It’s the New War, the War of Choice

Three years after Donald Rumsfeld promised a shock and awe campaign to take Saddam Hussein out of office and liberate the people of Iraq, we still have 130,000 troops on the ground and a plethora of unanswered questions. In recent months, those questions have finally emerged in the media and the minds of a majority of Americans. In a recent CBS poll, 57 percent of Americans now believe going to war in Iraq was a mistake. People have a right to be upset — the negative implications of this seemingly haphazard war are only beginning to unfold. To borrow a defensive phrase from President Bush, there are some in this country who believe revisiting what we were told by this administration before and during the war is counterproductive or aides the enemy. Nothing could be more absurd, but this line of reasoning has actually been effective. Luckily, the percentage of people who feel that public debate is a waste of time is falling rapidly. We can no longer afford to disregard pressing questions about the War on Terror and, in particular, the war in Iraq. President Bush must be accountable for his choices and conduct before and after the Iraq invasion.

Many Americans were easily whipped into a patriotic frenzy prior to the invasion of Iraq - a frenzy that lent itself to blind agreement with President Bush’s foreign and domestic policies. It has become clear that this captivating fog is beginning to recede, and the media is waking up from its hiatus and asking some long awaited questions. While it was refreshing to see that Americans can be a powerful, supportive, and informed group, the fundamental failure was the lack of a challenge to whatever agenda the President put forth, where facts were disregarded as messy details and concerns were for the misguided and uninformed. The willingness of the public to subscribe to Bush’s assertion that people who were against the war in Iraq were unpatriotic is nothing less then terrifying in its own right.

The majority of arguments against the war from day one were neither unpatriotic nor did they suggest any contempt for the military. Of course, many liberals were predisposed to not supporting any Bush initiative - especially one of this scale - but pre-war critics can not be simply reduced to skeptical liberals. Prior to the war it was infuriating to witness the stifling of reasoned debate at the hands of a groundswell of what, at that particular moment, was considered to be patriotism. The patriotism of opponents to the war was not questioned simply by conservative radio hosts, but by our elected leaders from Congress all the way up to the President. In fact, anyone who asked for a coherent long term plan in Iraq was dismissed as an unpatriotic blow-hard who had no confidence in the American military.

The surge of patriotism that remained in place after 9/11 allowed most Americans to be susceptible to what would otherwise have been a very objectionable plan of war. The intense pride of patriotism is easily shifted into reactionary aggression when the right strings are pulled. The media, entertainment, and the government jumped all over this sentiment. It is disturbing to look back at how prevalent that notion was - two-thirds of people polled in October 2002 believed Saddam had a hand in 9/11. This was not simply people jumping to their own conclusions: the Bush administration knew this belief was to their advantage and exploited it at every opportunity.

The fact is that Iraq was a war of choice. A war of choice is new luxury that comes with the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption in which we decide upon a date and have adequate time to ponder the potential side effects of an invasion and to assure that the costs of human and financial capital would be minimal. Unfortunately, this type of leisurely planning would be a direct contradiction to the imminent threat assertions continually used to sell the war.

In October 2002, Senator Russ Fiengold gave a speech, in which he said “when the Administration moves back and forth from one argument to another, I think it undercuts the credibility of the case and the belief in its urgency.” Senator Feingold had only seen the beginning of the shifting justifications. Any soldier sent to Iraq in the last 3 years can each return home with his or her own justification and purpose for their presence. The reasons against the war have remained constant while the justifications in favor have shifted. How can this trend suggest righteousness?

What now is victory? Our objectives have shrunk from protecting the mainland from a mushroom cloud, to bringing the Iraqi people improved conditions under democracy, to simply training an Iraqi force just adequate enough to keep some minimal sense of order. Even this relatively simple goal has become extremely difficult and increasingly costly to American soldiers and taxpayers. Any traditional sense of victory seems unlikely at this point, but just how much we have sacrificed - and at what ultimate cost to our foreign leverage - remains to be seen.

Despite the President’s dismal approval ratings, I do not get the sense that the public is thirsting for answers. Why are people not upset? The audacity of this administration, their reckless use of taxpayer’s dollars, and their continued secrecy should have people in the streets. The lessons of Vietnam are not only useful to those involved in policy on Iraq, but also to the average citizen. The public was continually misled and reassured about the conditions in Vietnam; I think the comparison to the present situation is a valid one, even if on a lesser scale.

The Administration was so adamant from day one about the necessity of military actions and the ease of what we were to face that many people felt reassured. No one wanted to worry about a costly war - it was far easier to listen to the President speak glowingly of our progress. We were told this would be a quick and easy venture with Iraqi oil financing almost all costs. While the President may continue to pass blame onto the CIA and label his critics as defeatists, it is becoming increasingly clear just how duplicitous his administration has been regarding the war. The only thing I am shocked and awed by is the inability of the Bush Administration to speak candidly and informatively to the public.

I remember during the 2000 election when then Governor Bush stated that he did not recall discussing Vietnam while at Yale. It must have been quite a task to avoid the topic. On campuses today it is far easier and Clemson is no exception. The level of apathy is, frankly, discouraging: this is a turning point for our country for foreign policy, our military, domestic policy and energy concerns, and we are heading in the wrong direction on all accounts. There are lessons to be learned from Iraq and all that has come of this conflict, but only if we are paying attention. Until we can find leadership strong enough to not only ask the right questions but have the ideas to answer them our path will continue.