#100, September 18, 2002
We lay together side by side, a cluster of lodgepole pines
holding the Milky Way high above us. Zipped up in our nylon bags, sleep heavy
on our brows after a long day full of wonder, wandering. “Good night.”
“G’nite.” I was seeing my son off to college via a backpacking trip in the
northern Sierra. But next spring, it might be different scene: watching him
come home from Iraq, zipped up in another kind of bag.
I suppose I might find cold comfort in his dying for a
worthy cause. But he’s not dead yet, nor are the other thousands like him who
would be consumed in the fire of the Iraq war, the war for…
What is this war
for, anyway? Our Administration wants us to believe that any day now Saddam
will pop a nuke on us. So why isn’t the President able to rally support from
anyone but Great Britain? Not even his own party supports him.
Scott Ritter, Republican ex-Marine, for 7 years following
the Gulf War the Chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq: “I'm very certain that the
Bush administration has not provided any evidence to substantiate its
allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime is currently pursuing weapons of mass
destruction programs or is in actual possession of weapons of mass
destruction.” Henry Kissinger, a man not shy about launching bloody wars: “The
notion of justified pre-emption runs counter to modern international law, which
sanctions the use of force in self-defense only against actual -- not potential
-- threats." Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George H. Bush,
says a U.S. invasion of Iraq "could turn the whole region into a
cauldron and, thus, destroy the war on terrorism."
Perhaps the rest of the world is simply skeptical of
President Bush’s concern for their interests. His administration is rejecting
or ignoring international treaties restricting greenhouse gas emissions,
biological and chemical weapons, land mines, torture, small arms trade, nuclear
weapons proliferation, and anti-ballistic missiles.
Nelson Mandela, who’s got nothing to lose from telling the
truth, puts it bluntly: “The attitude of the
United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because
what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security
Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of
other countries….It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's
desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America.”
What else might be motivating this war fervor? Remember the
film Wag the Dog? The movie President, whose predicament mirrored President
Clinton’s, called up a war with Albania to hide his screwing around with his
mistress. Life imitated art when Clinton attacked Saddam at the time of the
impeachment vote in Congress. Now, Bush’s war drummers are drowning out media
attention to the fact that the President’s CEO friends have been screwing the
American economy, running off with insider profits and a mammoth tax cut. The
loudest drummer, our Vice President and former oil industry CEO Dick Cheney,
has the most to lose from public and congressional attention to this financial
plunder.
The alternative to war is clear: reinstate the weapons
inspectors that were driven out in 1998 when, according to Ritter, they were
used as spies for targeting US air strikes. Enforce the inspection program with
a multinational force, sanctioned by the United Nations. Address root causes,
the injustices in the Middle East (like the Saudi dictatorship.) Get serious
about the switch to safe, renewable energy.
We are at the crossroads again. Will we be whipped by a patriotic
marketing campaign into investing our sons and daughters and billions of
dollars into the downward spiral: death and destruction, deprivation and
desperation? Pre-emptive attacks and pre-emptive retaliations? The “peace” of a
police state? Or will this, finally, be a turning point in human history?
Thirty years ago, it was the political power of the anti-war movement
that kept Nixon from using nukes against Vietnam. You and I have that power
now. Let your voice for peace be heard, loud and clear. Let our children live.