No more 'war'

Five years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, here's how I plan to honor the victims. From now on, I refuse to use the word "war" to describe our nation's response to the attacks.

My family went to see World Trade Center last week. Overall, I enjoyed the film and appreciated its portrayal of the brave people who tried to curb the death toll in Lower Manhattan five years ago this week. But I am appalled at the way Oliver Stone handled one aspect of the story. A former Marine who helped free two trapped Port Authority police is last seen on his cell phone saying he won't be coming back to his civilian job; that he plans to re-up and go avenge the attacks. A few minutes later, in the film's endnotes, Stone reports that the Marine fought two tours of duty in Iraq. That's right, one of our supposedly most liberal filmmakers is helping millions of moviegoers continue to buy the lie - refuted once again last week by a Senate panel - that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Enough. George W. Bush has used the sham of us being at "war"  to be a "wartime" president and do whatever he likes in the name of national security. He very likely won the 2004 election because a slight majority of Americans were nervous about changing presidents in the middle of a "war." But as linguist George Lakoff reminds us all in an essay at Daily Kos today, wars are fought between nations and armies, and terror is a state of being. Yes, there is definitely terror in the world and people who wish to do us harm, some of them sheltered by the nations where they live. But we need to start dealing with terrorists as we do other international criminals: "checking banks accounts, wire-tapping, recruiting spies and informants, engaging in diplomacy, cooperating with intelligence agencies in other governments, and if necessary, engaging in limited 'police actions' with military force. Indeed, such methods have been the most successful so far in dealing with terrorism," Lakoff writes. If we'd used these methods in the months after September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden would have been caught. But Bush and Cheney apparently didn't want that, at least not as much as they wanted a bogus "war" in Iraq.

We've let BushCo literally get away with murder since September 11. As Lakoff adds, "The number of lives lost on 9/11 is currently listed as 2,973. As of this writing 2,662 Americans have been sent to their deaths in Iraq, a Muslim country that did not attack us. At the current rate, within months more Americans will have been sent to their deaths by Bush than were murdered at the hands of bin Laden."

These were brave men and women, many of whom signed up to serve after September 11, believing Bush, Cheney, and the rest of their neoconservative cabal when they insisted they knew where to fight the enemy. Our leaders lied, bin Laden remains free,  and there's no end in sight.

War, hell.

Comments

[Bubblehead]

As you might guess, I disagree strongly with you regarding whether or not we're currently at war. Maybe "War on Terror" doesn't make linguistic sense to you -- how about "War Against Those Who Seek To Re-establish The Caliphate By Force"? I really don't see the logic in refusing to change your way of thinking from the 20th century norms regarding the lexicon of international conflict -- how very conservative of you.

Luckily, we each have our right to publish our own opinions. It's refreshing to see someone such as yourself with such an idealistic opinion of human nature. For myself, I've traveled the world enough, and in enough different circles, to know that there are people out there -- not everyone, but enough of them -- who want nothing more than to kill Americans. My opinion is that we should stop them before they do, not "check their bank accounts", or some other method of Kumbaya-singing at them. Remember, we treated the attack on the USS Cole as a "criminal matter" and look where that got us.

Oh, and you should talk to the pilots who were patrolling the no-fly zones, getting shot at, before you decide the Iraqis weren't attacking us -- I assume you consider American military personnel to be part of "us".

[Jessica]

Not that this is an excuse to shoot at people/planes, but weren't the no-fly zones illegal?

[Julie in Boise]

I heard Bush say tonight that this "war" will not be over until our enemies surrender. But the problem I and many others have with this notion is that there will always be terrorists. We will never defeat them all. So will we always be at war?

And at what sacrifice? Clearly, our military personnel and their families are paying very high prices indeed. But from the time shortly after 9/11 that Bush urged us all to go shopping, I haven't been able to buy the idea that we are really at war, because - other than some inconvenience at the airport - few of us outside the military have been asked to sacrifice a damn thing, except perhaps our right to question our nation's policies.

Much as I wish I could be, I am not a "Kumbayah" liberal who believes the world will eventually evolve to a point where war will never happen and a military will be unnecessary. But I absolutely believe what we've done in Iraq is overkill of the worst sort - literally, especially when we take Iraqi civilians into account. We could have taken out Saddam with special forces, saving billions in our national treasure and tens of thousands of Iraqi and coalition lives.

That's what I believe we ought to be doing with other terrorists, too. Most American citizens know the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is unsustainable, not to mention unjust.

[Bubblehead]

Jessica -- I suppose it all depends on how you interpret Section 8 of UN Resolution 1441 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/15016.htm)
The no-fly zones were initially established unilaterally by the victorious parties as a punitive action in response to the Iraqi slaughter of Kurds and Shi'ites in the aftermath of the 1991 war. We could have declared the Iraqis in violation of the cease-fire agreement, and marched back in -- instead, we established the no-fly zones as the "punishment" for Iraqi violations; this was all in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict, so the zones were legal from that perspective. In any event, the Iraqis shooting at our aircraft was a continued violation of the cease-fire agreement they (the Iraqis) had agreed to in 1991.

Now, whether one believes that expanding the war to Iraq was right or not, I think the country is coming to a consensus that the Administration's directions to the military on what forces and ROE they could use was pretty bad.

And Julie -- I really don't think your right to question the nation's policies is really in danger, as this post illustrates nicely.

[Bubblehead]

Julie -- your commenting software remains Idaho's current biggest threat to open political discourse. The hyperlink I put in above picked up the end parenthesis I put in; here's another attempt at putting in the URL to UN Resolution 1441:
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/15016.htm

[Julie in Boise]

Hey, blame TypePad if the URLs get clipped. I have the same problem with Blogger, frankly. I just blog here; I didn't write the code!

And I'm not saying I no longer have the right to question my government - only that Cheney et al say I'm a terrorist appeaser when I do. So in that sense, yes, he does expect me to sacrifice my free speech or be branded a traitor.

[Julie in Boise]

Seriously, Joel, don't you think Adam's hidden log-in link at the bottom of the world's longest blogroll is actually a greater threat to open political discourse?

Or Clayton Cramer's edict that you have to email him if you want to post a comment?

[Bubblehead]

Yes, Julie, you have two most excellent points there regarding Adam's and Clayton's blogs.

Re: your other point, though, people on the anti-Cheney side call him all sorts of bad names, too, when he defends the war (murderer, etc. -- not exactly helpful in civilized discourse, much like calling people traitors); part of Free Speech means that people who have a different opinion are allowed to state that they disagree with your opinion, and why.

[Jessica]

Though the UN never authorized the no-fly zones.

[mtnbkrid]

I have to say that the "No fly zones" were working. That Saddam was in a box and not a threat to the USA. Sure the Iraqis were taking pot shots at our jet jockeys. How many were shot down? ZERO. How many Iraqi missile/radar sites were blown to bits? Every one that launched at an American jet were taken out. Sorry, but those did not rise to the level of invading Iraq in retaliation.