Memo to
Obama,
McCain: No
One Wins in
a War
By Howard
Zinn
17/07/08 "Boston
Globe"
--- Barack
Obama and
John McCain
continue to
argue about
war. McCain
says to keep
the troops
in Iraq
until we
“win” and
supports
sending more
troops to
Afghanistan.
Obama says
to withdraw
some (not
all) troops
from Iraq
and send
them to
fight and
“win” in
Afghanistan.
For someone
like myself,
who fought
in World War
II, and
since then
has
protested
against war,
I must ask:
Have our
political
leaders gone
mad? Have
they learned
nothing from
recent
history?
Have they
not learned
that no one
“wins” in a
war, but
that
hundreds of
thousands of
humans die,
most of them
civilians,
many of them
children?
Did we “win”
by going to
war in
Korea? The
result was a
stalemate,
leaving
things as
they were
before with
a
dictatorship
in South
Korea and a
dictatorship
in North
Korea.
Still, more
than 2
million
people —
mostly
civilians —
died, the
United
States
dropped
napalm on
children,
and 50,000
American
soldiers
lost their
lives.
Did we “win”
in Vietnam?
We were
forced to
withdraw,
but only
after 2
million
Vietnamese
died, again
mostly
civilians,
again
leaving
children
burned or
armless or
legless, and
58,000
American
soldiers
dead.
Did we win
in the first
Gulf War?
Not really.
Yes, we
pushed
Saddam
Hussein out
of Kuwait,
with only a
few hundred
US
casualties,
but perhaps
100,000
Iraqis died.
And the
consequences
were deadly
for the
United
States:
Saddam was
still in
power, which
led the
United
States to
enforce
economic
sanctions.
That move
led to the
deaths of
hundreds of
thousands of
Iraqis,
according to
UN
officials,
and set the
stage for
another war.
In
Afghanistan,
the United
States
declared
“victory”
over the
Taliban. Now
the Taliban
is back, and
attacks are
increasing.
The recent
US military
death count
in
Afghanistan
exceeds that
in Iraq.
What makes
Obama think
that sending
more troops
to
Afghanistan
will produce
“victory”?
And if it
did, in an
immediate
military
sense, how
long would
that last,
and at what
cost to
human life
on both
sides?
The
resurgence
of fighting
in
Afghanistan
is a good
moment to
reflect on
the
beginning of
US
involvement
there. There
should be
sobering
thoughts to
those who
say that
attacking
Iraq was
wrong, but
attacking
Afghanistan
was right.
Go back to
Sept. 11,
2001.
Hijackers
direct jets
into the
World Trade
Center and
the
Pentagon,
killing
close to
3,000 A
terrorist
act,
inexcusable
by any moral
code. The
nation is
aroused.
President
Bush orders
the invasion
and bombing
of
Afghanistan,
and the
American
public is
swept into
approval by
a wave of
fear and
anger. Bush
announces a
“war on
terror.”
Except for
terrorists,
we are all
against
terror. So a
war on
terror
sounded
right. But
there was a
problem,
which most
Americans
did not
consider in
the heat of
the moment:
President
Bush,
despite his
confident
bravado, had
no idea how
to make war
against
terror.
Yes, Al
Qaeda — a
relatively
small but
ruthless
group of
fanatics —
was
apparently
responsible
for the
attacks.
And, yes,
there was
evidence
that Osama
bin Laden
and others
were based
in
Afghanistan.
But the
United
States did
not know
exactly
where they
were, so it
invaded and
bombed the
whole
country.
That made
many people
feel
righteous.
“We had to
do
something,”
you heard
people say.
Yes, we had
to do
something.
But not
thoughtlessly,
not
recklessly.
Would we
approve of a
police
chief,
knowing
there was a
vicious
criminal
somewhere in
a
neighborhood,
ordering
that the
entire
neighborhood
be bombed?
There was
soon a
civilian
death toll
in
Afghanistan
of more than
3,000 —
exceeding
the number
of deaths in
the Sept. 11
attacks.
Hundreds of
Afghans were
driven from
their homes
and turned
into
wandering
refugees.
Two months
after the
invasion of
Afghanistan,
a Boston
Globe story
described a
10-year-old
in a
hospital
bed: “He
lost his
eyes and
hands to the
bomb that
hit his
house after
Sunday
dinner.” The
doctor
attending
him said:
“The United
States must
be thinking
he is Osama.
If he is not
Osama, then
why would
they do
this?”
We should be
asking the
presidential
candidates:
Is our war
in
Afghanistan
ending
terrorism,
or provoking
it? And is
not war
itself
terrorism?
Howard Zinn
is author of
“A People’s
History of
the United
States.”
© Copyright
2008 Globe
Newspaper
Company
