Written for the Rowe Zone
the Rev. Douglas Wilson
May 2007
Over four years ago, against the advice of most of the world, we invaded Iraq for the second time. A preemptive invasion of a foreign country violates the United States Constitution, the United Nations Charter, and is what Germany was tried for at Nuremburg.
Why did we do this?
The people running our government believe we need a military base in the Middle East to control the flow of oil. This isn’t just my idea. Former President Jimmy Carter said, “The reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region….My belief….is that….50 years from now, we’ll still have a major military presence in Iraq.” (February 3, 2006)
Through our own revolution, we freed ourselves from British domination and for close to 200 years, the United States of America, despite our shortcomings, was a beacon of freedom and creativity around the world.
When we invaded Southeast Asia over forty years ago, a war of aggression on our part, we lost much of our stature in the world, and we lost that war. Human beings do not like having their country invaded and they fight back, using whatever weapons they can find.
War destroys civilization. It deeply harms both the soldiers who fight and civilians whose lives are ruined. Civil wars kill people and create hatreds that can last for centuries. In our country, it is mostly our soldiers who know, firsthand, the carnage war brings, but throughout the world, vast numbers of people know war intimately though their personal experience.
In the year 2000, arrogant, radical, right-wing neo-conservatives took control of our country. They believe that overwhelming military power is the primary means for solving the problems in the world. Instead of becoming warriors when they were young, our neo-con leaders evaded conscription, so they never learned what war really is. This ignorance of war enabled them to deny the lessons many others learned from the disastrous failure of the American invasion of Southeast Asia.
With so much power at their fingertips, but so little awareness of the people of Iraq or the vicious nature of war, our leaders did not seem to understand, or to care about, what they were about to destroy.
The people of Iraq remember the devastation of the first Gulf War and they remember the cruel embargo they suffered for the next twelve years. Imagine Iraqi people who watched their son, or their aunt, or their grandmother starve to death. Would you expect them to welcome American troops? In 1996 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s was asked by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” She answered, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
Most of the people in Iraq hated Saddam Hussein. They wanted to see what would happen when we invaded, but we lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people when we failed to establish control of their country. This failure was a direct result of the hubris of the neo-con leaders, who ignored the advice of many of our generals and many others who predicted the chaos that would ensue after the invasion.
Saudi Arabia had asked us to remove our military base because resistance to a foreign base in Saudi Arabia was destabilizing their country, but the neo-cons believed we had to have a base in the Middle East. When September 11 happened, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and their neo-cons allies running our government immediately began talking about invading Iraq. They had wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein since 1991 and this was the opportunity they were waiting for. Overthrowing Saddam would enable them to set up bases in Iraq and establish control over Iraqi oil.
September 11 was a major act of terrorism on American soil. Terrorism is a difficult problem; combating it requires international cooperation and coordination. Developing alliances, and keeping them, isn’t easy; it requires diplomacy and compromise. Countries have competing interests, but the neo-con bullies running our country believe we can control the world through our superior military power. This is false. We cannot do it.
In 2003, just a couple of months after the invasion, Paul Wolfowitz, second in command at the Pentagon, told Vanity Fair, “For reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction.” The next month, speaking at an Asian security summit in Singapore, he said, “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.”
The Iraqis hate us because we have destroyed their country. Our stupidity initiated a civil war between religious sects that have lived together in relative peace for over 1400 years. The idea that we have to stay to prevent violence is delusional. Using whatever weapons they have, they will fight and the violence will not end until we leave.
Every day the Iraqi people suffer violence far worse than what happened at Virginia Tech on one sad day this spring. Thousands of professionals have been assassinated and about two million people, many of whom made their country work, have fled the country and another two million have been displaced internally. This is 15% of their population. Now militants, often religiously driven, are in charge.
If we wanted to hand Al Qaeda a recruiting tool, we could not have done better than Abu Ghraib, the prison where American guards humiliated and tortured Iraqis, many of whom were innocent. Muslims throughout the world know a lot more about what is happening in this war than the American people know. Torture is now a weapon in our arsenal, to the disgrace of all that is best in America.
We’re in a lose-lose situation. Our leaders keep repeating that we will stay “until the Iraqis can defend themselves,” but that never worked in Vietnam and it will never work in Iraq. The reason it won’t work is the Iraqi government is allied with the Americans, who are occupying their country. Our leaders and our pundits say we can’t leave because it would send the “wrong message,” but we’ve already sent the wrong message, in spades.
There was an opening for a withdrawal. The Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended negotiating with all the countries in the area, which could have led to an international peace keeping force replacing the American presence. But our neo-con government seems incapable of negotiating with anyone or admitting any mistakes.
We are building permanent bases in Iraq and have no intention of leaving. Our leaders lied to us about why we went in and they’re lying about their long-term plans. They plan to stay in Iraq indefinitely so they can control the flow of oil from the Middle East.
Unfortunately, many of the Democrats in leadership do not want us to leave, either. If you listen carefully to Hillary Clinton, for example, she talks about removing Americans from the streets of Baghdad, but keeping the ability to strike with our Air Force and Special Forces. Congressional leaders, hawks and doves, talk condescendingly about the Iraqis, as though they don’t appreciate the gifts we’re offering them. Chaos is not a gift. Death is not a gift
Our government has played directly into the hands of Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden’s goal is to overthrow secular, pro-Western governments like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt and replace them with Islamic states. Iraq was the most secular country in the Middle East and now it is well on the way to becoming an Islamic state like Iran. With our help, Al Qaeda is achieving its goal. The American invasion and occupation of Iraq has radicalized Muslims all over the world and is creating terrorists who hate us and will seek vengeance against us for decades.
Before September 11, many people in the world did not like us, often because of our foreign policies. But many people once felt a great affection for America; many people have relatives who emigrated here. Now more people hate us than at any time in our entire history. The designers of the invasion of the Middle East should resign in disgrace for destroying America’s prestige and good will, not to mention over a million dead people.
This war was based on an idea that was false. We cannot win and we have to leave, so we might as well leave now. The Iraqi people deserve our apologies and reparations, but that would require honesty and humility from our leaders, so it is not politically possible. Perhaps, after we leave, the Iraqi people can salvage something from the “sea of oil” upon which they swim. I hope so.
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