This Howard Zinn essay came today from Joe Costello. It is as fine a piece on the
Iraq quagmire as I have seen. I especially like the paragraph
that reads
“We can’t leave a vacuum there.” I think it was John Kerry who said
that. What arrogance to think that when the United States leaves a
place there’s nothing there! The same kind of thinking saw the enormous
expanse of the American West as “empty territory” waiting for us to
occupy it, when hundreds of thousands of Indians lived there already.”
I really believe that John Kerry needs to come to a change of heart on
the issue of Iraq. If not, three things will happen to a man who
otherwise could make a fine president. First, he will send many
voters to Ralph Nader, who is no the only candidate clearly advocating
leaving Iraq. Second, he will give those in arms who have become
disaffected with the war no where to go, and they will vote for Bush
out of sympathy on other issyues. Third, he will fail to rally
his base to do the important work left to win this election over the
next five months.
I note that in the Boston metro area, where I live, there are almost no
Kerry stickers. Why is this? Because, I believe, while people
expect to vote for him, they do not really feel that their vote will be
a positive statement of the need to renew our country.
John Kerry needs to give us the reasons he should be president.
One of those reasons could be to profoundly rethink our relationship
with the world, and the sources of our “security.” A world where
most of the 6.3 billion people on the planet hate us is simply not
sustainable, when the cost of acquiring real weapons of mass
destruction, such as hijacked airplanes, is going to zero.
Such a world is not necessary–we can reach out and make common purpose
with those across the world–but to do so, a president would have
to stand up to a variety of people and organizations who are profiting
from the war-making, neo-imperial status quo.
From: Joe Costello
Date: Wed Apr 28, 2004 3:13:41 PM US/Eastern
Subject: zinn
*What Do We Do Now? *
*by Howard Zinn*
It seems very hard for some
people–especially those in high places, but also those striving for
high places–to grasp a simple truth: The United States does not belong in Iraq. It is
not our country. Our presence is causing death, suffering, destruction,
and so large sections of the population are rising against us. Our
military is then reacting with indiscriminate force, bombing and
shooting and rounding up people simply on “suspicion.”
Amnesty International, a year after
the invasion, reported: “Scores of unarmed people have been killed due
to excessive or unnecessary use of lethal force by coalition forces
during public demonstrations, at checkpoints, and in house raids.
Thousands of people have been detained [estimates range from 8,500 to
15,000], often under harsh conditions, and subjected to prolonged and
often unacknowledged detention. Many have been tortured or ill-treated,
and some have died in custody.”
The recent battles in Fallujah
brought this report from Amnesty International: “Half of at least 600
people who died in the recent fighting between Coalition forces and
insurgents in Fallujah are said to have been civilians, many of them
women and children.”
In light of this, any discussion of
“What do we do now?” must start with the understanding that the present
U.S. military occupation is morally unacceptable.
The suggestion that we simply
withdraw from Iraq is met with laments: “We mustn’t cut and run. . . .
We must stay the course. . . . Our reputation will be ruined. . . .”
That is exactly what we heard when, at the start of the Vietnam
escalation, some of us called for immediate withdrawal. The result of
staying the course was 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese
dead.
“We can’t leave a vacuum there.” I
think it was John Kerry who said that. What arrogance to think that
when the United States leaves a place there’s nothing there! The same
kind of thinking saw the enormous expanse of the American West as
“empty territory” waiting for us to occupy it, when hundreds of
thousands of Indians lived there already.
The history of military occupations
of Third World countries is that they bring neither democracy nor
security. The long U.S. occupation of the Philippines, following a
bloody war in which American troops finally subdued the Filipino
independence movement, did not lead to democracy, but rather to a
succession of dictatorships, ending with Fernando
Marcos.
The long U.S. occupations of Haiti
(1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic (1916-1926) led only to military
rule and corruption in both countries.
The only rational argument for
continuing on the present course is that things will be worse if we
leave. There will be chaos, there will be civil war, we are told. In
Vietnam, supporters of the war promised a bloodbath if U.S. troops
withdrew. That did not happen.
There is a history of dire forecasts
for what will happen if we desist from deadly force. If we did not drop
the bomb on Hiroshima, it was said, we would have to invade Japan and
huge casualties would follow. We
know now, and knew then, that was not
true, but to acknowledge that did not fit the government’s political
agenda. The U.S. had broken the Japanese code and had intercepted the
cables from Tokyo to the emissary in Moscow, which made clear that the
Japanese were ready to surrender so long as the position of the Emperor
was secure.
Truth is, no one knows what will
happen if the United States withdraws. We face a choice between the
certainty of mayhem if we stay and the uncertainty of what will follow.
There is a possibility of reducing
that uncertainty by replacing a U.S. military presence with an
international nonmilitary presence. It is conceivable that the United
Nations should arrange, as U.S. forces leave, for a multinational team
of peacekeepers and negotiators, including, importantly, people from
the Arab countries. Such a group might bring together Shiites, Sunnis,
and Kurds, and work out a solution for self-governance, which would
give all three groups a share in political power.
Simultaneously, the U.N. should
arrange for shipments of food and medicine, from the U.S. and other
countries, as well as a corps of engineers to begin the reconstruction
of the country.
In a situation that is obviously bad
and getting worse, some see the solution in enlarging the military
presence. The rightwing columnist David Brooks wrote in mid-April: “I
never thought it would be this bad,”
but he then expressed his joy that
President Bush is “acknowledging the need for more troops.” This fits
the definition of fanaticism: “When you find you’re going in the wrong
direction, you double your speed.”
John Kerry, sadly (for those of us
who hoped for a decisive break from the Bush agenda), echoes that
fanaticism. If he learned any thing from his experience in Vietnam, he
has forgotten it. There, too, repeated failure to win the support of
the Vietnamese people led to sending more and more troops into
Tennyson’s “valley of death.”
In a recent piece in The Washington
Post, Kerry talks about “success” in military terms. “If our military
commanders request more troops we should deploy them.” He seems to
think that if we “internationalize” our disastrous policy, it becomes
less of a disaster. “We also need to renew our effort to attract
international support in the form of boots on the ground to create a
climate of security in Iraq.” Is that what brings security–”boots on
the ground”?
Kerry suggests: “We should urge NATO
to create a new out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S.
commander. This would help us obtain more troops from major powers.”
More troops, more troops. And the U.S. must be in charge–that old
notion that the world can trust our leadership–despite our long record
of moral failure.
To those who worry about what will
happen in Iraq after our troops leave, they should consider the effect
of having foreign troops: continued, escalating bloodshed, continued
insecurity, increased hatred for the United States in the entire Muslim
world of over a billion people, and increased hostility everywhere.
The effect of that will be the exact
opposite of what our political leaders–of both parties–claim they
intend to achieve, a “victory” over terrorism. When you inflame the
anger of an entire population, you have enlarged the breeding ground
for terrorism.
What of the other long-term effects
of continued occupation? I’m thinking of the poisoning of the moral
fiber of our soldiers–being forced to kill, maim, imprison innocent
people, becoming the pawns of an imperial power after they were
deceived into believing they were fighting for freedom, democracy,
against tyranny.
I’m thinking of the irony that those
very things we said our soldiers were dying for–giving their eyes,
their limbs for–are being lost at home by this brutal war. Our freedom
of speech is diminished, our electoral system corrupted, Congressional
and judicial checks on executive power nonexistent.
And the costs of the war–the $400
billion military budget (which Kerry, shockingly, refuses to consider
lowering)–make it inevitable that people in this country will suffer
from lack of health care, a deteriorating school system, dirtier air
and water. Corporate power is unregulated and running wild.
Kerry does not seem to understand
that he is giving away his strongest card against Bush–the growing
disillusion with the war among the American public. He thinks he is
being clever, by saying he will wage the war better than Bush. But by
declaring his continued support for the military occupation, he is
climbing aboard a sinking ship.
We do not need another war President.
We need a peace President. And those of us in this country who feel
this way should make our desire known in the strongest of ways to the
man who may be our next occupant of the White House.
/Howard Zinn, the author of “A
People’s History of the United States
osim/>,” is a columnist for The Progressive. /
Copyright 2004 The Progressive
