ideology assumes that everyone will want their system because it is best. Their ideology assumes that war is the natural state of humanity but can come to an end once everyone lives in a capitalist democracy.

Optimistic and pesimistic at the same time, their belief provides all the answers because it is an ideology. Their belief is seductive because it is an ideology. But like communism, their belief will fail since it will always oversimplify the world, because it is an ideology.

Now that the hawks have intentionally destroyed the UN, I am not sure how to stop this terrible path that we are on. A terrorist attack will come if we don’t leave Iraq soon. Everyone knows that. But that does not mean we should go have another war. That will just lead us into an escalating cycle of violence. We can’t bomb freedom or defeat terrorism with occuptaion. We will just cause many deaths and much suffering if we continue to try.

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