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Vegetarians Between Meals
This War Cannot Be Stopped By a Loyal
Opposition
By Jeremy Scahill
11/18/05 "Common
Dreams" -- -- The refrain of the Democrats about
being misled into supporting the invasion of Iraq has become really
tired. And someone other than the White House smearmongers needs to
say it: The Democrats cannot be allowed to use faulty intelligence
as a crutch to hold up their unforgivable support for the Iraq
invasion. What is DNC Chair Howard Dean's excuse? He wasn't in
Congress and didn't have any access to Senate intelligence. Still,
on March 9, 2003, just days before the invasion began, Dean told Tim
Russert, on NBC's Meet The Press, "I don't want Saddam staying in
power with control over those weapons of mass destruction. I want
him to be disarmed."
During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered
for Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement. I asked
him on what intelligence he based that allegation. "Talks with
people who were knowledgeable," Dean told me. "Including a series of
folks that work in the Clinton administration."
A series of folks that work in the Clinton administration.
How does that jibe with the official Democratic line that they were
misled by the Bush administration? Sounds like Howard Dean, head of
the Democratic Party, was misled by....the Democrats. Dean's candor
offers us a rare glimpse into the painful truth of the matter. As
unpopular as this is to say, when President Bush accuses the
Democrats of "rewriting history" on Iraq, he is right.
None of the horrors playing out in Iraq today would be possible
without the Democratic Party. And no matter how hard some party
leaders try to deny it, this is their war too and will remain so
until every troop is withdrawn. There is no question that the Bush
administration is one of the most corrupt, violent and brutal in the
history of this country but that doesn't erase the serious
responsibility the Democrats bears for the bloodletting in Iraq. As
disingenuous as the Administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs is
the flimsy claim by Democratic lawmakers that they were somehow
duped into voting for the war. The fact is that Iraq posed no threat
to the United States in 2003 any more than it did in 1998 when
President Clinton bombed Baghdad. John Kerry and his colleagues knew
that. The Democrats didn't need false intelligence to push them into
overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. It was their policy; a policy
made the law of the land not under George W. Bush, but under
President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act,
formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq.
Manipulated intelligence is but a small part of a bigger, bipartisan
15-year assault on Iraq's people. If the Democrats really want to
look at how America was led into this war, they need to go back
further than the current president's inauguration.
As bloody and deadly as the occupation has been, it was Bill Clinton
who refined the art of killing innocent Iraqis following the Gulf
War. One of his first acts as president was to bomb Iraq, following
the alleged assassination plot against George HW Bush. Clinton's
missiles killed the famed Iraqi painter Leila al Attar as they
smashed into her home. Clinton presided enthusiastically over the
most deadly and repressive regime of economic sanctions in
history--his UN ambassador Madeline Albright calling the reported
deaths of half a million children "worth the price." Clinton
initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam with
his illegal no-fly zone bombings, attacking Iraq once every three
days for the final years of his presidency. It was under Clinton
that Ahmed Chalabi was given tens of millions of dollars and made a
key player in shaping Washington's Iraq policy. It was Clinton that
mercilessly attacked Iraq in December of 1998, destroying dozens of
Baghdad buildings and killing scores of civilians. It was Clinton
that codified regime change in Iraq as US policy. Bush ordered the
invasion of Iraq but he could not have done it without the years of
groundwork laid by Clinton and the Democrats. How ironic it was
recently to hear Clinton call the war "a big mistake."
It's easy to resist war with a president like Bush in the White
House. Where were these Democrats when it was Clinton's bombs
raining down on Iraq, when it was Clinton's economic sanctions
targeting the most vulnerable? Many of them were right behind him
and his deadly policies the same way they were behind Bush when he
asked their consent to use force against Iraq. As the veteran Iraq
activist and Nobel Prize nominee Kathy Kelly said often during the
Clinton years, "It's easy to be a vegetarian between meals." The
fact is that one of the great crimes of our times was committed by
the Clinton administration with the support of many of the
politicians now attacking Bush.
Herein lies the real political crisis in this country: the Democrats
are not an opposition party, nor are they an antiwar party-never
were. At best, they are a loyal opposition. The Democrats ran a
pro-war campaign in 2004 with Kerry struggling to convince people
that Dems do occupation and war better. The current head of the DNC,
Howard Dean, never met a war he didn't adore until he realized he
could exploit the energy and sincere hopes of millions of
peace-loving Americans. Dean wasn't ever antiwar. In fact, during
the 2004 campaign he attacked Kerry for opposing the Gulf War while
laying out his own pro-war record.
"In 1991, I supported Gulf War. I supported the first President
Bush," declared Dean. "Senator Kerry who criticizes my foreign
policy, he voted against that war. I supported the Afghanistan war,
because I felt it was about our national defense-- 3,000 of our
people were killed. I supported President Clinton going into Bosnia
and Kosovo."
How can Howard Dean look people in the eye today and pretend to
speak with any credibility as an antiwar voice?
When the hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha bravely stepped forward
to call for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this
week, he was quickly blasted by the White House and simultaneously
disowned by powerful Democrats like John Kerry. Occupation lovers
together again. The bloody scandal of the Iraq occupation has opened
a rare and clear window into the truth about this country: there is
one party represented in Washington--one that supports preemptive
war and regime change. The reality is that the Democrats could stop
this war if the will was there. They could shut down the Senate
every day, not just for a few hours one afternoon. They could
disrupt business as usual and act as though the truth were true:
this war should never have happened and it must end now. The country
would be behind them if they did it. But they won't. They will hem
and haw and call for more troops and throw out epic lies about the
US becoming a stabilizing force in Iraq and blame the Republicans
for their own complicity and enthusiasm in the 15 years of
bipartisan crimes against Iraq.
All of this begs for a multiparty system in this country and the
emergence of a true opposition. The epic scale of the disaster in
Iraq calls for epic lessons to be learned at home. Like the Bush
White House, the Democrats have lost their credibility. They are
undeserving of the blank check of "Anybody But Bush" and should
never be allowed to cash it again. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who heads up
the House Democrat's election campaign, criticized Murtha's call for
immediate withdrawal, saying, "At the right time, we will have a
position." It is statements like that that should result in Emanuel
and his colleagues losing theirs.
Jeremy Scahill,
an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national
radio and TV program
Democracy Now!,
has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is
currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He can be
reached at
jeremy@democracynow.org.
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