How America Can Change the World - Article Updated 12/15/03

Saddam was pulled from a hole in the ground on Dec 13, 2003, a strong signal that the regime of the Ba’ath parth is finally ended. But now other forces have gathered in Iraq to further their extremist views and strike at the “infidel.”

What is Victory?

As the dust settles in Baghdad and the fighting subsides, I turn my thoughts now to the potential outcomes of that conflict and ask: What is victory? The cacophony of questions and debate over whether we should have  initiated the conflict must cease and a new question necessarily arises: How can we “win the peace?”  Our voices must turn now to the goal of shaping that outcome. We must bend ourselves tirelessly and hold our government to account. We must demand that, if they choose war as a method of effecting change in the world, then they must also take on the grave responsibilities of the outcome.

In spite of the good faith and valid dissent from the many sensitive, intelligent and moral people who protested this war, (and I was one of them), the time for protest is over. We are there, we are fighting and we must win. The consequences of failing in this endeavor are now too great to contemplate. Our entry into Iraq is a revolving door. We cannot simply back out.  We cannot  “bring the boys home” without victory. Military victory is the essential precondition to anything positive that could possibly result from this operation and, now that that victory seems apparent, the potential good is very great.

Now we can remove the tyranny of the Ba’ath Party and “liberate” the Iraqi people. We can put an end to the executions and torture for any who failed to oppose us in Iraq. (The have found them - the mass graves scattered all over Iraq.)

Now we can finally assure ourselves that the  bio and nuclear weapons factories we suspect in Iraq are found and dismantled. But wariness and caution should guide us as well, for some of the defeated Ba’athist Party will certainly survive, with great grievance  and a will to pass anything they have secreted away on to our enemies. (Update: Where are they? Perhaps they were never there at all?)

Now we can remove sanctions that have  long burdened the Iraqi people, restore essential services, and bring in food, water and medical supplies that are much needed.

Now we can build another coalition—a federation of the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish peoples of Iraq in a new government.

Now we can aid in developing Iraq’s oil, keeping a watchful eye on our own corporate greed, and bringing new wealth and a better standard of living to Iraq. (Like the recent $61 million dollar “oops” overcharge foisted on the US government by Haliburton Oil).

Now there is a hope that the new Iraqi government will choose democracy,  and bring the benefits of freedom to their people. There is a chance that this will serve as a model to other nations in the region, and that the Middle East would be transformed as Iraq stands as a challenge to the continuation of autocracy,  trampling of human rights and oppression that has been the hallmark of Middle Eastern governments over the last half century.

Well, I think the point is clearly made. We had to win the battle to have any chance of winning the war—and the peace that follows.  The brave soldiers, sailors and marines who put their lives at stake in this gamble, have opened the gates to all of these possibilities. Now we  must  ensure that our government does its utmost to realize all the positive things than can arise from this war—to demand that we embrace the hope and reality of uplift for the Iraqi people.

While many have felt this war would only lead to disaster, we can only be thankful that it turned out as well as it did. The Iraqi forces could not put up a credible military defense. Any assembly of regular forces outside Baghdad was destroyed by our air power. They were therefore forced to fight in small groups of raiders and ambushers, with occasional nests of stronger opposition in the cities. Casualties were not high, as war goes, though undoubtedly the Iraqi forces would differ with that. Still, the oil fields were captured largely intact and no great ecological disaster ensued. The cities were not reduced to rubble by street fighting, and amazingly, the Iraqis failed to demolish a single key bridge over the many river crossings the Coalition forces had to use. The fear that they might destroy key dams and flood the Euphrates Valley was also not realized. And the greatest fear, the one that kept US soldiers in chemical suits for most of the three week batte, never materialized. Now the war stands as a great opportunity for us to win something really substantial. Real victory will emerge from the responsibility with which we pursue the stewardship of Iraq after the fighting is over, for this will be our charge until those shattered people are able to define some new national identity and express their desires for a government of their own.

This is the first essential point: a government of their own. While our hope would be to transplant some fledgling democracy in the blood stained sands of Iraq we must consider first that no democracy was ever successfully imposed from without. In every instance, democratic systems of government, and the principles they are based on, have arisen from within. Our own ‘great words’ say it perfectly well: “Of the people, by the people and for the people.” Therefore, the assumption, or even the hope that we can impose our democratic “way of life” on another people, culture, or nation is antithetical from the every start. That’s simply not the way it happens.

Understanding that we are not going to Iraq to impose democracy is the first step toward victory. Why then are we going? What do we hope to achieve—what task is actually before us and what conditions can we bring about that might truly work a transformation in the world. Once the “war” is won, the real work in Iraq will just be beginning.  Some of it will be dark and troubling, but it will give us a chance, a precious chance to show the world who we really are. Will we rise to the challenge?

Phase 1: Vampire Hunters

 I f we are to take the present administration at its word, the stated “mission” of this new war is to “disarm Iraq.” The US, acting out of fears spawned by Al Qaeda’s 9-11 attack, has found another “Bad Arab” lurking like a vampire in the Muslim World. He’s been there for 30 years, but now the time has come to remove him. Since it seemed impossible that Saddam would ever transparently disarm of his own choice, “regime change” was put forth as the first step to assuring our safety, and the safety of other friendly governments in the region. Like vampire hunters, we must break into the lair of the beast, weapons in hand, and seek out the pale, evil minions of the Ba’ath Party to drag them out into the burning sunlight. Eventually we hope to find and pry open the coffin of the master vampire himself, Saddam. When the stake is driven home, we will have finally rid the world of a certain evil. “Regime change” is now a fact and the work of disarmament, frustrated for 12 years by Saddam’s devious shell game, can finally begin.  (Update: Saddam was pulled from his hole in the ground during “Operation Red Dawn” on Dec 13th, 2003. “Don’t shoot,” he reportedly said, “I am Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, and I want to negotiate.”  A US soldier present at the scene reportedly replied: “President Bush Sends his greetings.”

And so the Master Vampire was caught... not with a bang like the six hour gun battle that ended in the death of his notorious sons, but instead, with a whimper. The strong man of Iraq, who was given the nickname “The Butcher of Baghdad” was brought to heel without a single shot being fired. The regime is over now, and will never return... but in its place there is now a loosely organize insurgency fueled by radical Islamic groups, disaffected Sunnis, ex-republican guards and a host of “sitting around guys” as Freidmann might say.  So the struggle goes on.

In this the aid and assistance of the Iraqi people will be essential. Like the “De-nazification” of Germany after WWII, we must identify the hold-outs from the old order and bring them to justice while preventing an inhuman outbreak of violence and retribution. That work will not be easy. The Iraqi people have cast the first free vote of their lives in not siding with Saddam. But many of his old guard have simply slipped away into the population, and they are nasty little bunch of vampires indeed! There are clans, and cousins, and favored sons who have grown accustomed to the privilege of power, and the brutal, cavalier means in which it has been wielded by Saddam and his Ba’ath party. They have become addicted to the taste of blood, and will not willingly give up their hunting ground. While we have suggested that they might simply accept exile, the prospect of some 20,000 hard core Ba’athist party members traipsing off to Iran or Syria or Russia to live off the hundreds of millions of dollars Saddam has stashed away, is unlikely. No—I rather think some will fight, at least in the beginning.

Now they have tossed away their little red berets, shed their vampire cloaks and uniforms and sought to vanish into the general population. Remember, they know every little nook and cranny of Baghdad; every street, alley, sewer, and tunnel. If they slink off into the dark corners of the city they may be very hard to find and drag out into the light. If US soldiers will be expected to “keep the peace” in Iraq after the battle ends, they will be prime targets for the vengeance of these nasty little vampires. Who knows how long it will take to root them all out?  US forces will have the awkward task of sorting out the bad from the good, and fingers of accusation will point in many directions. I do not envy them, for this task will be much more difficult than we think.

Phase 2: Reunification – The Humpty Dumpty Question

“Why, if I ever did fall off (Said Humpty)—which, there’s no chance of—but if I did—” Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. “If I did fall,” he went on...the King has promised me with his very own mouth to—to—”

“To send all his horses and his men,” Alice interrupted, rather unwisely

We have sent them. They have prevailed in the battle. But can they put poor Humpty Dumpty back together again? The vampire hunt could take months or years, and while it is going on we must try to forge some new national identity in Iraq, a country that has been a fractured society since its arbitrary creation by the British after WWI. Simply drawing lines on a map does not make a nation The lines the British drew around Iraq encompassed the Kurds in the north, the Sunnis in the center, the Shia in the south and a host of other clans and small ethnic enclaves. Indeed, Iraq is a bit like Yugoslavia, an ethnically fractured fault zone that was the birthplace of WWI. The British did not learn that lesson very well. They won the war that started in Yugoslavia, then heedlessly created yet another fracture zone in Iraq, and it has been a hotbed of turmoil ever since. And yes, the French were in on the deal as well. They have long had their finger in the pie that was made of Iraq, which is why they are so unwilling to allow the US to take charge there.

The French helped supply Iraq’s nuclear programs and have big oil contracts on the table, the Germans helped Saddam design and build his deepest underground sanctuaries, the Russians sold him his T-55 and T-72 tanks, and yes, the US gave him chemicals and anthrax samples. They all did this because they wanted to curry favor for oil rights. Those that secured them opposed this war, those left out were keen to fight it. They have been arguing over what to do about poor Humpty Dumpty as he teeters on the edge of a very high wall. Now that he has fallen they will all have to take up the charge of putting him back together again.

Unification, then, becomes both a long term goal and a short term necessity. As in Afghanistan, some interim government must be established, which will eventually give way to a new government chosen by the Iraqi people. Our role in this must be to simply guard the fledgling government, keep the peace, and string out garlands of garlic justice to identify those hidden vampires and neutralize any attempt they make to destabilize the situation.  This may turn out to be a long, costly process—costly in time, dollars and even in the lives of our soldiers. While we were willing to forsake the approval and sanction of the UN in waging war, we should not snub those who opposed us there once we prevail. We will need every helping hand available to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again. We will need all the kings horses and men. Reconciliation must be our guiding motive now. We must mend the bruised relationships with the French. Germans and Russians and invite them to join us in supporting the development of  a new Iraq.  And we will need leadership in “binding up” that nation’s wounds, to quote another famous Republican president.

Phase 3: Uplift – The Real Challenge

David Brin, a science fiction writer of some note, created a series of novels based on the premise that all emerging species had to be “sponsored” before they could join the league of sentient, civilized races scattered throughout the galaxy. Advanced alien races would seek out promising species and slowly help them to acquire the necessary abilities, technology and temperament to join the cosmic stew. The whole process was called “Uplift,” and this is exactly what we must do in Iraq.  It will not be enough to beat down Saddam’s regime, root out the vampires and burn all the coffins. We must labor to effect some real transformation in the mindset and lives of the Iraqi people. We must invite the willing to join us, extend our hand in friendship and collaboration, and we must lift up the Iraqi people with the vision of a new life that will now be made possible by freedom.

Freedom is a tremendously powerful force in the world. One can look all around the globe and see examples. Look at the amazing economic transformation in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore compared to places like Vietnam, North Korea, and yes, even much of mainland China. Look at the difference between the two Germanys before they were reunited; between Florida and Cuba. Freedom inspires and motivates. It speaks directly to hope and opportunity. It leads one to believe that if they try , they just might succeed! People who try end up building lives on the hope that they can have a future that will somehow be better, brighter, and more secure. Children are in the world for more reasons than to simply assure the propagation of the species. As Mary Howitt wrote:

God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race - to enlarge our hearts; and to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affection; to give our shoulds higher aims; to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion and to bring round our firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts. My soul blesses the great Father, every day, that he has gladdened the earth with children.
  --Mary Howitt

That is the essence of the work ahead! If we think of everything we would want to give to our own children, and then give those things to the people of Iraq, we will embrace the true spirit and principle of Uplift. We will truly be acting in a manner that reflects the values and principles America was founded upon. But this will only happen if, from the very first, we hold the life of an Iraqi citizen to be equal, in every respect, to that of an American citizen. We were angry and afraid, and so we come to their country to strike at a perceived enemy . Yet they are angry and afraid as well. Stand in their shoes!

Imagine what they have endured and suffered over all the years of the brutal regime of the Ba’athist vampires. Imagine what it was like to awaken in the dark of night to the sound and fire of 2000 pound GPS guided bombs igniting all across their country. We planned to “shock and awe” the Iraqi Republican guard, yet there were millions of innocent civilians that  watched the bombs strike home—millions of children. The Middle East Directory notes that 50% of Iraq’s population of 23 million is age 15 years or younger—that’s twelve million children that watched our war unfold! And while their parents hoped that these bombs might bring the long desired rumble of liberation, imagine the fear and uncertainty that also fell with those bombs. What will happen? Will my home be destroyed? How can I protect my wife and children? Where will we find food and water? Will I be able to work in the months or years ahead? How will I get money? How will we all survive? And for the young ones the first question they ask might be: Where is father? Will he come home soon? Is he alive? (If you are old enough to have lost a parent, sit with the memory for a moment.)

These are the questions and the fears that must be knotted in the chest of every Iraqi citizen now. There will be fear and anguish and yet more suffering for them. There will be many dead to bury, and many tears to shed. And yes, there will be those hidden vampires to worry about as well. Our greatest task will be to show them the humanity and compassion that can assuage their fears and become the seed of hope. We will need to channel food and medical care, to restore utilities and human services, rebuild civil and financial institutions and encourage the fostering of democratic systems. (Only 44% of the population has access to something as simple as safe drinking water--and that was before the bombing got started!) Encourage, guide, but never impose. We must lift them up.

This is truly a turning point of history, and the greatest opportunity we will ever have to change the way the world perceives us and reverse the spiraling growth of anti -Americanism and the terror that lead us to launch this war. We must lift them up, and it should be the duty of every American citizen, whether they favored or opposed this war, to demand that our government do this right. Our future depends on it as well. We now have the greatest opportunity to foster and nurture a new Iraq that can stand as an example to all other autocratic governments in the region. If freedom can take root in the fractured land of Iraq, then it can transform the entire Middle East.

Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

Elie Wiesel, Nobel lecture, Oslo, 11 Dec 86

If we can do this right, we have a chance to bring peace to this war torn region. But where does peace begin if not in our own hearts?  If we are to have any hope of success there, we must also look after our own vampires, and be sure they do not arise to replace the regime we have been so determined to throw down.

The Demons In Our Own Closet

We say that we believe in the standard of freedom in the world, but our actions are often motivated by baser desires. The questions I explored in The Road To War, and the disparity I wrote about in We Are The Borg must not be allowed to influence and overshadow the work we have ahead in Iraq. While I am certain that many executives and power brokers in the energy cartels of America will now sigh with relief and rub their palms together as they anticipate new oil contracts, this suffering nation must not be thought of as our newest gas station.

We have acted shamefully in the Middle East in decades past. We have installed despotic regimes like the Shah of Iran, we have funded Saddam, armed him, shipped him chemicals and anthrax samples. We have tolerated the autocratic regimes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan if they would just make certain that Israel was left alone and the price of our oil was kept nice and low. We have not found a way to Uplift the Palestinians, and allowed the suicidal desperation of organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad to grow there instead.  We are very adept at pointing at the demons we plan on annihilating with our cruise missiles, but guess what: there are the demons in our own closet as well. Yes, we too have vampires lurking in our midst—only they often wear business suits and run banks and huge trans-national corporations.

Our vampires don’t do nasty things like Saddam. They don’t gas villages, torture and rape. Instead they fix energy prices, doctor accounting books, inflate stock values before they sell out, fleece employees of a lifetime’s worth of retirement savings, and then go merrily off to Florida to build 30 million dollar estates that are exempt from prosecution. Vampires indeed! Who can measure the harm they do, and the greed that drives them? Who can say how much they wanted this war in Iraq, and for what dark reasons? How much influence did they wield by financing the political campaigns of the present administration? Surely they have profits in mind, and the slavering assurance that they will now have their say in how the vast oil resources of Iraq are pumped out. This war is not just about the vampires in Iraq, no matter how much the present administration tries to link Saddam to 9 -11. This war will also be also fought for the vampires here in the USA, and now they will try to drive a stake into the spoils of the victory as well. That oil belongs to the people of Iraq. If we assist them, we must assure that the profits go to rebuilding their society, and not to the building of more palatial mansions in Florida. We railed at Saddam for his Presidential Palaces. We have our own vampires here that do the same.

If, in five or ten years, the world looks at what we bring about in Iraq and still sees a broken state, hopeless people, continued suffering—if they see US flags flying over the oil wellheads, (Chevron, Mobil, Unocal); if they see we are only there to make certain that the oil keeps flowing and the price stays low, then we will have utterly failed in this war. We will have no victory, and we will have bought, with our short-sighted greed, more decades of terror and war than we can imagine. It is now the duty of every American citizen to see that this does not happen. Listen for the creaking of the coffin doors of the vampires—not only in Iraq where they may still be hiding, but here in the good old USA. If we resort to exploitation and forsake Uplift, we will have proven to the world that we are indeed an imperialistic power, to be feared and opposed by any means—even the terror that helped to motivate our actions in Iraq. If we forsake Uplift, then we will deserve anything we get in return. 9-11 was but a glimmering of what we will have to face again, and we will deserve it all.

The years ahead will define for the world who we, as Americans, really are. This is perhaps the most crucial time in American history since WWII. We can now transform generations of people who have viewed us with suspicion, fear, contempt and even hatred. We can make them partners in the great experiment of freedom that founded our country. We can lift them up!

If we fail, we will assure our downfall. Our society has given us so many things. We have our mortgages, cars, toys, endless food, ceaseless mind-numbing entertainment, sports heroes and good old religion. We have our “American Dream.” Yet we must wake up to the fact that most of the world does not share in this dream. In many places, a man must work for a year to earn what the typical American family will spend on dinner and a movie one Saturday night. We have to shake ourselves awake in this country and realize that  we cannot allow this disparity and inequity to continue. We have to become the shining example of the virtues we claim to uphold—not by waving American flags, cheering our boys in the field and heaving a sigh now that the price of gas starts falling and the stock market starts climbing again. We have to be more than comfortable consumers if we are to survive in this world. We have to be willing to experience some discomfort so that others in the world may grasp at the barest means of survival. The imbalance of the Haves and the Have Nots must be addressed. We must lift people up and we must start here and now.

If we do not—if we persist instead in our dream of consumption—driving, drinking and eating our way through the 21st century, heedless of real human justice in the world—then this will certainly be our last century as the great nation we hold ourselves to be. We will not fall from without. No foreign armies will darken our skies and storm ashore with helmeted soldiers to fight in the streets of our cities, as we have done in Iraq. No, we will fall from within. You see, the simple truth is this: there’s a little vampire in each and every one of us. “He that is without sin,” said the Lord, “let him cast the first stone.” We are ready to cast our stones in Iraq. Now let us look to our own souls and be certain we safeguard our victory there with real integrity. Are justice, freedom and equality only for Americans? We know the answer to that question in our heart of hearts.

The German Novelest Hermann Hesse wrote:

“History seems to us an arena of instincts and fashions, of appetite, avarice, and craving for power, of blood lust, violence, destruction, and wars, of ambitious ministers, venal generals, bombarded cities, and we too easily forget that this is only one of its many aspects. Above all we forget that we ourselves are a part of history, that we are the product of growth and are condemned to perish if we lose the capacity for further growth and change. We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility.”

It is time we awoke to that responsibility, both as individual citizens, and as a whole. The war will soon be over. Now the work of Uplift must begin. Uplift is the only way we can make the sacrifice of our brave soldiers, sailors and marines have meaning. We can, we should, and we must.

 -- John Schettler

PS - Don’t believe me about those vampires at home? Think the Iraq war was all about the Evil Doers of Iraq? Follow this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,911943,00.html

Photo Credit: The Faces superimposed in the lead image are by Jan Oberg, and show the people and children of Iraq. You can see more here: http://www.transnational.org/photoseries/iraq/photo_iraq_index.html

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