A Choice to Make

It is a frightening tribute to the effectiveness of the Bush administration’s public diplomacy campaign that despite all the evidence, many people are still referring to prewar intelligence on Iraq as ‘inaccurate’ or ‘mistaken’ rather than a lie. As difficult as it is for many of us to believe that our leaders would send us off to war on a false pretext, the facts are indisputable. But do the ends justify the means? Even if Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the United States, he was a brutal dictator. Granted, the invasion of Iraq may not have been strictly legal under international law, but freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny was a noble endeavor.

But if we liberated the Iraqis, why do they continue to attack us? Going on the assumption that we did liberate them will eventually lead us to the conclusion that they are uncivilized and in need of an outside power to oversee their governance. As time goes on we will become less and less able to understand why they resent us and why they take every opportunity to betray us despite our good intentions. Our ignorance will turn to fear and hatred and it will lead to atrocities we did not think Americans were capable of.

The disturbing reality is, we are already well on our way there. It defies all common sense and experience that we could be resented so much despite our best efforts to improve people’s lives. It also defies all logic that a well-educated and civilized society could act in such a seemingly uncivilized manner. Therefore we have to question the assumption that we actually have liberated the Iraqis. If we did free them, why is popular support for the insurgency growing? Why is everyone who works with us constantly in fear of kidnapping, torture, and assassination?

Perhaps it has something to do with the Bush administration’s talk of privatizing Iraq’s oil resources. Perhaps it is related to the secret negotiations currently taking place to secure the oil multinationals’ effective control over 80% of Iraq’s oil fields. What conclusions should Iraqis draw from our government’s pressure on the Iraqi prime minister to withdraw his proposal of amnesty to resistance groups? The bank accounts of Iraqi trade unions, essential to a democratic civil society, have been frozen because they exercised their natural rights of free expression and free assembly and opposed the Bush administration’s imperial policies. There is some contradiction here, to say the least, in America’s relationship with a supposedly sovereign nation.

The Iraqis are well aware of the cynicism and hypocrisy behind our leaders’ foreign policies and therefore they cooperate with U.S. forces when they must and support the insurgents when we have our backs turned. It is a bitter irony that Iraqis and American troops are paying in blood while this administration does the opposite of everything it says it stands for. It is not the Iraqis but our own government which is creating the conditions of suspicion, distrust, fear, hatred, and racism, which inevitably lead to atrocities against civilians.

A recent article by Army Lieutenant Colonel Wade Markel titled Draining the Swamp: The British Strategy of Population Control suggests that we relocate entire towns and cities into internment camps in order to separate the civilian population from the insurgents and hunt the latter down. History has proven this strategy militarily successful, no doubt. But at what cost? History has also proven that the perpetuation of imperial rule requires tyrannical repression, leading to greater and greater contradiction between principles and action. The violent and tragic history of Iraq and many other countries in the 20th century is in large part the fault of Britain’s imperial policies. Empire abroad also directly corresponds to the erosion of democracy at home, as we see today with the executive branch’s increasing need for secrecy. As earlier noted, we are already well along the path to losing our civil liberties and betraying our American values.

This leads us to the question, what is our duty as military members and what does this mean practically? Not only did the Bush administration violate international law by invading Iraq under a false pretext, it also continues to pursue imperial policies through its de facto control over Iraq’s economy. Our oath is to defend the Constitution of the United States. The longer we remain silent while our political leaders brazenly disregard international law and use us to trample upon the self-determination of Iraqis, the further we have strayed from our oath and our values. We must not mistake nationalism for patriotism.

The nationalist blindly accepts out of a willing ignorance, fearing the price of dissent. This is cowardice. The patriot remembers his country’s values and demands that when he is called to arms the cause is just. He is not content that he should enjoy liberty at another nation’s expense. The threat of global terrorism demonstrates that ultimately we cannot be free if we deny freedom to others.

Our duty is to speak up against these policies and demand that Iraqis are truly given the chance to determine their own future. The first step is to understand the issues; the second is to act. The only way to end the senseless violence and restore America as a positive moral force in the world is to voice our dissent to our senators and representatives in Congress and to tell the American public the truth about Iraq as we see it through our own eyes. A number of courageous individuals have chosen to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq altogether. This is a personal decision with high costs, but each individual should also weigh the alternative on their conscience. I have come to the conclusion that this administration has betrayed our American values and therefore it is my duty to voice my dissent. Regardless of the conclusion you come to, it is our duty to make a moral decision, which requires us all to discern reality from rhetoric.

– Dissenting Patriot, U.S. Military

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