What Do We Do Now?

by Howard Zinn

It seems very hard for some people—especially those in
high places, but also those striving for high
places—to grasp a simple truth: The United States does
not belong in Iraq. It is not our country. Our presence
is causing death, suffering, destruction, and so large
sections of the population are rising against us. Our
military is then reacting with indiscriminate force,
bombing and shooting and rounding up people simply on
"suspicion."

Amnesty International, a year after the invasion,
reported: "Scores of unarmed people have been killed
due to excessive or unnecessary use of lethal force by
coalition forces during public demonstrations, at
checkpoints, and in house raids. Thousands of people
have been detained [estimates range from 8,500 to
15,000], often under harsh conditions, and subjected to
prolonged and often unacknowledged detention. Many have
been tortured or ill-treated, and some have died in
custody."

The recent battles in Fallujah brought this report from
Amnesty International: "Half of at least 600 people who
died in the recent fighting between Coalition forces
and insurgents in Fallujah are said to have been
civilians, many of them women and children."

In light of this, any discussion of "What do we do
now?" must start with the understanding that the
present U.S. military occupation is morally
unacceptable.

The suggestion that we simply withdraw from Iraq is met
with laments: "We mustn’t cut and run. . . . We must
stay the course. . . . Our reputation will be ruined. .
. ." That is exactly what we heard when, at the start
of the Vietnam escalation, some of us called for
immediate withdrawal. The result of staying the course
was 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese
dead.

"We can’t leave a vacuum there." I think it was John
Kerry who said that. What arrogance to think that when
the United States leaves a place there’s nothing there!
The same kind of thinking saw the enormous expanse of
the American West as "empty territory" waiting for us
to occupy it, when hundreds of thousands of Indians
lived there already.

The history of military occupations of Third World
countries is that they bring neither democracy nor
security. The long U.S. occupation of the Philippines,
following a bloody war in which American troops finally
subdued the Filipino independence movement, did not
lead to democracy, but rather to a succession of
dictatorships, ending with Fernando Marcos.

The long U.S. occupations of Haiti (1915-1934) and the
Dominican Republic (1916-1926) led only to military
rule and corruption in both countries.

The only rational argument for continuing on the
present course is that things will be worse if we
leave. There will be chaos, there will be civil war, we
are told. In Vietnam, supporters of the war promised a
bloodbath if U.S. troops withdrew. That did not happen.

There is a history of dire forecasts for what will
happen if we desist from deadly force. If we did not
drop the bomb on Hiroshima, it was said, we would have
to invade Japan and huge casualties would follow. We
know now, and knew then, that was not true, but to
acknowledge that did not fit the government’s political
agenda. The U.S. had broken the Japanese code and had
intercepted the cables from Tokyo to the emissary in
Moscow, which made clear that the Japanese were ready
to surrender so long as the position of the Emperor was
secure.

Truth is, no one knows what will happen if the United
States withdraws. We face a choice between the
certainty of mayhem if we stay and the uncertainty of
what will follow.

There is a possibility of reducing that uncertainty by
replacing a U.S. military presence with an
international nonmilitary presence. It is conceivable
that the United Nations should arrange, as U.S. forces
leave, for a multinational team of peacekeepers and
negotiators, including, importantly, people from the
Arab countries. Such a group might bring together
Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, and work out a solution for
self-governance, which would give all three groups a
share in political power.

Simultaneously, the U.N. should arrange for shipments
of food and medicine, from the U.S. and other
countries, as well as a corps of engineers to begin the
reconstruction of the country.

In a situation that is obviously bad and getting worse,
some see the solution in enlarging the military
presence. The rightwing columnist David Brooks wrote in
mid-April: "I never thought it would be this bad," but
he then expressed his joy that President Bush is
"acknowledging the need for more troops." This fits the
definition of fanaticism: "When you find you’re going
in the wrong direction, you double your speed."

John Kerry, sadly (for those of us who hoped for a
decisive break from the Bush agenda), echoes that
fanaticism. If he learned any thing from his experience
in Vietnam, he has forgotten it. There, too, repeated
failure to win the support of the Vietnamese people led
to sending more and more troops into Tennyson’s "valley
of death."

In a recent piece in The Washington Post, Kerry talks
about "success" in military terms. "If our military
commanders request more troops we should deploy them."
He seems to think that if we "internationalize" our
disastrous policy, it becomes less of a disaster. "We
also need to renew our effort to attract international
support in the form of boots on the ground to create a
climate of security in Iraq." Is that what brings
security—"boots on the ground"?

Kerry suggests: "We should urge NATO to create a new
out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S.
commander. This would help us obtain more troops from
major powers." More troops, more troops. And the U.S.
must be in charge—that old notion that the world can
trust our leadership—despite our long record of moral
failure.

To those who worry about what will happen in Iraq after
our troops leave, they should consider the effect of
having foreign troops: continued, escalating bloodshed,
continued insecurity, increased hatred for the United
States in the entire Muslim world of over a billion
people, and increased hostility everywhere.

The effect of that will be the exact opposite of what
our political leaders—of both parties—claim they
intend to achieve, a "victory" over terrorism. When you
inflame the anger of an entire population, you have
enlarged the breeding ground for terrorism.

What of the other long-term effects of continued
occupation? I’m thinking of the poisoning of the moral
fiber of our soldiers—being forced to kill, maim,
imprison innocent people, becoming the pawns of an
imperial power after they were deceived into believing
they were fighting for freedom, democracy, against
tyranny.

I’m thinking of the irony that those very things we
said our soldiers were dying for—giving their eyes,
their limbs for—are being lost at home by this brutal
war. Our freedom of speech is diminished, our electoral
system corrupted, Congressional and judicial checks on
executive power nonexistent.

And the costs of the war—the $400 billion military
budget (which Kerry, shockingly, refuses to consider
lowering)—make it inevitable that people in this
country will suffer from lack of health care, a
deteriorating school system, dirtier air and water.
Corporate power is unregulated and running wild.

Kerry does not seem to understand that he is giving
away his strongest card against Bush—the growing
disillusion with the war among the American public. He
thinks he is being clever, by saying he will wage the
war better than Bush. But by declaring his continued
support for the military occupation, he is climbing
aboard a sinking ship.

We do not need another war President. We need a peace
President. And those of us in this country who feel
this way should make our desire known in the strongest
of ways to the man who may be our next occupant of the
White House.

Howard Zinn, the author of "A People’s History of the
United States," is a columnist for The Progressive.

The Progressive

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0426-06.htm