Last modified: Fri Oct 24 00:55:14 EDT 2003

"Stop the war!" is not enough

Note: events have overtaken this web page; the war is, officially, over, and we did not pull out. It only seems fair, though, to leave this here as an indicator of my thinking during the war.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I'm not seeing much in the way of proposals by peace activists regarding what we should do after the troops are brought home. Suppose the war does go badly and the administration does stop the war. What then?

Just pulling our troops out of Iraq is not enough. This would leave the U.S. with an enraged Arab world, emboldened by what will be interpreted as victory over the U.S., and the U.S. and Great Britian alienated from most of our cold-war allies. How would we salvage this situation?

Here are my thoughts on actions we should press for:

• Apologize to Iraq and accept an obligation to pay reparations. We have, after all, invaded Iraq without provokation. We expected no less from Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This will be a tough sell - to Congress, to the American public, and of course to the Bush administration, but it's absolutely crucial to any post-war rapprochement with the international community.

• George Bush must go. We could hope that Bush would feel compelled to resign in light of this fiasco, but it he does not, we must press Congress for impeachment. I have been astounded by the arrogance and incompetence shown by this administration, and they have to go. And not just Bush: Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the entire national security apparatus that has so grossly mismanaged this situation. We can't wait for the 2004 elections to do the job; we don't have that much time.

• Continue to press Iraq through the U.N. to disarm. Saddam Hussein will continue to be a dangerous, ruthless bastard, regardless of whether or not our war on Iraq is wrong. In his March 7th address to the U.N., chief weapons inspector Hans Blix expressed confidence that Iraq could be disarmed, but also noted that "This may well be due to the strong outside pressure." Obviously the U.S. cannot continue to supply that pressure; we must encourage other nations to do so.

• Press for a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, this war will dramatically reduce the ability of the U.S. to constructively influence events in the Middle East. However, we must do what we can to get Israelis and Palestinians to meet and resolve their differences. I personally believe that the only possible solution is the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, but I don't honestly have a clue what the details would be like.

We must confront the effect of American hegemony, and the American consumer lifestyle, on the rest of the world.

Jerry Callen
March 29th, 2003