What Have We Accomplished?

This blogger was not alive (or at least, not sentient) during the Vietnam Era, and didn't fully realise until later the horrors perpetrated both during the Reagan Administration's "secret" wars in Central America or the first Gulf War and its aftermath.

So, this particular moment in time feels like the crucible of the Generation X -- our very own Vietnam, as it were. Certainly there are horrors aplenty even without the existence of "Operation: Liberate Iraq" (or whatever it may be called) -- from the daily nightmare that is the Israeli occupation, to the "low-intensity" chemical warfare campaign in Colombia, to the depredations in Afghanistan, to the IMF-induced poverty throughout the Third World (to name just a few). But to be aware that one's nation is going to reduce a city of five million people to rubble elicits a truly sickening, helpless, desperate feeling.

So what has the Peace Movement to hang its hat on, after all is said and done? Well, plenty.

Never before has 90% of the world cried out in unison with one simple message: you can not do this. Never before has the United States' war-monger class been so diplomatically isolated.

The United States wasn't forced by world opinion to seek sanction for its wars in Vietnam. It didn't attempt to obtain authorisation to destroy Nicaragua, or Afghanistan, or Yugoslavia. It wouldn't have done so this time, either, except for massive domestic and international pressure.

Indeed, while it's forgotten now, there was talk late last year that we would "be at war by Christmas". Essentially, then, the Peace Movement checked the mightiest army on Earth three entire months.

Never before has there been discussion in mainstream circles regarding the legality of U.S. militarism, or threats to U.S. planners that they will be held accountable for their crimes.

Never before has so much attention been paid to the issue of civilian casualties of a U.S. war -- so much so, this time, that it's even possible that the U.S. has re-written its war plans to mitigate civilian casualties, for fear of a gargantuan worldwide backlash.

How else explain Tony Blair's predicament, anti-war presidential candidates playing to the crowds in candidate forums, or Turkey's refusal to allow U.S. troop access? How else explain the presence of dozens of Western "Human Shields" and Peace Team witnesses in Baghdad?

As demoralising as our inability to prevent this war may be, and as tenuous as the likelihood of survival of the species beyond the next month or so may now seem, what of the long-term future (if we do survive beyond the next month or so)?

Will it be possible for the Bush Administration to wage the next in its series of wars of conquest? Highly doubtful, one should think. First off, recall that one reason the Iraq blitz is occurring now rather than last year at this time is that the U.S. military used up so many of its munitions in blitzing Afghanistan that it had to wait for more to be built before it could launch its next war. So the earliest that the next war could be launched is probably about a year from now, for this reason alone.

Secondly, note that, while the premises of the war are racist, hypocritical, Orwellian, etc., in many ways Iraq is a unique case. Most of the charges against Saddam are true (even if the context has been elided or obfuscated). Saddam has been public enemy no. 1 for over a decade, and the takeover of Iraq has been in the planning for many a moon.

The Bush Administration surely expected that it could gather the support of virtually the entire world with one hand tied behind its back. That it was unable to do so, that it is left virtually isolated, that 90% of the world's population opposes its dastardly war, that it was reduced to grovelling at the feet of the likes of Cameroon and Mexico (to no avail), that its lies and deceit and treachery have been exposed for all the world to see; all when it plans to make the case against probably the easiest and most likely suspect on the planet -- would seem to indicate that it's going to have even a more difficult adventure next time around.

Added to which, a year from now (that is, as the re-election campaign begins to swing into high gear) there are likely to be U.S. troops ineptly bumbling their way through "nation building" processes in (at the least) Afghanistan, Iraq, and Colombia; and that the world economy may well have been thrown into a shambles.

Colour me naive, but it just doesn't seem possible for The Superbrain to launch another major war before he's bounced out onto his dimpled ass in November of next year. This is the legacy of "our" Vietnam -- and the Peace Movement's reaction to it.

Posted by Eddie Tews at March 20, 2003 12:42 PM