No Good Reason For War
The jury's in, the U.K. Butler report, the Australian Flood report, and now the 911 Commission report. No one seems to know quite why the U.S. went to war on Iraq. No one's responsible for mistakes.
On September 11, 2001 commercial airliners were hijacked and flown into the
commercial and military capital buildings of the U.S., and crashed in
Pennsylvania attempting attack on a third target. On September 14, 2001,
just three days later, the U.S. House and Senate voted yes for the
use-of-force resolution. It gave the President the power to wage war
without further debate, war on someone, some people, somewhere, an unknown
enemy. Something had to be struck and violently; no time to waste, no
additional consideration. The U.S. had been attacked.
The Joint Resolution begins, "To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States." The short title of the resolution is "Authorization for Use of Military Force."
But as Congress voted to allow promiscuous, indefinitely prolonged state sponsored violence, families of victims of the New York attack gathered in Times Square to comfort each other. Some held each other wearing a sign, "Our grief is not a call to war."
On a Friday in September 2001 Congress voted to launch impetuous war, consenting to surrender the power of the people's representatives to the President, George W. Bush. The people who represent us gave up their power by agreeing without a second thought:
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"IN GENERAL - the President is authorized to use all necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he
determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or
persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism
against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
Only Representative Barbara Lee from the Ninth Congressional District in California (see http://www.house.gov/lee/) stood back to consider the vote carefully. On the floor of the House of Representatives she said,
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Only the most foolish or the most callous would not understand the grief that has gripped the American people and millions across the world.
This unspeakable attack on the United States has forced me to rely on my moral compass, my conscience, and my God for direction.
September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.
I know that this use-of-force resolution will pass although we all know that the President can wage a war even without this resolution. However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. There must be some of us who say, let's step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today--let us more fully understand its consequences.
We are not dealing with a conventional war. We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral out of control. This crisis involves issues of national security, foreign policy, public safety, intelligence gathering, economics, and murder. Our response must be equally multi-faceted.
We must not rush to judgment. Far too many innocent people have already died. Our country is in mourning. If we rush to launch a counter-attack, we run too great a risk that women, children, and other non- combatants will be caught in the crossfire.
Nor can we let our justified anger over these outrageous acts by vicious murderers inflame prejudice against all Arab Americans, Muslims, Southeast Asians, or any other people because of their race, religion, or ethnicity.
Finally, we must be careful not to embark on an open- ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target. We cannot repeat past mistakes.
President Bush and his administration rushed to implicate Iraq in the 911 attacks and mounted a war against that country because, they claimed, it was about to attack others with deadly force. Since that time, the U.S. led-invasion has decimated Iraq's economy, impoverished its people, killing thousands, and raising up a resistance and a wall of hatred blocking the United States from any approach to a peaceful future.
The United Kingdom has officially reviewed its reasons for entering the war along with the U.S. and concluded in its 196 page Butler Report, summarized by the BBC (see the Butler report summarized on the BBC, Wednesday, 14 July, 2004), that "There was 'no recent intelligence' to lead people to conclude Iraq was of more immediate concern than other countries, although its history prompted the view there needed to be a threat of force to ensure Saddam Hussein's compliance." The report found no clear cut threat worth a war, and lots of sloppy intelligence work producing questionable reasons.
Australia's independent examination of reasons for war on Iraq, the Flood report, found no reason for Australia to join the U.S. and Britain in the invasion of Iraq. As the BBC reported on Thursday, 22 July, 2004, "Its conclusions echo those reached by separate US and UK inquiries prompted by the failure to find the banned Iraqi weapons that formed the case for war."
The U.S. 911 Commission has now issued its report on the failure of the U.S. to anticipate and stop the attacks. (The 9-11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Official Government Edition. The full report is available as a single, very large PDF file. And a 35 page executive summary is also available.) The report concluded that the U.S. was naive. Officials failed, as a body they suffered "a failure of imagination" the commission concluded.
But no one was at fault. Things went wrong. Mistakes were made. The
criminals who mounted the attack on the twin towers are dead and their
accomplices have escaped cleanly. Americas most basic freedoms are in
jeopardy. Thousands of American soldiers are permanently injured and many
dead. Tens of thousands of Iraqis, children, the old, families, decimated,
destroyed. Their country remains a nightmare. For what? Who is better off?
Barbara Lee was right.
What have we learned from our country's experience? As Americans shall we continue to think we are making a place for ourselves on earth by extending a hand of wrath and violence against those we feel are somehow in our way? We must change our history, and for the better, if we are to continue for long.
