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The Iraq War is a Tragic Play of World Dimensions.
Written
by Eugene Clemens, Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies,
Elizabethtown College.
George W. Bush is a tragic
figure of epic proportions. And, tragically, the play goes inexorably
on, the protagonist becoming the antagonist. Deluded beyond
description, the "Decider" morphs into the "Divider," at home and
abroad.
Forty years ago I
protested the Vietnam War on these very pages of the Etownian. The
wheel of folly leading to disaster has again revolved and I return to
register my lament. Yes, there is a profound parallel between the two
wars. Beyond the needless waste of life and resource, the lasting
lesson of both should be: There are no military solutions to what is
fundamentally a political problem. To attempt this folly is
ultimately to weaken the military's legitimate role. As is borne out
by the progressive deterioration of conditions in Iraq, the military
was given an untenable, unattainable mission. Talk of "victory" and
"defeat" in this context is empty rhetoric and a cruel entrapment of
our troops.
The war was sold to the
American people under false pretexts, cloaked in denial and delivered
deceitfully. One does not even need to impugn the sincerity of the
leadership to acknowledge the disaster. The flaw was not in the
intention, rather in the perception. The sellers of the war were
ideologues with a distorted preconception of the enemy, the so-called
"neo-cons" who took control of the White House and foreign policy.
Theirs is an imperial, paranoid view of the world, extending the
aberrations of the Cold War into a War on Terror. Ideology, because
it puts policy before intelligence (see Downing Street Memo), is
innately unempirical and essentially undemocratic. Such state of mind
will protect itself with secrecy, more and more disconnecting its
perceptions from reality. In our tragedy, the mistaken actor
eventually assumes the role of the buffoon, pretense degenerates into
madness.
Consider the deterioration
of the war by looking at how desperate have become the justifications
for its continuance. The rationalizations for staying have
overshadowed those for entering. We have gone from WMDs through the
overthrow of a dictator and the installation of exemplary democracy,
to the disaster of failure. This has been exceedingly revealing, thus
throwing defenders of the war into absurd assertions in combat against
the obvious. May I be very clear? Any "disastrous consequences of
failure" are directly traceable to the policy itself, not to those who
have opposed the imprudence of invasion and occupation. Nothing is
more infuriating than this late transfer of blame. Only a knave would
resort to such a dastardly escape from accountability. The war
already has proven to be both a failure and a disaster!
Because of the Iraq War
this country is increasingly despised and distrusted by the nations of
the world. What could be a greater cost of a costly war, than to lose
international credibility and respect? Where has all the good will
gone? As the sad song of the 'Sixties, Where have all the flowers
gone?, pined, "Oh, when will they ever learn, when will they ever
learn?"
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