This question is misleading.  In 2003, approximately 40% of us opposed the invasion.   But it felt like there were only a handful of us.

I was looking through my 2003 writings to recall my rational for opposing the Iraq invasion.  I don’t see that I wrote anything much about Iraq back then.  I do remember thinking the invasion was a big mistake.  I do remember thinking that Colin Powell was blowing smoke at the U.N. 

Though I didn’t find much in writing from 2003, I found this 2004 email I wrote to a friend who was very much in favor of the war:

I’ve been working a lot of hours lately, but I can’t help but feel deep gnawing need to pry myself away periodically to do my small part to stop this insane movement that goes in the name of “conservatism.”  Squandering the budget is only one part of it for me.  Every day, this lunatic’s rhetoric and actions are causing 100 talented young men from the Middle East to dedicate their entire lives to lighting a nuclear fire so as to melt New York.  I truly believe that the short term temporary good that Bush has accomplished in the Middle East is far outweighed, not only by the blood spilled to accomplish it, but by the horrors we will be facing 10 and 20 years from now.  This country would never have gone to war had Bush and his team not bald-faced lied about the alleged urgent need to start this war. 

And now, a year later, he has no exit plan, and Rumsfeld is currently on TV denying that the administration ever claimed that the threat from Iraq was imminent.   We’re pouring huge amounts of money into Iraq’s infrastructure, material goods that, a few years from now (if not sooner), will be controlled entirely by zealots congealed into dysfunctional action by their hatred of the United States. 

Bernard Lewis’ book “What Went Wrong” details the ancient history of the Middle East:  there never has been a distinction between politics and religion there (except for Turkey, for which Turkey has been despised by most other Middle Eastern countries).  The current administration, in deep denial of the obvious social history of the region, lashed out to change all that by imposing a paper constitution on those angry folks, along with dozens of billions of dollars.  I’ve read enough history to know that this approach is fruitless and destructive to our own efforts.  The money we’re spending could have done great things in this country.

Re-reading this letter made me wonder how much of the country was actually in favor of the war in the months preceding the war.   I discussed this question with two co-workers today.  I thought I had read that 40% of U.S. citizens were against the invasion, but that seemed too high to us, in retrospect.  Back in 2003, people against the war seemed to be a rarity.  Were we actually so rare?

Wikipedia has an article pertaining to the changing attitudes of the U.S. public from 2003 to the present, though the article lacks citations to some key statistics.

• According to Wikipedia, at about the time Bush gave his 2003 State of the Union address “Most polls showed that support for the invasion, depending on how the question is phrased, was at between 55-65% (58% according to CNN/USA Today, 57% according to the LA Times, and 67% according to Fox).” (more…)

I was recently discussing the Iraq war with a political lobbyist friend of mine when he mentioned something I had not previously considered:  neocons and other law-and-order conservatives try to justify the Iraq invasion by saying that even though Saddam didn’t have WMDs, he was defying UN-mandated inspections of Iraqi facilities; therefore, Saddam was breaking the “law” and needed to be brought to account.  Then my friend challenged me:  “How would you answer that argument?” 

Here is my reply:

First, let’s remember that the UN-mandated inspections of Iraq’s facilities were based, as was Bush’s invasion, on lies and empty accusations that Saddam had WMDs.  The Bush Administration accused Saddam of having WMDs and then demanded that Saddam prove he didn’t have them.  Saddam didn’t have them, so what was he supposed to do?  He, in fact, allowed the inspections for a long time until, eventually, he became uncooperative.

Now, let’s think about his situation.  Imagine you are in your own home and the police come to your door one day insisting you have illegal weapons in your home and demanding to inspect your house.  The police were ordered there by the police chief, who happens to hate you because, ten years ago, you were in a fight with his father that contributed to his father losing his job, while you kept yours.  The police chief has held a grudge against you ever since.

You tell the police at your door that you have no illegal weapons in your house, but, of course, they have orders to inspect anyway.  So, you let the police do their inspection.  They find nothing and they leave.

A week later, the police show up again, with the exact same accusation and the exact same demand to inspect your house.  Again, you let them do their inspection, a bit annoyed this time because they were just there a week ago with the same phony accusation.  Again, they find nothing and, again, they leave.

A week later, they show up again.  This time, you are annoyed.  The police chief is obviously just harrassing you, and you don’t like it.  Nevertheless, you let the police do their inspection and, again, they find nothing and leave.

A week later, they show up again.  In fact, these pointless inspections go on for months until, finally, you get fed up with the police harrassment.  You refuse to allow the police to inspect your house anymore, because they are just wasting your time.  Immediately, the police chief declares, “Aha!  SEE!  He is refusing to allow inspections, because he must be hiding illegal weapons!”

When you continue to refuse the inspections, the police chief then screams, “SEE!  The inspections are NOT WORKING!  He MUST be hiding illegal weapons.  We must invade his house to disarm him!”

Sound familiar?  This is how George Bush (and Dick Cheney) sold Saddam up the river and sold America a costly, unnecessary war. 

Thus, to answer my friend’s question:  Saddam’s refusal to allow ongoing UN inspections did not justify America’s invasion, because the UN mandate was based on fraud and harrassment.  White House neo-cons wanted a fight, so they did what all smart bullies do:  when you want to start a fight and you want the other side to appear at fault, the best way to pick that fight is to annoy the other side until they get fed up and do something to provoke you, so you can then slug them and claim they started it.

Here’s the story.  But, of course, it is more important to get rid of gay military translators than to communicate with residents of Iraq.

According to our president, here is the lesson about Iraq that America learned from Vietnam:  “We’ll succeed unless we quit.”

Keith Olbermann doesn’t see it that way.  

I saw a bumper sticker the other day. “Caution: Christian On Board”

I thought, yeah, I’ll be careful. These days christians can be dangerous.

What follows may be a bit on the intolerant side, but I’m sometimes convinced our condemnation of intolerance makes us too unwilling to be simply impatient.  We “tolerate” a lot of nonsense because we don’t want to be accused of intolerance. 

Rumsfeld is gone now, and I’ve been thinking about unanswered questions, assumptions made on our behalf which led to a holy mess.  I remember when Abu Ghraib broke.  I’m thinking about the obscenities from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. People expressed shock, outrage. The president, Rumsfeld, the generals, they were all duly unhinged. They did not approve this. They did not order it or condone it. Congress has them answering questions now as to how such things could happen.

Frankly, the wrong questions were and are being asked. Senators wanted to know who to blame for either condoning it or for “allowing it to happen”–a phrase I find ludicrous in practical terms. It’s like the phrase you hear lawyers and legislators use, you know the one “You failed to do such and such.” Every time I hear that phrase I think “No he didn’t. He didn’t fail. To fail implies that at some point an attempt was made to do something. The attempt failed. He didn’t fail to tell the truth–he simply didn’t do it. He succeeded in not doing it. Failure was entirely part of getting caught. He failed to keep it secret.” Same goes for “allowing it to happen.” It implies a conscious choice. There was none. At least, most of the time–and if there was a conscious choice, then “allow” is the wrong word–”cause” would be the right word.

I was not surprised at Abu Ghraib. Shocked, sure, but that was a visceral reaction to ugliness. I’d been waiting for something like that to happen. And maybe in that respect, “allow” becomes more relevant. Maybe if Senator Kennedy et al asked Rumsfeld and the others “Didn’t you expect something like this given the culture of this administration?” then they would have been on the right track.

What has been “allowed” to happen, though, is something a bit deeper, a bit more insidious, and has profound historical roots.

In his superb history of Catholicism and anti-semitism, James Carroll writes in Constantine’s Sword: the Church and the Jews: “…Since the end of World War II, there have been the theological revolution of Vatican II, with its rejection of the deicide charge and its affirmation of God’s ongoing covenant with the Jewish people; the remarkable grass-roots flourishing of Jewish-Catholic dialogue; and the serious effort of the Polish pope to confront the legacy of Catholic anti-semitism, But there remain rigid lines drawn around beliefs that may not be changed and around questions that may not be asked. Already we have seen the deeply problematic legacy of Jew hatred in foundational Christian texts, in the implicitly anti-Jewish Christian idea of revelation as prophecy fulfillment, and most damaging of all, in the dominant Christian theology of Jesus, not only as the enemy of the Jewish people but as the son of God who obliterates the integrity of all other ways to God.”

The story Carroll tells is how the church hierarchy defined the status of Jews throughout the Middle Ages, starting from Augustine, as a people deserving of disrespect.  (more…)

MSNBC reports that Americans would be required to sign up for the military draft after turning 18 under a bill that will be introduced by Charles Rangel, a Democrat, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.  Rangel states that bringing back the draft is a way to deter politicians from launching wars:

“There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way,” Rangel said.

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose a measure early next year. While he said he is serious about the proposal, there is little evident support among lawmakers for it.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973.

It should now be clear to everyone (though, sadly, it is not) that the threat of terrorism has been drummed up for political gain by neoconservatives.

In the past, politicians often offered us hope. In recent years, they have found it more useful to claim that they are protecting us from nightmares. Thus, they often claim that they are rescuing us from horrible dangers we cannot see, by conducting their wars on “terror” and immorality.

In reality, they have been offering us dark illusions and fantasies. Until two days ago, those politicians with the darkest imaginations had become the most powerful.

For those of you wondering how this insanity came to be, consider viewing the BBC’s superb documentary: “The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows In The Cave.”

Here is a taste of this gripping three-part documentary (If these links don’t work, try Here’s a new set of links that work on Google for the three parts of the documentary. Part I Part II Part III ):

There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas, and who will use the techniques of mass terror - the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear.

But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.

Wherever one looks for this al-Qaeda organisation, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the “sleeper cells” in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.

But the reason that no-one questions the illusion is because this nightmare enemy gives so many groups new power and influence in a cynical age - and not just politicians.

According to this first rate BBC series, the nightmare of the threat of terror was conceived by the Neocons as a dream that was necessary, though completely untrue, in order to convince citizens that they were locked in a battle between good and evil.

Two philosophical (and eventually political) movements combined to get the world to the polarized and dysfunctional place where it is.

Regarding the Islamic extremist element, credit is given to the teachings of Sayed Kotb, an Egyptian man who spent time in Colorado as a young man. Kotb became convinced that the individual rights and liberties of Americans thoroughly corrupted human beings. In their lust for material goods and carnal pleasure, Kotb perceived that people isolated themselves to the point where shared social bonds where destroyed. The quest for material goods thus trapped people in their own animalistic desires. Even though people felt “free” pursuing their individualistic needs and wants, they weren’t. They were decaying from the inside out.

The documentary finds the seeds of the American neoconservative movement planted by the obscure University of Chicago philosophyer, Leo Strauss. Struss believed that the tendency to question freely destroyed shared social value–the end result would be that nothing was sacred. The solution was to assert powerful unifying myths through government and religion. This would enable leaders to assert a fantasy that America was destined to battle the forces of evil across the world. Doing this would restore power and authority to government leaders. Incidentally, Strauss’ favorite TV show was Gunsmoke, where the government baldly and often violently asserted itself in its quest to obtain the moral order.

These two men took on small bands of followers, bands that eventually grew and rose into the higher echelons of government power. One can trace their respective ideas all the way up to the current leaders of the neocon and radical Islamic movements.

In America, the neocon ideas have been pushed hard by the government and media outlets that refuse to raise obvious questions. The resulting ubiquitous claims of moral certitude have thus caused many Americans to believe that any country that obstructed the U.S. was literally Satanic. Post WWII, the cold war presented neocons with a terrific opportunity to assert their violent version of governance. This documentary asserts that, in the eyes of neocons, the “war on terror” picked up right where the cold war left off.

Our politicians became so utterly convinced of this fairy tale of a largely unsubstantiated outside threat that any means of “defense” was justified, even waging a bloody war against a country that was not a threat. Even the U.S. government’s bashing of patriotic citizens who dared to question or dissent. Even depraved torture conducted in the name of the United States.

As demonstrated in “The Power of Nightmares,” Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bin Laden can all be seen as accomplices contributing to a perverted, devastating and unnecessary polarization that will require decades of political healing.

Following in the footsteps of Strauss, the neocons have intentionally concocted their myths (as well as the “evidence” in support), all for the supposed higher good. Especially disturbing was the section of of the documentary (toward the end of Part I) concerning the Neocon attempts the crucify the allegedly morally repugnant Bill Clinton, as well as the eventual conversion of David Brooks, earlier one of Clinton’s most vociferous detractors.

The three parts of the documentary can be viewed on-line: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

I remember in my college days in the late 70’s and early 80’s taking a course in International Law with Professor Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux Ph.D.  The course included a discussion of terrorism. Dr. Leguey-Feilleux told us one of the issues before the United Nations and the international community was a definition of “terrorism.” The best definition of “terrorism” I remember, and the one I believe my instructor endorsed, was “the taking of innocents for political purposes.”

Terrorism was not killing, but may cause death and certainly fear. Terrorism is political. In another class, I read that David Easton defined “politics” as “the authoritative allocation of values.” So “terrorism” is the taking of innocents in an attempt to influence how people or peoples allocate their values. The primary motivator in any such effort is fear. The absence of fear negates the intent of the terrorist. But fear may motivate others to seek gain from the tactical terrorist efforts for strategic purposes. I believe such is the goal of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in the United States.

During the 40 or so years of the Cold War, the Republican right could be counted upon to rant about Democrats being “soft on Communism” and take an electoral victory in the White House which was only interrupted by Kennedy’s “missile gap,” Johnson’s “Great Society” (following JFK’s assassination) and the blip of Jimmy Carter after Watergate.  After the rise in expectations after the growth and success of the Solidarity movement in Poland, due in large part to Pope John Paul II, and similarly after Democrats forced increased emigration from the old USSR though Jimmy Carter’s “human rights” focus upon US foreign policy, the Cold War ended.

Now there was a conundrum for the right. No more “soft on Communism” to run national elections strategies upon anymore. There ensued two terms of Bill Clinton. 

Clinton infuriated the right into heretofore unseen levels of spastic fits of yobbo yapping and a renewed commitment by the right and its corporatist supporters to an electoral victory in 2000. After nearly a billion dollars of campaign spending to support a candidate which the corporations invented and called “George Bush,” Bush v. Gore ensued. “W” was then anointed president thanks to the one vote of Sandra Day O’Connor, along with the rest of the Republicans on the US Supreme Court. But “W” was an unproven commodity and he foundered in his early days in the Presidency, until 9/11. (more…)

President Bush has often used the term Islamic Fascists.  

Here is a short and though-provoking video that challenges Americans to examine its own national character according to a 14-point fascism analysis (based on the writings of Lawrence Britt).  

The video was create two years ago, as America entered Bush’s second term.

Paul Rieckhoff hits the mark again with this comment on Huffpo:

As a veteran of this war in Iraq, I am sickened by the consistently flip nature of the President in the face of deadly serious issues. His ridiculous banter reflects poorly upon all Americans . . .

[W]ith nukes in North Korea, perverts in Congress and 140,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform bound to serve another four years in Iraq, I’d rather have a statesman than a frat boy.

Rieckhoff is the Founder and Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). He is also the author of a book I’ve struggled to read for the past two months:  Chasing Ghosts (2006). Would you like to know what it would be like to be a soldier during the early months of the Iraq occupation?  Rieckhoff’s book is the place to start.

Rieckhoff is not your typical soldier. After graduating from an Ivy League college, he signed up for the Army reserves in 1998.  While serving in the reserves, he took a high-paying job on Wall Street.  After the attacks of 9/11, he volunteered for active duty and he volunteered for the invasion of Iraq, to the dismay of his father.  “I wanted to fight the good fight.  I wanted to be a hero.”

Rieckhoff had heard Dick Cheney assure everyone that we would be “greeted as liberators.”  Cheney told the country “all we had to do was take out Saddam and his regime would crumble like a house of cards.”  On the other hand, for rieckhoff, the 9/11 attacks as the justification for the Iraq war just didn’t hold water.

Chasing Ghosts takes you from Rieckhoff’s military training and his duty in Iraq to his return to the United States.  The story is filled with disturbing details of what the Bush administration put our soldiers through: an impossible situation.  Rieckhoff describes numerous incidents where our soldiers were not properly equipped, trained or coordinated.  There are numerous incidents where the military brass, comfortably hunkered down in the Green zone, didn’t have a clue regarding the needs of the soldiers on the streets.  Iraq is a place where the soldiers constantly struggle the language barriers and cultural differences.

Rieckhoff presents numerous tales of warriors and victims.  (more…)

The Associated Press is reporting that the Marines have now muzzled two people who wish to discuss new evidence of abuse at Guantanamo with the media:

A paralegal and a military lawyer who brought forward allegations about prisoner abuse at the Guantanamo Bay detention center have been ordered not to speak with the press, lawyers and a military spokeswoman said Saturday.

Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, who represents a detainee at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba, filed a complaint with the Pentagon last week alleging that abuse was ongoing at the prison. He attached a sworn statement from his paralegal, Sgt. Heather Cerveny, in which she said several Guantanamo guards bragged in a bar about beating detainees, describing it as common practice.

Prediction: our Torturer-in-Chief will soon blame this most recent embarrassing revelation on the media, the Democrats, gays, the physical compound at Guantanamo and Bill Clinton.