Killing people for their own good / Molly Ivins / Creators Syndicate / 05.18.04
Time to cut our losses; time for the UN and NATO to take over Iraq
"We have encouraged anti-American terrorists everywhere, put ourselves
at greater risk of terrorist attack, lost enormous amounts of goodwill around
the world,
earned the resentment of many of our closest allies and
cost ourselves around $200 billion we really could have used for more constructive
projects."
AUSTIN, Texas -- It's quite difficult to convince people you are killing them
for their own good. That's our basic problem in Iraq.
You can try explaining that you are killing them in order to bring
freedom and democracy to their nation -- "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every
man and woman in the world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth,
we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom," said President
Bush. However, this argument is less than convincing if an American bomb
or bullet
has just killed your child. Or if you were among the 70 percent to 90 percent
of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib who were there by accident.
Team, our national debate on this occupation is approaching the hopelessly
dotty. This is no longer a matter of trying to decide if the glass is half-empty
or half-full, or whether our media are looking at this through rose-colored
glasses or through a glass darkly. What is, is. The trend lines get steadily
worse.
The accumulation of American errors has cost us the goodwill of the great majority
of Iraqis. As their attacks on us increase, so do our responses, so does the
number of innocent Iraqis we kill, so does the number of Iraqis who then hate
us and search for vengeance -- in a downward spiral of violence that no one
sees a way out of, except for out. That's what is.
On the plus side, Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. On the minus side,
we have encouraged anti-American terrorists everywhere, put ourselves at greater
risk of terrorist attack, lost enormous amounts of goodwill around the world,
earned the resentment of many of our closest allies and cost ourselves around
$200 billion we really could have used for more constructive projects. The
worst possibility is that we have set up the Iraqis for a horrible three-way
civil war, an development that was foreseen before the invasion and is looming
now.
The dotty part of the debate comes from the neocons, whose idea this
was in the first place. A few weeks ago, Douglas Feith, undersecretary
of defense
for policy, said, "I think no one can properly assert that the failure
to find Iraqi WMD stockpiles undermines the reasons for the war." Really?
Well then let me assert it improperly. You told us that it was why
we had to go to war, and you can't just stand there and lie about
it now.
This
is like
trying to debate the Red Queen.
Sometimes it's more a matter of the neocons not being able to get
their act together. Paul Wolfowitz, my fave, said the other day, "No one ever expected
this would be a cakewalk." Actually, those were the very words rather
famously used by his neocon buddy Ken Adelman, who predicted the war would
be a cakewalk. But nothing tops Wolfowitz's classic declaration, "There
is no history of ethnic strife in Iraq."
The Center for American Progress has an exit strategy I think sounds useful.
It is recommending Bush call an emergency international summit immediately,
seek to have the United Nations fully oversee the transition, have NATO take
the security responsibility and set up an independent trust fund for reconstruction.
Further details of the plan can be found at the center's website.
Paul Mulshine from of the Newark Star-Ledger suggests Bush do
an LBJ announcement: "I
shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another
term as your president." That would improve the likelihood
of the success of a summit, though the administration is in
such deep
denial
about how badly
this war is going it seems unlikely.
Just as a political calculation, the administration should
consider the center's plan: It's not going to do them any
good electorally
to keep
pretending everything
is hunky-dory while we all watch it spiral out of control.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the June 30 "handover" date
is a complete sham: The United States is picking proxies
and advisers at every level.
Do you think
the Iraqis don't realize that?
One of our more impassioned public scolds, Michael Massing,
wrote last week of "our great national narcissism," our
notorious lack of knowledge about other cultures, our inability
to speak
foreign languages
and our indifference
to the deaths of Iraqis (hundreds of civilians dead in
retaliation for the attack on four American contractors).
Excuse me,
but I really don't
think
Americans need a lecture on our many failings -- I think
it is time, rather,
that we
call on one of our greatest strengths.
We are a practical people and often quite shrewd. That means knowing
when to cut our losses. Let's use it now. Let's not stand around with our
thumbs in
our ears pretending the nincompoops who got us into this
knew what they were doing. We were attacked by Al Qaeda. Let's go get them
and leave the Iraqis
to international authorities.
Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer.
She is the bestselling author of several books including Molly Ivins Can't
Say That Can She?
We have encouraged anti-American terrorists everywhere, put ourselves at greater
risk of terrorist attack, lost enormous amounts of goodwill around the world,
earned the resentment of many of our closest allies and cost ourselves around
$200 billion we really could have used for more constructive projects.