If You Supported the War, Pay For It

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Thu, 25 Aug 2005 16:52:10 -0700 (PDT)

If You Supported the War, Pay For It

 

 

 

 

If You Supported the War, Pay For It

 

NEW YORK-- " If America is truly on a war footing, " Thom Shanker asks in

the New York Times, " why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at

large? " Military recruiters are coming up short of volunteers, yet

neither party is pushing for a draft. No one is proposing a tax

increase to cover the $60 billion annual cost of the

Iraq and Afghan wars.

 

There are no World War II-style war bond drives, no victory gardens,

not even gas rationing. Back here in the fatherland, only " support our

troops " car ribbons indicate that we're at war--and they aren't even

bumper stickers, they're magnetic. Apparently Americans aren't even

willing to sacrifice the finish on their automobiles to promote the cause.

 

" Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us, " the paper quotes

an officer who just returned from a year in rose-petal-paved Iraq.

" [symbolic signs of support are] just not enough, " grumbles a

brigadier general. " There has to be more, " he demands. " The absence of

a call for broader national sacrifice in a time of war has become a

near constant topic of discussion among officers and enlisted

personnel, " the general claims.

 

Northwestern University professor Charles Moskos says: " The political

leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice, which

doesn't speak too highly of the citizenry. "

 

To which I say: Screw that. It's not my duty to suffer for this

pointless war. I've been against it all along, and you can stick your

victory garden where the desert sun can't penetrate.

 

I was among hundreds of thousands of Americans who marched against

invading Iraq in early 2003. Tens of millions cheered us on. The

largest mass protest movement in history (so designated by the

Guinness Book of World Records) brought together pacifists, humanists

and people like me. We knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We

didn't believe that the same White House that propped up dictatorships

in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia--that had,

when it suited them, supported Saddam--could possibly be interested in

liberating the people of Iraq. When we scrutinized coverage of the

CIA's prewar analyses, we found that there wasn't any. There were only

reports dating back to 1998, ancient history in the intelligence

business. We absolutely didn't trust Dick " cakewalk " Cheney's breezy

predictions.

 

Bush and Cheney ignored our concerns. Instead of building a solid case

and bipartisan political consensus, they bullied and lied to Congress

and the UN to scam us into this unwinnable war. Who can blame them?

They work for ExxonMobil and Halliburton, not the American people. But

they, not us, broke Iraq. It can't be fixed, it's not our fault and

it's not our problem. There's no reason to relinquish our creature

comforts to back their grubby little oil grab.

 

The most galling aspect of this fiasco is that it was entirely

predictable. I know; I predicted it. Here's my column written back in

July 2002:

 

" Most experts expect Iraq to disintegrate into civil war after an

overthrow of Saddam's oppressive Ba'ath Party, " I wrote. " Opinion of

the United States is now at an all-time low among Muslims around the

world. Going after Iraq will make matters worse. Why give radical

anti-American Islamists even more political ammunition with which to

recruit suicide bombers and attract the financial donations that fund

their assaults? "

 

I'm no genius, but even I could see that this war was doomed eight

months before the invasion:

 

" Do the Kurds deserve a homeland? Sure. Would Iraq be better off

without Saddam? Probably. But if we're smart, we won't be the ones to

blow over this particular house of cards. We have too much to lose and

too little to gain in the mess that would certainly ensue. "

 

Did I call that one or what?

 

David Hendrickson, a scholar at Colorado College, tells the Times:

" Bush understands that the support of the public for war--especially

the war in Iraq--is conditioned on demanding little of the public. " Of

course, Bush himself hasn't given up a second of vacation or a single

donated dollar, much less one of his hard-partying daughters, to the

" war effort. " Sacrifice is a hard sell down here among the citizenry

when we don't see it starting where it should start, among our leaders.

 

I'm already sacrificing too much for a war I always believed was

stupid and wrong. I'm paying three dollars a gallon for buck-fifty gas

and walking through gauntlets of over-armed National Guardboys at

airports and bus stations. I'm in greater danger than ever before of

getting blown up by a pissed-off fanatic. And I dread the giant tax

hike we'll eventually need to pay off Bush's deficit. But these aren't

enough sacrifices for Bush and his vainglorious generals, who are

planning " a Civilian Reserve, a sort of Peace Corps for

professionals...a program to seek commitments from bankers, lawyers,

doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers and solid-waste disposal

experts to deploy to conflict zones for months at a time on

reconstruction assignments, to relieve pressure on the military. "

 

If you voted for Bush, here's your chance to plant your butt where

your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni

Triangle. Good luck.