SATURDAY, 15 MARCH 2003
Bush is going to the Azores this weekend to show a last-minute effort at diplomacy before unleashing our military. But he is meeting with the committed--Britain, Spain--while the opposition watches from Paris and elsewhere. For weeks, pundits have been saying war is coming "next week." Now, they're saying war is coming next week.
Last week, Bush announced that he would call everyone's hand at the UN. Now the buzz is that, lacking the necessary nine votes in the Security Council, the US will not call for a show of hands.
How Blair, without UN approval, will be able to send troops in with ours is a mystery, given the political hurdles he faces at home.
The conservative press praises Bush for forthright talk and steadfast action. What am I missing? He blows hard, then waffles. This shows in his hollow promises to rebuild Afghanistan, not to mention New York.
Neocons are blaming Powell for four months of useless wooing of the UN. The finger-pointing in the administration has just begun, reporters are saying. Powell could point at the hawks if he were that kind of guy: "You should not have egged Bush on to uncompromising talk, leaving himself no diplomatic escape routes."
Invasion already is being taken for granted. Talk is turning to the post-war plan. John C. Hulsman and James Phillips at The Heritage Foundation urge the US to avoid a top-down "nation building" project. They advocate a pluralist government with representation of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds:
A decentralized federal political system offers the best means of assuring local autonomy, protection against the return of a tyrannical central government, a fair political settlement in Iraq, and an equitable disbursement of Iraq's oil and tax revenues.
News reports today paint a grim picture of inadequate preparations for care of refugees and other victims in a crippled post-war Iraq. NGO's want to do it their way. The US government wants to have over-all control. Voluntary contributions to NGOs are down, given the waiting and watching. The US has allocated too little money for food, medicine, and so on. I find this asymmetry with our magnificent military machine predictable--more evidence of the administration's tendency to promise more than it delivers.
I've come across others who are looking beyond the UN mess and the prospect of imminent invasion.
At the National Review Online (14 March 2003), Victor Davis Hanson expressed exasperation with the dismal diplomatic swamp into which Bush has waded. After this, we need "muscular disengagement." He urged "no more buying, bullying, and begging abroad." This is a colorful variation on the Project for the New American Century. Rumsfeldian. Free us up from "other mercurial and conniving countries." Keep our "strategic flexibility" so that we can move unilaterally when "freedom-loving peoples abroad" want and need our help. But be sure we have "exit strategies" clearly in place. No long-term commitments.
Back to frontier imagery. Hanson's superpower would roam the global range like that masked man on the white horse, the Lone Ranger. A willing Tonto by his side would probably be acceptable. But no long-term contracts--one movie at a time. And make sure he knows who's boss.
Hanson dumps on a half century of international alliance-building. That was the old world; this is the new. Reagan's "morning in America" is morphing into "morning around the globe." And it's all ours to oversee as we think best.
Economic globalization seemed to be creating the processes for a new world order; then 9-11 pushed the Bush administration to revise what globalization might mean.
William Greider (The Nation Online, 13 March 2003) sees a new era of "military globalism." He asks: "Can free-market globalization survive in a world governed by one nation's overwhelming military power?"
Boosters of corporate-led globalization should understand that their vision of a New World Order is fundamentally incompatible with George W. Bush's....The regime of globalization promotes an unfettered marketplace as the dynamic instrument organizing international relations. The other regime relies on the old-fashioned military power of the nation-state--the United States alone in this case--to impose its will on others in the name of global order.
These are serious issues for the future. Today, folks are protesting. (One deadly poster said, "Stop mad cowboy disease.") But the turnout in Washington today was smaller than the one in February. I have a sense that Americans are becoming impatient with dithering at the UN: "If you have to go, get on with it, George. Just make it quick and don't bother us with the details." Plenty of anti-war people are raising voices in the US, but I doubt that they are influencing Bush's decision-making.
Weekly Standard editor David Brooks credits Bush for building American public support for war. Bush's "clear challenge" to the UN was strong. People saw him give the UN "a fair chance to confront Saddam." Brooks believes that Bush's UN effort impressed many, despite the messy diplomatic outcome. "They are less wary of his policy now than they were a few months ago."
Conservative pundit Robert Novack has consistently criticized Bush for allowing himself to be captured by the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz axis. It's refreshing to hear curmudgeon Bob on "Capital Gang" lob bombs at the White House march to war. (But in the next breath he lauds its new tax cut proposals.)
SUNDAY, 16 MARCH 2003
The war is taking its toll on me. Keeping this daily diary has kept me from other projects. I feel pressed more than ever to follow the thread of meaning. The thread wraps around much more than the immediate enforcement of UN resolution 1441. It is wrapping around the globe: what is the world order to be?
War is a form of social intercourse. We are interacting with Muslims in light of 9-11. Few great shifts in the world order have occurred peacefully. If 9-11 was a chapter in the history of globalization, the invasion of Afghanistan and then of Iraq will be chapters that follow.
The aftermath in Iraq will be the very long chapter that follows the story of the battle itself. (Everyone seems to agree on the brevity of the battle. That makes me nervous.) The aftermath in Iraq will be just part of the chapter; the aftermath in our neighborhoods and elsewhere in the world will be part of it too.
Bush, Blair, and the Spanish prime minister held a press conference after their quickie meeting in the Azores today. I strained to find something new. But their main message was to reaffirm Iraq's material breach of 1441. They will implement the UN mandate by bringing serious consequences down on Iraq. Despite their problems with popular dissidents at home, the British and Spanish leaders expressed solidarity with Bush.
The huge irony is that they and Bush, technically, are standing firm for the rule of the UN while most of the rest of the UN is not.
"Tomorrow will be the moment of truth for the world," Bush said. He and his partners will do all they can in the next 24 hours to persuade the UN to live up to 1441. Saddam has invited Blix back to Baghdad; Blix is thinking about it while our tanks warm up. Diplomats and journalists, meanwhile, are leaving there, expecting war.
If we attack, Saddam says that Iraq will fight us wherever there is land, sky, and water--a weirdly Churchillian echo. Echoes of World War II ring behind much of Bush's rhetoric too. That's another irony. The US is in an asymmetrical war against non-state entities. Yet we have amassed a WWII-like invasion force on the border of a nation state. We are not just fighting the last war; we are fighting the war several times removed. Technology of course has changed the hardware and tactics; I mean a mind-set. Bush II seems to be reliving the war of Bush I's youth.
But it feels frivolous to unmask ironies and discover clever comparisons. What the US is on the brink of doing is grave.
One of the vast differences we face in this war--as in no previous war--is the communicative power of the Web. Even in the Balkan conflicts in the mid-1990s, the Web was just coming into its own. The cable networks too were not what they now are. Al Jazeera did not exist. Nor did jingoist Fox News (I think). These now have great power to sway opinion and therefore popular action. This changes the political frame of mind needed to wage war now.
Richard Clarke is former counterterrorism czar. He talked this morning with George Stephanopoulos about possible scenarios of war. (1) Saddam might preemptively spray our amassed troops in Kuwait, before they roll, with chemical or biological weapons from unmanned aircraft. (If he's going to do it and listened to Bush talk about timing today, he would want to launch his preemptive attack tomorrow!) (2) Contrary to 1991, the US this time will not prevent Israel from attacking Iraq. We told Israelis in '91 that we would shoot down their planes if they attacked Iraq. The Muslim world will react explosively to the picture of Israeli and American forces fighting side by side against Arabs.
Clarke thinks we should not be too optimistic about cracking al Qaeda because we have caught some top leaders. Its ranks are deep and new leaders will emerge. The ranks will deepen further, by most estimates, if we invade Iraq. This depth of personnel could extend the war on terrorists into the distant future.
George Will's opinion piece today: "War with Iraq is the humanitarian option." Containment with sanctions is killing 5,000 Iraqi kids a year, he said. Will said that in ten years a million Iraqis would die without regime change. Our attack on Iraq will kill fewer.
And, George said, "The way to prevent war is to prepare to wage war." Reaganism in a nutshell. Saddam allowed inspectors back in only because of our military muscle on his border. I think everybody agrees on that.
From the Trueblood Yokefellow Academy in Des Moines, Iowa, James R. Newby worries about the "desensitizing of America." War talk shows this. We say "collateral damage" when we mean that bombs and bullets accidentally will kill men, women, and children (and their dogs and cats). Newby thinks we desensitize ourselves because it is "the only way we can live with all of the painful realities of war." We're still trying to deal with the feelings that 9-11 gave us, Newby says. We should courageously "reject the fear and callousness that desensitizes us." Our fear: it is becoming a regular refrain in this diary.
MONDAY, 17 MARCH 2003
All diplomatic windows closed today. We decided not to call for a UN vote, knowing France and perhaps others would veto anyway. Headlines: "Diplomacy dies." "Bush's ultimatum."
"In retrospect, the military buildup and the diplomacy were out of sync with each other." So said Richard Holbrooke, former UN ambassador, reported by Steven Weisman in the NYT. "The policies were executed in a provocative way that alienated our friends." ATTITUDE matters! I think I see another diary theme emerging.
Maureen Dowd, Bush's nemesis in the NYT, was thinking in Lone Ranger terms today, as I was on Saturday, 15 March. Hawks didn't want UN support, MD said. They wanted all along to "establish the principle that the US can act wherever and whenever it wants to--a Lone Ranger, no Tontos." (I was allowing a compliant Tonto now and then.)
Tonight at 8:00 pm, Bush gave Saddam and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face military action "at a time of our choosing." Nothing Bush said was unexpected. He reinforced the perception of a pre-determined American march to war.
As he spoke, the government upgraded the terrorist alert to code orange. A terrorist attack on us somewhere is almost certain. The weird logic is this: By attacking Iraq to protect Americans from a second 9-11 event, we heighten the chances of a second 9-11 event!
Attention on the tube shifts to military strategy. Retired generals who consult with news channels are doing overtime as I write in the hours after Bush's speech. They are telling us--and Saddam--how the military game plan will play out. Although we are not staging in Turkey, pundit-ex-generals are sure we have the overwhelming force to do a quick job.
A general of ground troops told Ted Koppel in Kuwait that when the troops cross the LD (line of departure), probably in 48 hours, they'll be wearing full gear to resist chemical or biological weapons. He expects Saddam to fight.
Congressmen opposed to immediate war quieted themselves today as Bush proceeded to put our troops in harm's way. I sense a rallying around the flag. To oppose the war as our troops go under fire would make a Congressman look like a traitor.
But principled opponents of Bush's strategy for fighting terrorists, I hope, will stick to their views as war evolves. The war is still diplomacy by other means. It is still the object of honest political debate. His opponents will still need to try to rescue our president from his need to oversimplify the complexity of world affairs. The simplicity of war, however long or short, never expunges the complexity of the human race.
Bush must be glad to put the diplomatic morass aside for the time being. He declared war with spirit and gravity. I would guess he did so with a sense of relief. Perhaps he feels that the declaration of war will simplify and focus issues. He likes simple sentences, and war is a simple sentence. The execution of war can be chaotic, depending on resistance. But the strategy of war is cleanly logical. I can feel in myself a psychological shift. By the time conflict starts, I may be thinking like a general.
"What do you fear tonight?" Columnist Frank Rich answered on CNN tonight: "Uncertainty. We are going against shadowy enemies. We don't know what will come out of the dead of night." He spoke as a New Yorker, remembering his 9-11 experience. Rich contrasted his attitude with the "certitude" with which Bush spoke. He hoped Bush was right, now that he has committed us.
That familiar theme of FEAR yet again. Tom Friedman today exactly explained why Bush fails to inspire. Bush has been talking for eighteen months about "how we're going to protect ourselves and whom we're going to hit next." He is the man who cannot articulate a global vision. Tom wants us to "get back to exporting our hopes, not just our fears." We need to "repair the world."
Bill Safire in the NYT today said we should get on with it. He's full of hope; he's not afraid. Dissent will decline as we succeed in Iraq. "Smoking guns and hiding terrorists will be found." Those opposing us "will find ways to forgive us" for our action. "New alliances will be rewarded with security." He voices the neocon vision in all its American bravado.
A friend who opposes the war reminded me today that private contractors will be vying to repair Iraq after we bomb it into submission. Halliburton, Cheney's former employer, already has its nose at the trough, she said. Big hawk Richard Perle has a company that could profit from war, according to a piece in The New Yorker (17 March 2003) by Seymour Hersh. The theme of G. B. Shaw's Major Barbara comes to mind: the ghouls of greed gain under the cover of morally clear Christian soldiers marching onward.
The Washington Post has supported Bush's war. Its opinion today, though, is that he should come clean with us on war costs. He should tell us what we will have to sacrifice. He should withdraw or modify his new round of tax cuts.
But Republican loyalists say that we will only pay for the war if we stimulate the economy with tax cuts. I marvel at uncompromising neocon ideology. UNCOMPROMISING: maybe that's an emerging diary theme too.
TUESDAY, 18 MARCH 2003
Saddam's answer to Bush's ultimatum: "Come and get me." An Australian newspaper headline: "Saddam's High Noon." (More cowboy imagery.) The conflict makes me feel like a spectator at a game of chicken being played by pumped-up juveniles. But this is a deadly game. Many people are about to die. "Suddenly, the war is very real," said a Manchester Guardian headline.
Governors and mayors throughout America spent the day tightening security. The orange alert is as bright orange as possible. An attempt at a 9-11 encore is a certainty.
We live within the ten-mile radius of Limerick Nuclear Generating Station. Months ago, we received potassium iodide tablets. We are to take them if Limerick is hit and releases radiation. We decided to take them out of the closet and put them on the kitchen counter.
We have a family escape plan. Margot and I will drive to Schwenksville, pick up our son Kurt, and drive north to Allentown, out of the Limerick danger zone.
I've been thinking about flying to Florida at the end of March. With the high state of alert, I'm watching and waiting.
Democrat Tom Daschle said Bush "failed miserably" to find a diplomatic solution. Republican Dennis Hastert predictably criticized Daschle's lack of patriotic deportment. Daschle countered: this is still a democracy where people can express honest and open opinion, even now. (Cynical acquaintances of mine would add: "But how long?")
Hastert was wrong. Bush's attack on Iraq is a war of choice. Hastert (Bush too?) wants us to behave as if it is a war of necessity, like World War II. This is the time, if ever there was a time, for the policy debate to continue.
Bush has masterfully painted us all into a corner where we feel pressure to support him. He promised diplomacy but built up the military forces in the region. Once there, they became a new reality. Their need to go forward became urgently human. This changed the diplomacy. It changed attitudes on the American street.
Daschle, chastising Bush, said he still supports the troops. We all say that. But what painful logic it takes.
Bush now has more than 60 percent of Americans behind him as he goes to war. I find this astounding. It sobers me to think that he has succeeded in selling so many such a flawed strategy. They are behind him, I guess, because they too like the simplicity of his case--damn the details. Good is us and evil is Saddam. Period. Don't talk about the complex reasons why so many Muslims hate us enough to terrorize us. Don't talk about how we can work on those reasons. Don't make such work our first priority.
Some 45 percent of Americans, according to another poll, believe that Saddam was responsible for 9-11. They heard the specious link that Bush made between Iraq and al Qaeda, then magnified it. I hear Orwell's warning about the power of Newspeak.
Now this just in from France! If Saddam uses chemical or biological weapons against our troops, France will join us in the fight! This, too, would be worthy of a cartoon or a grade B movie—if the situation were not so serious. Someone theorized that France intended to deter Saddam with its declaration.
If Saddam trotted out such weapons, it would prove that Bush was right. This would give France a valid reason to do an about face. It instantly would quiet Bush's homeland critics too.
On Nightline tonight, there was a leader from Qatar, host to our command center. He was explaining that Qatar as a very small country with a very rich resource (oil and gas) has to pursue a sophisticated diplomatic policy to survive. It is up front about its alliance with the US--in contrast to the shadowy way the Saudis befriend us. "This is a tough neighborhood; this is not Mr. Rogers's neighborhood." He obviously studied in the US.
Up-close vignettes of Americans in the NYT today:
--In Marietta, Georgia, Jim Chamberlain compared the '91 Gulf War with the one about to begin. "It's a lot more scary this time," he said. "I'm not glad about it at all."
--A teacher said it's a confusing time. "None of us has ever been here before, where the United States is seen as the aggressor. It's also hard to know how to talk to students about it."
I've been trying not to make this diary merely a daily diatribe against the path Bush has been taking. That's why I've been trying to weigh what neoconservative supporters of that path are saying. My gut tells me, through all the details of the last couple of weeks, though, that this is a wrong turn for America. "NOT GLAD." That says it. The drop-dead decision to fight ought to give us red-blooded Americans a rush. This one seems to be giving a lot of us a headache.
I'm sure that the new Bush "doctrine" of preemption disturbs the one-third of Americans who do not support his war. Somebody said that Congress spent far more time scrutinizing Clinton's sex life than it did this historic departure in our international policy.
At least Paul Krugman won't shut up. As an economist, he has relentlessly found fault with Bushonomics. Now he has turned his scorn on Bush's foreign policy. Ari, he has the right to do so! Don't tell him to watch what he says! Think of him as the left's Rush Limbaugh, with brains. Here's what he said today in the NYT:
Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense, told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court — all in just two years.
It's about ATTITUDE.
William Ury in the Washington Post quoted the 500-year-old saying of a Chinese military strategist: "The acme of victory is not to win a hundred battles but to win without battle." America has about twenty-four hours left before battle. What an incredible victory for us if Saddam is bluffing. Even Krugman (and I) would have to throw some ticker tape for Bush.
WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2003
At 10:15 pm, President Bush declared that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was under way. We bombed Baghdad, to the surprise of pundits and ex-generals. Special operations, according to report, saw a sudden "window of opportunity" to kill Saddam. This illustrates that in this war we will be agile and opportunistic.
Now the guessing game begins. Where's Saddam?
Again according to TV reports, the much-anticipated "shock and awe" campaign will still take place, perhaps tomorrow.
White House reporters said that we will not hear much more from Bush about the campaign. Contact with the media will mainly come through the Department of Defense. Rumsfeld will be the voice of America to the world.
Noteworthy: Bush said in his statement that the war could be longer and more difficult than many believe.
France, Germany, and Russia were wagging fingers at our illegitimate action at the UN. Legitimate or not, hate it or love it, the military action, I hope, will go quickly and well. Bush crossed his Rubicon, one old general said. He took America with him.
As a citizen, I am trying to separate the military campaign narrowly defined from its complex political genesis. I have to root for the home team while it's on the field. The situation at war's end will set the terms for the continued war on terrorists. It will also set the terms for expanding the geo-political plans of Bush's neoconservative hawks. I will still be free to choose political sides after the military contest.
Politics and diplomacy will re-commence. In truth, they never will cease. All the nations want to gain a position in the post-Saddam Iraq agenda. Smart ones are jockeying now. The State Department today released a list of the countries included in the "Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq": Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and Uzbekistan. How good it will feel to have been with the Americans going in! How judicious the Bushies will be in doling out goodies!
Tom Friedman, my diary pal, today in the NYT, before we fired at Saddam, was thinking about our role after the war: "The Bush team needs an 'attitude lobotomy' — it needs to get off its high horse and start engaging people on the World Street, listening to what's bothering them, and also telling them what's bothering us." Tom, how do hawks become modest in victory?
Since the bombardment a couple of hours ago, the TV stations have been in our faces. Live shots of the glare of bombs. Reporters on Baghdad rooftops telling it like it looks. More ex-generals and their maps. Koppel presiding in Kuwait. Rather is back in NY after his fateful interview of Saddam. As I write (midnight), reporters are saying that Saddam will be appearing on Iraqi TV shortly.
Earlier today I looked in on the Arab Press Review by Daniel Kimmage: http://www.rferl.org/specials/iraqcrisis.
What's the flavor of opinion? A sampling:
--From "Al-Bayan" in the United Arab Emirates: "The America that we see before us has no heart. It has given up its conscience to pursue its ambitions in defiance of the world."
--From Algeria's "Al-Khabar": "The United States has become a danger to all humanity, not merely Iraq and the Arabs. For this reason, resistance to America by all legitimate means has become the obligation of each rational person with a germ of goodness in him."
--From "Al-Watan" in Kuwait, I found a position favorable to American intervention:
Some of those who strongly opposed the war against the Iraqi regime fear...changes. But change is welcomed by those who know that the time of dictatorships is over and that the century we are living in requires broader popular participation in crucial decisions....The Americans and their allies will leave after Iraq is liberated....Our peoples do not fear this war, nor do we fear cooperation with the Americans and the West. But we fear a continuation of the backwardness, reaction, and darkness that some governments in the region impose upon their people and, through them, on us as well.
Back home in America, the anti-war voices sing. Justin Raimondo said, "George W. Bush and the neoconservative cabal that has manipulated, bullied, and finally inspired him into war, invoke the ideals of the American Revolution even as they betray and corrupt the vision of the Founders....they invoke 'Americanism' to implement the most anti-American agenda imaginable." Raimondo appeared on the op-ed page of USA Today. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html
The war is stirring "bloggers" (people who post personal logs on the web) to new heights of cyber-rhetoric. Phil Leggiere (http://noosphereblues.blogspot.com/) today said:
As the glorious era of democratic liberation through bombing and preemptive conquest gets rolling the understandable temptation of many of us will be to get depressed and/or utterly pissed-off at, you name it- the Bush neo-con war monger coterie (aka junta), the cheerleading American media and the public supposedly supporting (sic) invasion.
Phil went on to urge people to discipline their resistance to Bush policies. Avoid theatrics and grand-standing. He seemed to be thinking of solving the Bush leadership problem in 2004 at the polls.
THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2003
We still don't know if our bombs got Saddam in the initial strike on his bunker in Baghdad. Surrender negotiations might have started today with his officers. Some Iraqi troops near Kuwait have surrendered. We are delaying the "shock and awe" barrage. Rumsfeld talked directly to Iraqi military leaders today in his news conference, hoping to persuade them not to resist.
Brits and Americans took first casualties when a helicopter went down from mechanical failure, not Iraqi action.
Kurds in the north are worried that we will allow Turks to come after them. Tim Judah (NY Review of Books, 10 Apr 2003) reports that in the Kurdish quadrant of Iraq, "Everything is up in the air." "Nobody knows what the Turks will do" there. And lacking a staging ground in Turkey, our forces cannot mass there to keep order between Turks and Kurds. The energy for conflict comes from the Kurdish desire for a state of their own that would cross into Turkey--and Turkey's fear of the same.
Turks have granted us fly-over permission but no landing or refueling rights. Judah talked with a Turkish official who took part in the failed talks with Americans for landing rights in return for economic benefits. Bush's people had "disparaged the Turks as haggling 'rug merchants' and 'belly-dancers' and had refused to listen to Turkish concerns as a good ally should."
Turkish foreign minister Yashar Yakis got a brush-off from Bush himself when he tried to tell him about Turkish interests. Yakis later said of Bush, "The man is ill."
More ATTITUDE.
The Senate voted 99-0 to support the troops and the CinC, now that we are engaged in war. Anti-war columnist Bob Herbert (NY Times, 20 March 2003) said he would support our fighters while still criticizing the strategy that placed them in Iraq:
We should get rid of one canard immediately, and that's the notion that criticism of the Bush administration and opposition to this invasion imply in some sense a lack of support or concern for the men and women who are under arms....I hope that the war goes well, that our troops prevail quickly and that casualties everywhere are kept to a minimum.
Muslims around the world protested our invasion of Iraq. Pakistani Islamic leaders said that it justifies a "holy war" against America. America signed its "death warrant" by bombing Baghdad. "Sheer colonial invasion." "Beginning of the end of American imperialism." (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies)
An Iraqi spokesperson: "They are a superpower of Al Capones." (References to our pop icons--Capone, Mr. Rogers--show our penetration of Muslim culture in the global village.)
Anti-war demonstrators (as well as some pro-war demonstrators) around the US returned to the streets. People against the war clogged Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Philly had its share of arrests. The political debate is not going to stop just because people support the troops at a human level.
As it becomes evident that "we will prevail" (Bush's refrain) militarily in Iraq, the question of the future will take precedence. There are two questions. (1) What will be the political arrangement of Iraq? (2) What will be the geo-political arrangement of the world?
On (2), the fear abroad and at home is that a Lone Ranger America will be loose in the world, imposing its will unilaterally on any nation it decides to target. Timothy Garton Ash (NY Times, 20 March 2003) offered "Blairism" as an alternative. Blair has suggested that "we should recreate a larger version of the cold war West" in response to the new threats we face from the convergence of terrorism and traffic in weapons of mass destruction.
Ash agrees with Blair's view that these threats should "frighten us as much as the Red Army used to." Europe in Blair's vision joins with the US in partnership against this new worldwide enemy. So, Europe's response to 9-11 should have been on a vastly more aggressive scale. Europe should not let the US go it alone but join it as a partner in new and stronger international institutions.
Sounds great--until I think of the unilateralist hubris pumping out of our neocons. "Who needs Europe?" Bob Herbert's take on the war sticks in my mind:
What's driving this war is President Bush's Manichaean view of the world and messianic vision of himself, the dangerously grandiose perception of American power held by his saber-rattling advisers, and the irresistible lure of Iraq's enormous oil reserves.
Herbert acknowledges it's a good idea to free Iraqis from Saddam. But he insists there were better ways to do it.
FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 2003
Jonathan V. Last is editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard daily online edition. At 7:15 am today he observed that our mainstream media "finally" are reporting on the desire of Iraqis to remove Saddam. He cited NY Times reporter John Burns speaking from Baghdad. With bombs now bursting, Iraqis are telling Burns "that they are waiting for America to come and bring them liberty." Burns emphasized that there are "many, many Iraqis who see what is about to happen here as a moment of liberation."
Also, Last cited CNN's Martin Savidge. Savidge reported that as his troop column (he's "embedded") sped north toward Baghdad this morning, "large numbers of Iraqi civilians came outside to wave to the troops."
Last contrasts Iraqis' support of US action with the opposition "on the American left." "These people are as nutty as you think." In Washington, "The group was surprisingly young, so maybe they should be forgiven."
Last trivializes opposition to Bush. On the other side, protesters do the same to Bush and his hawk supporters. Do you have to see the Iraq war in black-and-white terms in order to support or oppose it? Could Bush people act if they thought in more complex terms? Could protesters' placards reflect the ambiguity of geopolitical reality? Or would too much thinking lead to too little action?
Many who hold an anti-Bush point of view are neither trivial nor excusably young. Neocons like Last should hear them out.
But Last declared yesterday that debate ended when the action started. The events in Iraq will settle the argument posed by protesters. "Debate about Iraq is now pointless." Through combat, "we should find out the answers to nearly all our questions in the next several weeks"--the future of the UN, democracy in the Middle East, American empire. "That's the one nice thing about events. They cut through the posturing and clarify the world."
Uh-huh. The end of military action will surely pose more questions than answers. It will take hard thought—and reasoned debate—to find useful answers. Last's faith in the purity of action is like faith in fairies. Again, American myths arise: the purity of Hemingway's bull fight, the cowboy's faith in his Colt 45.
Last's colleague, Rachel DiCarlo, on 20 Mar 03, skewered the NY Times for its slanted take on Bush and war: "Has President Bush done anything right in his campaign to liberate Iraq? You wouldn't think so, judging from some New York Times articles…." She analyzes some "news" stories that were critical of Bush.
The Christian Science Monitor editorialized in a forward-looking mood today. With an American "occupation lite," Iraqis could retain (regain) their integrity. "If Iraqis can free themselves with US assistance, that would send a message that US leadership isn't all muscle and brawn - or just about US interests." This also would help "restore trust" among Americans against the war. CSM has always commanded my respect. Its view buoyed up my hopes for this mess.
Today was the day Baghdad was waiting for--"shock and awe" rained down from the skies. Reporters on rooftops, with camera operators, brought us the live experience on TV. The spectacle forced them to suspend critical judgment. Bombs were smart and sought out military and governmental targets. Still, a lot of real estate had to go down in rubble today.
The spectacle seemed to "shock" protesters in cities worldwide to new intensity, while reporters voiced the "awe."
Sandy Berger, Lawrence Eagleburger, and their ilk have been doing TV punditry big time. Berger said that early successes should not lead to premature celebration. Much remains. If the Iraqis resist around Baghdad and drag out the combat for more than a week, the campaign will be in trouble, he and others think.
US leaders would like to keep casualties as low as possible to contain negative reactions at home and abroad. They would like a swift discovery of WMD to show the world they were right. They would like to preserve as much of the Baghdad infrastructure as they can. Reports from the north say that Turks are moving in on Kurds; they would like to settle Baghdad so they can work on Turk-Kurd conflict.
Bush went to Camp David with his cabinet for the weekend. He is relying on Rumsfeld and the generals to do the work now. I hope he is revving up the political and diplomatic machinery for heavy duty when the shooting stops. And wouldn't it be great if he had an ATTITUDE treatment.
SATURDAY, 22 MARCH 2003
A disturbed GI in the 101st Airborne Division in Southern Iraq tossed grenades into two command tents, wounding nearly a dozen. One died so far.
Several reporters are wounded or missing. Turkish incursions into Kurdish Iraq grow more worrisome. Iraqi soldiers have surrendered and melted into the landscape. But resistance has not melted. Each American who dies or receives a wound is getting quick media attention.
Our troops have crossed the Euphrates river and are moving closer to Baghdad. Damages to Saddam's palaces are colossal. But a photo after the attack showed a bust of Saddam still in place against the rubble. Eerie.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators protested in major world cities today. They were "shocked" but not "awed," Islamic press reports said.
Hawk George Will answers critics of the war: "America's critics will credit neither the probability that a war of disarmament will purchase a large reduction of future violence nor the fact that American war plans reflect remarkable attempts to use military technology to minimize violence." (Washington Post, 21 Mar 03)
Will, like so many, cannot respect the view of Bush opponents. He excoriated Tom Daschle as follows for criticizing Bush: "Many elements of the Democratic Party, including most of its base and many of its most conspicuous leaders, seem deranged, unhinged by the toxic fumes of hatred and contempt they emit for the president." (19 Mar 03 Washington Post)
Representative Jim Leach (Iowa-R) voted against the Iraq war resolution. He said at the time, "If we are a poor respecter of other people's thoughts, our thoughts are not going to be well received at another time." (Quoted by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post, 21 Mar 03)
After reading a couple of Post columns by Will, I feel I've earned the right to see what gadfly Michael Kinsley is saying about Bush. He finds Bush rapidly taking the position of "the closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world." With the new so-called doctrine of preemption, the US can "attack any country that may be a threat in five years." That was the timeline Bush gave for a Saddam attack on us. The US has the sole right to decide on such a risk. And the president has the right "to make that decision...in his sole discretion" as Commander-in-Chief. (Washington Post, 21 Mar 03) Kinsley overstates. But he's pointing at a real problem.
Gen. Tommy Franks, who is leading the battle, held his first press conference since hostilities began. He spoke plainly and directly. Professional destroyer, he showed cool restraint.
Pope John Paul II spoke against the attacks: "When war, as at this time in Iraq, threatens the destiny of humanity, it is even more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that peace alone is the way to construct a united and just society."
After the US started bombing on 20 Mar 03, the Vatican said it was a "defeat for reason."
The next wave of air strikes will number "500 aim points." It's about to begin as I write. A single target can include more than one aim point. The tonnage zooming into Baghdad is by all accounts unprecedented. The bombs fly to their military targets and avoid surrounding civilian streets--they say. The jury is still out, surely, on whether our smart bombs are smart enough not to be killing any Iraqi civilians.
Mansoor Ijaz, an American-born Muslim of Pakistani descent, is chairman of Crescent Investment Management in New York and Foreign Affairs and Terrorism Analyst for Fox News. American Arabs and Muslims must support our armed forces in Iraq, he says in the 21 Mar 03 Daily Standard. It's "high time" they learn the meaning of US citizenship. He prayed to Almighty Allah to give our military men and women "wisdom to free a nation from the scourge a madman brought upon its citizens."
John Donvan of ABC News said that slow aid and other concerns are fueling the discontent of liberated Safwan residents toward the US. The day before, we saw pictures of them welcoming our forces. They danced as they tore down a picture of Saddam. A day later, they asked Donvan: "Why are you here in this country? Are you trying to take over? Are you going to take our country forever? Are the Israelis coming next? Are you here to steal our oil? When are you going to get out?"
But then, according to a neoconservative critic, ABC News is the only network not reporting objectively.
The battle consumes this diary, like the nation. Action does preempt thought, as Last said. But only for the moment. The stock market saw the action and said it felt okay. But perhaps only for the moment.
Bush, with neoconservative ideologues around him, has launched more than a little war in Iraq. He has opened questions about the global system that will not find quick or simple answers. I think he is pressing Americans to revise core values. He weds fear (of the second 9-11) with military power. (The organ is playing ATTITUDE.) He fears that old-time alliances force us to give too much and get too little in return.
The Americans protesting in the street symbolize the depth of the debate the nation wants (needs) to have about its character. But neoconservatives already have had their debate, and they won. Why should they listen to dissent when they already know what America has to do? Action's the thing for Bush, Bob Woodward said.
So, the 2004 presidential election campaign looms as the last best chance for this special nation to take time to examine its soul.
Our actions should speak of hope to others. As long as fear of a second 9-11 grips us at the throat, and as long as we can mask our fear with military power, our words of hope will sound like words of fear. Our acts of help will look like acts of oppression to those we would help. They will fear too. They will fear Americans.
And hate us. Anti-Americanism spreads. Bin Laden tried to mobilize Muslims against us and failed. Bush's preemptive war may be doing the job.
Maybe the fate of Americans is to fear, conquer, and be feared. The nation, nevertheless, should seek to know itself more clearly before we acquiesce in such brutish business. Empires of fear cannot stand very long. I want to go back and re-read Emerson. And Thoreau.
SUNDAY, 23 MARCH 2003
A US Muslim in live dialogue online said: "Really i dont know what we can do to help this end....i feel trapped, in a box, and with no place to go...the ummah is hurting and i have no way to help. please give my family a way to help our brothers and sisters...making dua'a is a must, i mean something with our own hands..."
Dr. Najib Ghadbian, Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies, University of Arkansas, answered: "Yes, I guess we all should pray for the safety of the Iraqi people, and that is the first level of response. But then the second level for every person to do what they can to express their objection to this unjustified war. Most of us could do this by peaceful means wherever we are." (IslamOnline.net)
Theme of network news tonight: "a long Sunday." Fifty marines wounded. Twelve Americans captured. Two Brits killed by American friendly fire. "A difficult day." "A rough 24 hours." We met pockets of "determined resistance" at Nasiriyah. Where Americans expected a sympathetic feeling from Iraqis, they are meeting hostility. Pix of American POWs appeared on Al Jazeera TV throughout the Arab region.
Enormous fresh explosions in Baghdad, the most intense yet. "Spectacular."
Peter Jennings: "War is a deadly business."
It's possible to escape the dismal immediacy of battle by speculating on what the US will do next after Iraq.
Maverick historian Niall Ferguson dipped into nineteenth-century British history to find a tip for Bush. Action in splendid isolation is not enough, Ferguson said. "Even a hyperpower needs diplomacy--especially where the powers of the future are concerned." He directed Bush's attention to the threat of North Korea: "Mix unilateral power plays [as in Iraq] with smart diplomacy. Soon after that victory parade in Baghdad, Mr. President, take a plane to Beijing. " (NY Times, 23 Mar 03)
Meanwhile, Bush is in the grip of the vision of the Project for the New American Century. Teacher and author William Rivers Pitt sees the attack on Iraq as a "welcome to the American Empire" envisioned by Richard Perle, William Kristol and the rest of the group. Pitt:
Don't be surprised that your rights and privileges have changed all of a sudden. We used to be a constitutional democracy. That's pretty much done now. You're a citizen of an empire today, one that attacks sovereign nations without cause, with the backing of such international heavyweights as Spain and Eritrea. You're not a citizen. You're a customer. Take a number and get in line.
I have headaches and sleep restlessly. The war is the first thing to enter my mind in the morning. I try to get back to writing an essay about Rousseau but put it off. I've put a flight to Florida on hold until we see what the outcome of war is. And I'm out of the action. For those directly in it—soldiers, their families, the White House people, protesters on both sides—it must be the only thing.
Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine) at the Academy Awards ceremony gave Bush hell. A "fictitious president" is sending troops into battle "for fictitious reasons." Boos and cheers. MC Steve Martin later said the scene backstage was a riot: "The Teamsters are helping Mr. Moore into the trunk of his limo." Streisand and others more circumspectly registered their passion.
MONDAY, 24 MARCH 2003
Pottstown Mercury headlines today: "US soldiers captured." "Allies run into setbacks on the road to Baghdad." "Army captain killed in grenade attack was from Easton."
For people who think we mistakenly invaded Iraq, the news now shuts down irony, sarcasm, and humor. For the "let's roll" people, it may be dampening spirits a little.
In the psyche of Hawk America, fear of a new kind magnifies fear of a second 9-11. Hawk America fears that its great power may not be great enough. It fears that enemies may see its fear through the bombs bursting in air.
The glory of pre-Hawk America was that, no matter how mighty our power, we were with the underdogs. Tell that to an Arab now.
Looking ahead: assuming military success, we are learning that a group of Iraqi "elites" is preparing to form a political party after Saddam. They call it al-Tajammua ("the Grouping"). They talk about turning over WMD and creating representative government.
Richard Perle, the guru of anti-Saddamism, says beware: "The idea that the U.S. would simply issue orders to the same mob that served under Saddam is ridiculous." (Time online, 22 Mar 03) How loudly will we pronounce our imperial orders when the infighting among Iraqi politicians really gets going after the war? Will we set up a de-Saddamization program, like the de-Nazification program of 1945?
But Saddam didn't die in the initial bunker bust, it appears. He addressed the people of Iraq on TV today and spun his appearance for world consumption. Time online said: "The Iraqi leader appeared to be in control of his nation as he rallied the troops and urged continued resistance."
Saddam's strategy is to create Vietnam II for the US. He said, "The enemy is working on making (the war) short, and we, with the will of God, are working on making it long and heavy, so that the enemy will sink in the mud until he chokes, is beaten and will be cursed."
Putin's Chechnya comes to mind.
The oddness of our fighting in Iraq shouts at me. I have to read hawks as a daily reminder—why are we doing this? Larry Miller in the Daily Standard today made me realize how serious it all is because he talked about haircuts.
We are at war in Iraq because we are a nation at war with ourselves; and hawks, for the moment, are on top. Hair is the battleground of our culture. Larry took his boy to the barbershop. Kids were getting their hair died and spiked, but not his. Give him a haircut like the one Tommy Franks wears, he told the stylist. Larry had to explain who Tommy Franks was—she never heard of him. I remembered the musical, Hair, and the terrible angst that surrounded hair in the 1960s. Iraq is an American culture war. Déjà vu.
TUESDAY, 25 MARCH 2003
Today, the word is that Bush will be speaking to us about a hard and perhaps long struggle. He also told Congress the first war bill is about $75 billion. Now that soldiers are dying, he's finally talking bucks. His refusal to estimate costs up to the day we bombed should have Democrats shouting from the House-top. But now the call for solidarity behind the Commander-in-Chief silences them. The administration plays the Washington violin like an Itzak Perelman.
Bush telephoned Putin to check on the allegation that Russian companies are supplying sensitive military equipment to Iraq. Putin denied it.
(Putin said a few days ago: "If we install the rule of force in place of international security structures, no country in the world will feel secure.")
Bush warned Iraq to treat our prisoners of war humanely or else.
I'm looking at pre-war comments to see how prophetic they were:
Item I : On 8 March 2003, in "live dialogue" on Islamonline.net, Thomas R. Pochari, Editor of World Affairs Monthly, answered a question about American intentions in Iraq (Saddam at that point was thumbing his nose at Bush's ultimatum):
The main element in this attack on Iraq is to make sure that Israel has unfettered access to the entire Middle East ... that no Arabs can challenge Israel. Now, the question is: can the Arabs of Iraq be friends of the West and the US government? I would say yes, but not when Israel is there. So this is the beginning of a large and very violent war, whose outcome in my view will be predictable. The Arabs will at last fight to get their independence from the Western nations.
This runs directly counter to the Richard Perle thesis. He told a (just-short-of-inhospitable) Peter Jennings on 24 March 03 that our liberation of Iraq is going well. A post-Saddam representative regime in Iraq will become a stabilizing force in Arab lands--Perle's prediction.
Many Arabs throughout the region, however, are re-legitimizing Saddam as his loyal troops impede invading Americans on the route to Baghdad. (Their pluck is coming with deceptive disguises and unconventional tactics--but never mind.) Al-Jazeera TV is re-making Saddam and his loyal fighters into Arab folk heroes.
Item II: On 17 February 2003, the NY Times reported that Bush people "for the first time openly" were discussing what could go wrong. How will Iraqis receive US forces? With "cheers, jeers, or shots." (We've seen a few cheers, some jeers, and a good many shots so far.) Transition of power might be "muddy"--even if Saddam went into exile or fell to a coup. (A disappearing Saddam now seems like wishful thinking). Internal "rivalries and feuds" might explode after decades of being "bottled up" by the Saddam regime. Terrorist events in North Korea or Europe might tie up our military resources. (Too late to worry now.)
Invading forces have not yet found firm evidence that Iraq holds weapons of mass destruction.
From a Time magazine special report, explaining why we are in Iraq: "What had brought Bush into the get-Iraq-now camp? The most important factor was also the simplest. By the fall of 2001, Bush and other senior policymakers in Washington were scared out of their wits." [My emphasis]
The same report quotes Dick Cheney: "I do think 9/11 is a historic watershed." Cheney worried that "the next attack on [US] territory 'could involve far deadlier weapons than the world has ever seen.'"
Even a shadow of suspicion that Iraq would supply terrorists was enough for the administration to go after Saddam. (Perle and Wolfowitz of course targeted Iraq before 9-11. The attack brought their pet strategy up to the top of the priority list.)
So, Arabs think we are there to foster Israeli dominance. We think we are there to prevent a second 9-11 by (a) eliminating WMD and (b) stabilizing the region with democratic (friendly) regimes. This is confusion on a grand scale.
Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY asked an expert, "Why does everything seem so confused to Americans?" He answered that a war never before has had so much real-time TV coverage. Sometimes the "embedded" journalists are too close to their little piece of battle to see the larger picture. They broadcast, essentially, strategic nonsense. Several such broadcasts do not lead to strategic sense but to greater nonsense.
Americans now realize (all over again) that war has a cost in blood and pain. Bush muted that message when he sold the public on war. Families and communities started paying the moment we had our first casualty. Since Vietnam, Americans have refused to "pay any price"—they now limit their expenditure. No one knows how high they are willing to go in Iraq before they resist. Everyone hopes combat ends fast.
Today Saudi Arabia proposed a peace plan to the US and Iraq. No details. Prince Saud put the blame on both sides. But he said the US is not an "imperialist country." A State Department spokesperson: "It's a bit late in the game to be floating peace plans."
Rumsfeld and Myers took verbal sniper fire from journalists at today's briefing. The question: why have your plans gone awry? The answer: the plans are intact; patience, please.
Embedded journalists and 24-7 TV coverage have altered expectations of war. Americans now think in terms of "shows" rather than "campaigns." More people, it seems, are feeling that this show is already dragging on too long.
WEDNESDAY, 26 MARCH 2003
Sure, the NY Times leans against Bush and the war. Still, its reports and comments on this day catch the flavor:
--Daryl Press: "America would do well not to embark on future wars whose political success depends on the assumption that the enemy won't fight."
--"As allied forces rethink their ground campaign, the big risk is that civilian casualties could provoke resentment against the invaders."
--Michael Gordon: "The attack on the Republican Guard will be delayed while American and British forces fight in and around southern cities."
--John Burns: "Tuesday was a grim day in Baghdad, perhaps the grimmest since the war began, and with the darkening prospect of worse to come."
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard. His early morning pieces in the online Daily Standard are like a weather vane. They let me know just how the neocon-hawk mind is blowing on a given day.
Today he pillories "war hypocrites." War protesters have not protested Iraqi treatment of American prisoners—hypocrites. Reps. Rangel and Conyers proposed drafting troops but voted against support of troops in Iraq—hypocrites. (When your hawk morale falls as bad news comes in, pump it up by bashing your political opponents. Never ever admit a mistake.)
Last in the same morning column differentiates between liberal and conservative worldviews:
Liberals like international agreements and believe the world can be run through multilateral diplomacy. Conservatives believe that agreements are only needed to tame the type of people who won't adhere to them.
That, he says, is why Bush opposed the Kyoto accords and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In part, that also is "the reason we are now at war."
Maybe Jonathan Last—or I—got up too early. What's he saying? My interpretation: multilateral diplomacy is bunk because it won't control rogues and ruffians. Therefore, control them with force. Hence, the march to Baghdad.
It's unfair of me to press for too much meaning in early-morning musings in the heat of war. Still, Last represents a frame of mind that is currently shaping the events of the world. So, I press to the point of asking: does this mean that, in neocon-hawk ideology, non-rogues and non-ruffians will behave rationally and fairly toward the US without the aid of formal agreements?
This contradicts Burkean conservatism. The passions and prejudices of people and nations (even respectable nations) obstruct right behavior; social customs and constraints, hard-won through experience, have to help them do the right thing. Last's conservatism seems confused. Maybe that's part of the reason we are now at war. (Maybe that shows how neoconservatives differ radically from traditional conservatives.)
Bush will get his $75 billion from Congress for war. I had a dream about Congress allocating $75 billion for re-ordering the world without shooting. I called George Soros in and told him to deliver the money to the needy people; he had to by-pass regimes that would suck up the funds for themselves. His scheme for distributing funds through "special drawing rights" in the International Monetary Fund would be a beginning.
But we are in the real business of destroying things--like Baghdad--so we can save them. Dreams of a world without shooting are for faint hearts now.
Rename the Euphrates the Western world's Rubicon.
Ted Koppel in Iraq summed up the situation at the end of our day. Our overwhelming technical strength and trained troops will probably win the war. But we have not won the swift victory that Washington had hoped for. Saddam's regulars and irregulars have put up ferocious resistance. This could still be a long conflict with heavy US casualties. "The administration in Washington has done little to prepare the American people for that."
Chinese TV newscasters reported on the strong Iraqi resistance to the invaders. They remembered Mao's saying: "People not weapons are decisive in battle."
John Donvan (Nightline) tried to find out how Iraqis are greeting us. Troops get smiles in one town and sneers in another. People are still afraid of Saddam. He has not yet fallen. Baath party operatives could still get them if they speak against the regime. Fear runs deep.
Another reporter said that Iraqis do not object to our campaign to get rid of Saddam. But as soon as we get rid of him, they want to get rid of us too!
The neocon-hawks simply do not plan to leave until they have "fixed" the politics of Iraq. I wonder about the "impatience factor" that drives Bush. He surely would not be happy to get the US bogged down in Iraqi political sand. Yet, neocon-hawks want to use Iraq as a model and a jumping-off point for Middle East rearrangement. This will be one of many tensions that Bush will have to find the patience to address.
THURSDAY, 27 MARCH 2003
The details of battle fill radio, TV, and print. Hourly reports on hourly events promise major shifts of fortune—but do not deliver. To avoid the up-and-down ride of daily war reportage, I step back. What thoughts are the neocon hawks forging in the smithy of war? This takes me to the site of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC):
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqmiddleeast.htm
Gol' danged if the first thing to hit my eye isn't another Wild West metaphor. Hawks can't free themselves from American Western folk mythology. I guess they think it is simple and clear.
Gary Schmitt of the LA Times (23 March 2003) reflected on US power and duty: "US action is crucial to maintaining world order." We have to act to prevent the damages of global political drift and the doings of evil ones. We have to be free of UN constraints in exercising our power in pursuit of our duty.
There is no "disembodied, benign voice" of a so-called "international community," Schmitt said. Particular national interests always will determine UN votes. And that always will block our ability to use our preeminent power to do our global duty. (The US, this seems to imply, is the only nation on earth that will not act in pursuit of its particular national interest. This generous self-assessment in neocon-hawk ideology is either naive or delusional.)
Schmitt turned to hawk Robert Kagan's book, Of Paradise and Power, to illustrate. The US, Kagan said, is like Gary Cooper's character, Marshall Will Kane, in the movie, High Noon. Schmitt:
The townspeople are more than happy to live in the peace brought by his law enforcement but are nervous and resentful when the bad guys come back to town looking for him, to enact their revenge. The residents shortsightedly believe that if the marshal would just leave town, there would be no trouble. Of course, the reverse is true. Without Kane to protect them, the town would quickly fall into an anarchic state, paralyzed by ruthless gunslingers.
When action brings change, it frightens people, said Schmitt. Without action, however, the perils of the existing state of affairs will destroy them. Effective action depends on power; and power needs to be free to act for the good at the right time—whether the people see that clearly or not.
My friend Galen Godbey reminded me of the ending of High Noon. After killing the bad guys bent on revenge, Sheriff Kane removes his badge, tosses it into the dirt, and leaves town in a buggy with the pretty blonde. Disgusted with the townspeople, he leaves them defenseless against any new enemies.
If High Noon is a metaphor of American power in the new century, Kagan, Schmitt, and those who think like them should study the significance of its ending. Americans may become disgusted with their imperial role quicker than hawks think.
To be a hawk is to talk a little theory and then say, "Let's roll." Theoretically, there is no international community with the power or authority to create international order. Practically, there is a power great enough to create international order. We are it—"Let's roll."
Schmitt's argument is too brief to merit criticism. But it encapsulates a feeling and a frame of mind about the future. Like most neocon arguments, his seems blind and deaf to the unintended consequences of the use of unilateral power. And he seems unable to see that we must process those consequences in whatever power plays we make.
Already in Ari Fleischer, Rumsfeld, and Bush, I hear the tone of resentment: Saddam's loyalists are fighting dirty. Their guerilla tactics violate a naïve hawk vision of how enemies should behave when faced with imperial might. This rising note of hawk resentment has the boring, familiar sounds of past asymmetrical wars. Wasn't there a '60s song: "When will they ever learn?"
Project for the New American Century (PNAC) on 19 March 2003 made a statement on post-war Iraq. It wisely allows for a complexity in global affairs that Schmitt ignored in his piece. This statement endorses the war to remove the regime. It sees three accomplishments to flow from military victory: " disarming Iraq of all its weapons of mass destruction stocks and production capabilities; establishing a peaceful, stable, democratic government in Iraq; and contributing to the democratic development of the wider Middle East."
Some PNAC principles must operate after victory to gain these accomplishments:
--Iraq needs a "pluralistic system representative of all Iraqis and that is fully committed to upholding the rule of law, the rights of all its citizens, and the betterment of all its people."
--The US has to be "committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."
--"American allies and the [whole] international community" must give us "important assistance" as the US meets its commitment. [Note who will call the shots.]
--The US military will "bear much of the initial burden of maintaining stability in Iraq" but will yield to Iraqi civilian authorities as it establishes security.
--The US must look to "our allies in Europe and elsewhere" to provide long-term security; therefore, we must involve NATO and other "international institutions" early. [The US, by implication, will determine the terms of involvement.]
--Although the US must lead the stabilization and rebuilding effort, the "full involvement of key international organizations" is essential.
A quick reading of this manifesto might lead you to think that PNAC is expressing a familiar, high-minded vision of an idealistic American nation in the world. Think again. We act; we decide; we open the door to involve others when we need them.
I see a picture that is almost feudal (to abandon the hackneyed Wild West metaphor). The baron in his castle on the hill calls on his vassals below when he needs help. The US condescends. Others do our bidding. This picture looks weirdly unlike the generous nation I thought we had created.
Back to reality. Nightly news says that a 5,000-pound "bunker buster" from a B-52 bomber made an "enormous explosion" in Baghdad. I begin to fear a deadly ratio will operate: the more frustrated our politicians become with the military morass, the more violent our military ordnance will become.
But Bush has cautioned against doubt of the military plan. Reporters should not ask "silly" questions--such as, "How long will the war last?" It will last until it's over, Bush said.
27 February 2003 through 14 March 2003
15 March 2003 through 27 March 2003
