Sacramento Bee
Try waging peace
By Molly Ivins
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, June 20, 2002
AUSTIN, Texas -- "Jaw, jaw," said Winston Churchill, "is better than
war, war."
I bring up the not-often-contested notion that peace is better than
war only because it seems the Bush administration is incapable of
grasping the self-evident. According to The New York Times, President
Bush has directed his top security people -- a happy nest of neo-con
hawks -- "to make a doctrine of pre-emptive action against states and
terrorist groups trying to develop weapons of mass destruction." This
means, we declare war first. This dogma "will be the foundation of a
new national security strategy."
Let's see, we already have our military in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and the Philippines. We
are also deeply into Colombia as part of the Drug War and have fairly
regular deployment by special ops in Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Good thing for India and Pakistan they made it into the Nuclear Club
before the deadline, eh? Let's see, add Iran, North Korea and some of
the nuttier princes, kings, sheiks, presidents-for-life -- I make that
between 20 and 30 wars we'll have to fight under the new doctrine.
Then you have to add in all the "failed states." The administration
says it is "fine-tuning" the doctrine to include joint operations with
other powers: "Potential targets include weak states that have become,
in the words of one official, Tpetri dishes' for terrorist groups."
You can't exactly have a war between, say, Sierra Leone and the United
States. When there's no actual government, we end up trying to control
a bunch of warlords -- and, as we have learned in Somalia and
Afghanistan, it ain't easy. The trouble with such non-wars is that
there's no exit strategy; we're in for indefinite occupation.
Do we really think this is a good idea?
OK, what we're really trying to do here is set up some policy
rationale for attacking Iraq and possibly the other Axes of Evil, as
well. It's not that easy to argue against taking out Saddam. But as
Joshua Marshall points out in the current issue of The Washington
Monthly, the people who are urging us to attack Iraq are either
dishonest or simplistic, or both, in their arguments.
They are failing to ask, much less answer, some basic questions about
the risks. Their cheerful premise that it will relatively easy to take
out Saddam is based on their equally cheerful ignorance.
Ken Adelman was recently asked on television one of those major "what
if" questions and actually replied, "Don't worry about that."
That is not an answer. As Jonathan Kwitny once observed, "Anyone who
has ever been in a war knows nothing goes according to plan from the
moment the first shot is fired." Or as they say in the military, "Hope
is not a plan."
What the hawks hope is that the Iraqi people hate Saddam Hussein and
will be delighted to see us show up and liberate them. Unfortunately,
we'll have to bomb them first. In case you hadn't noticed, this tends
to make us unpopular.
Marshall reports, "When asked what would happen if America encountered
an embittered civilian population after fighting a grisly battle for
Baghdad, Perle replied with a question, 'Suppose the Iraqis are
dancing in the streets after Saddam is gone?'" That non-answer is
based on the false premise that if the Iraqis hate Saddam, they're
bound to love us, which is nonsense.
Asked about the possibility that an attack on Iraq would so upset Arab
peoples they would overthrow now-friendly governments in Jordan, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, the neo-cons dismiss the question. "All the better
if you ask me," Adelman told Marshall. What's better about having
Islamist fanatics running Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
If we're going to do this, I suggest the administration prepare the
country for exactly how big the risks are. Unfortunately, it seems
more inclined to question the patriotism of anyone who asks questions.
As for the longer menu of war and near-war under the Bush Doctrine,
why not try peace instead? The hope of the world has been the slow
growth and development of international law. Announcing that we will
declare war "pre-emptively" whenever we feel like it does nothing to
promote peace. What makes us think our intelligence is good enough to
learn if and where such weapons are being developed? When Clinton
tried to go after Al Qaeda, he missed Osama bin Ladin by an hour and
destroyed a harmless pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. The FBI, the CIA
and the rest of them managed to ignore the warning signs on 9-11.
We're not competent enough to go around declaring "pre-emptive war."
Why not announce in advance that we plan to work with other countries
on solving the problem of terrorism. Why not try waging peace first?
A.J. Muste said, "There is no way to peace: Peace is the way." What
can this doctrine possibly achieve except creating more hatred of the
United States?