Five Stupid Things I've Heard Now That The "War" Is "Over"...

Jonathan Hershfield, DMY Columnist, 5-23-03

Discuss this in our online forums

1. The war is over.

First of all, you can't have a beginning, middle or end to something that doesn't exist. I don't recall congress ever declaring war on Iraq. And I certainly don't see how the largest most powerful military system in the world bombing the hell out of some messed up third world country we've already been bombing for twelve years anyway really warrants the word "war."

But even if you are to stretch the term to include the invasion of Iraq, you can't seriously believe the conflict is over. None of the objectives, whatever the hell they're supposed to be, have been confirmed complete, with the possible exception of the destruction of Hussein's regime (not that anyone knows where he is…probably having a Budweiser with Osama on the Pentagon's tab). Furthermore, calling this "war" over while the Iraqi people are under unwanted U.S. military occupation makes about as much sense as calling the Six Day War of 1967 a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

2. Well, maybe we went about it the wrong way, but at least the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

First of all, we didn't go about something "the wrong way." Trying to make marijuana suppositories is going about something in the wrong way. What the Bush team did was unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the international public. Let's not mince words.

Now how the world can be better off without Saddam Hussein when he really had basically no effect on anything outside of a few small Middle Eastern countries is a little irrelevant. What's more intriguing, I think, is the fact that the world would be far better off without George W. Bush. I suppose you might say al Qaeda is going about taking care of this problem "the wrong way." Bush has destroyed the doctrine of national sovereignty, de-legitimized the United Nations, pissed on the Kyoto treaty, antagonized such paltry insignificant forces as Russia, China and France, destroyed America's valued freedom of information, reduced corporate accountability and endorsed every right wing yahoo that wants to hold American office. And some other stuff too.

One last thing-Hussein was (or is) a power-hungry madman responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians over more than two decades of tyrannical leadership. But if you want to crunch some truly staggering numbers, ask yourself how many civilians have died as a result of US military action in that same period of time, not including those killed by Hussein while America was supporting him. Which leads to the third stupid thing I keep hearing...

3. Not bad, a quick conflict and very few civilian deaths.

Within the first two weeks of war, there were 400 reported civilian deaths. That may seem small from a distance, but how many people in the world do you know by name? What would 400 dead people look like at your house? Now it doesn't take too much brain power to recognize that the majority of wartime deaths take place a few months later after the shrapnel settles into your gut and poisons your bloodstream (or years, in the case of depleted uranium). So that means by now there must be at a minimum a few thousand civilian deaths. Not that anyone would notice, but a Times survey recently put the confirmed civilian deaths in the city of Baghdad alone at 1,700 last week. So let's not kid ourselves about civilian death. At a bare minimum, we're talking about a number roughly the size of those killed on 9/11, which, if I recall, is considered tragic. Again, not that anyone would notice, but more civilians were killed in our bombing of Afghanistan. And if you're unfortunate enough to just lose an arm or something, I guess that doesn't make the list of casualties.

Now, some argue that Saddam Hussein would have killed that amount anyway if we left him in power. I'd like to respond to that by saying, what the fuck are you talking about? Under that logic, we have a lot more civilians to kill before despotic leaders beat us to it. Let's roll!

4. Yay, we've liberated the Iraqi people.

This statement is false on two major levels and is ironically the one tossed around the most. First, you can't liberate someone against his will. That's retarded. I'm not saying the majority of Iraqis enjoyed living under Saddam Hussein, but I don't recall any of them asking for a US military occupation. Let's not forget who propped Saddam up on the backs of the Iraqi people in the first place. Maybe the thousands of ungrateful protesters now being shot at by American soldiers don't feel as liberated as we want them to.

But more importantly-and this is going to alienate a good .0003% of my readers-that "yay" is disingenuous because I don't think you actually give a flying fuck about the Iraqi people. You probably couldn't pick Iraq out on a map. You don't even know an Iraqi person. You probably don't even know anyone who knows an Iraqi person. Suddenly I'm to believe you're sincere when you say you're really happy that the Iraqis are "liberated?" Did you even know about the deaths caused by medically detrimental sanctions and bombings of illegally imposed no-fly zones?

How can anyone with a straight face justify spending billions of dollars to rebuild the Iraq we ravaged, when our own children are getting crappy education, poor employment opportunities and no guaranteed health insurance. Yeah, sure, the Iraqi people living under oppression has kept us all up at night, wondering how we can save them. For the past twelve years, all you could think about is the poor Iraqi children. Let's just hope you never find out what conditions children are living under in Brazil. Then we'll have to start all over again, just for good old humanitarian you.

5. We're finally rebuilding Iraq into a modern state.

Before the United States helped prolong the first Gulf war (the real first Gulf war-between Iran and Iraq) by providing support and weapons to both sides, Iraq was a modern state. Oh, sure, it was still living under tyranny, but it had higher employment and literacy rates with lower infant death rates than most, if not all, countries in the region. What we really mean by "rebuilding" is "redesigning," for it is not the Iraqi people who are choosing Halliburton to control the resources. It is not the Iraqi people choosing their health and education systems. Jesus, it's not even the American people choosing these things. It's a handful of wealthy corporations who've proven themselves to be the "best." At what? Maybe giving multimillion dollar jobs to people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Bush administration. This administration has more questionable ties to huge corporations than any administration in history... not that anyone would notice.

Cheney's Halliburton has already had to pay nearly two million dollars in fines for overcharging the Pentagon. The SEC is investigating whether this same company hid $100 million in losses, counting unpaid bills as profit. This is the same Halliburton that did business with Iran and Libya, not to mention, you guessed it, Iraq. Yet, miraculously, they keep getting government contracts without any bidding. Hmmm… I wonder if my plumber has been overcharging me. There seems to be an awful lot of shit coming out of my television news.

So the world's self-appointed superpower is determining the social and economic structure of yet another country by awarding contracts to large criminal organizations like the previously mentioned Kellogg Brown and Root (of Halliburton), and of course Bechtel, Stevedoring and others. Rebuilding you say? How about just re-using?

Liberty and justice for gall.