[Peace-discuss] Cakewalk in Retrospect

[David Green]

Article from highly recommended site warincontext.org,
from about the time we started demonstrating.

Cakewalk or oblivion
Editorial, The War in Context, August 30, 2002

On September 11, even before George Bush had addressed
the nation, Dick Cheney's buddies were already laying
out the course of this administration's foreign
policy, as they believed it should unfold over the
following months and years.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard,
speaking on the Lehrer Newshour and sounding
distinctly like a presidential spokesman, declared:

We're now at war. We're at war with terrorism, with
the terrorist group that launched this incredibly
bloody and destructive attack on Americans, with the
states that harbor that terrorist group. We need to
find out who did it, track them down, kill them and
remove the government of those states. […]
If it does turn out that Saddam Hussein, as seems
increasingly the case, has links to Osama bin Laden …
we're not just dealing with Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban in Afghanistan, but we're basically looking at
finishing the job we began in 1990 with Saddam
Hussein.

The drumbeat to take out Saddam has been thumping away
for several years. Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul
Wolfowitz, along with their freewheeling cohorts,
Richard Perle, James Woolsey and William Kristol
(together with most other members of the Defense
Policy Board and the supporters of the Project for the
New American Century) have been calling for another
war against Iraq since 1998 or even earlier.

Before September 11, the Iraq hawks weren't sure they
could win the argument for war. After September 11
they became convinced that there was no longer any
need for debate. In the intervening year they have
done nothing more than pay lip service to the demands
that a case needs to be made for going to war. James
Woolsey tried out his slogan, "Give war a chance,"
while the preferred pretext for war swung back and
forth between the need to remove a state sponsor of
terrorism, to the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction. In the absence of strong evidence
that Saddam actually has any links to Al Qaeda, the
war party line fell by default back to the nuclear
threat.

While the rationale for a war against Iraq might seem
poorly defined, the weakness in the arguments of the
proponents of war should not be confused with a lack
of resolve. On the contrary, the resolve to go to war
is so strong that it has supplanted all need for
discussion. Those who remain unconvinced are dismissed
as wimps and the frequent response to war critics has
been to brand them as "appeasers" and patronize them
by asserting that the war will be easy.

Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member and
personal friend of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,
has repeatedly declared that the coming war will be a
"cakewalk." Richard Perle, Defense Policy Board
Chairman, expresses no less confidence as he promises
that Iraq will serve as the bridgehead for democracy
across the Middle East. Curiously, the need for a war
is so urgent because Iraq poses such an enormous
threat, while at the same time the risks posed by
going to war are so few because the Iraqi military is
so weak.

Meanwhile, laudable efforts are being made both inside
and outside the United States to stop this war before
it begins. While the goal is worthy, it implies that
we are confronting an administration that is open to
persuasion. All the evidence so far suggests, however,
that for George Bush and his supporters, the only
thing that losing an argument compels is a change in
tactics.

The hawks want their war and chances are they'll have
it.

In the process, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle
will most likely make the small sacrifice of losing a
few nights of sleep. Neither they, nor their families
or friends risk shedding any blood. But since even
before the first battle has begun, these suited
warriors have been so bold as to claim a swift
victory, perhaps they can tell us in advance what
honor would compel them to do if the war and its
aftermath bears little resemblance to their
predictions.

Tell us Mr Cheney, what would you say is an acceptable
price for this war? Less than 10,000 casualties on
either side? An economic recession of less than 12
months? The use of non-nuclear weapons of mass
destruction by Iraq, the United States or Israel?
Would it be acceptable for Israel or the U.S. to also
use nuclear weapons?

Tell us what your idea of the "acceptable" price is
and then we'll be able to agree if and when that price
has been exceeded.

If the cost turns out to be even higher than the one
that you were willing to accept, we already know
there's little chance that either you or any of your
associates will ever stand before an international
criminal court. Even so, perhaps you can promise the
American people that at the very least you'll all
quietly go into political exile and desist from any
further pretense that you are acting in the interests
of either this nation or the world at large.

©2002 Paul Woodward 


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