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Why the War and Occupation of Iraq is Still Wrong
Speech by Rich Whitney, Shawnee Green Party on the second anniversary of the Iraq War
Carbondale, Illinois
3/19/2005

Two years ago, the Bush administration lent new meaning to the term, "March Madness." Today, we are gathered here to commemorate the invasion and register our continuing opposition to it.

As citizens of the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, we have a special responsibility to watch what our government does, learn the facts about what it is doing, educate our fellow citizens about what it is doing, and, if we find that it is doing something wrong or harmful, mobilizing the people to halt or correct what it is doing.

This is what being a good citizen in a democratic republic means; it is a civic duty and it is what this demonstration is all about. It is not un-American to criticize your government when it commits wrongs. Rather, it is the very essence of being a good American citizen. It is demonstrating love for your country and it is true patriotism to act to correct what the government is doing in our name.

Unfortunately, we are handicapped in these efforts when most of our news media don't do their job but instead foster ignorance by simply acting as cheerleaders for the existing policy.

A case in point: We are now hearing new justifications for the war. The new line, now being propagated by the mainstream news media, goes something like this: "Well, maybe President Bush was wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. But the invasion has still done some good. After all, we got rid of a nasty dictator. Now the Iraqis are enjoying the fruits of democracy. Look at all the people who voted in the ‘purple finger revolution.'And our success in Iraq may just help us spread democracy throughout the Middle East."

Even many so-called liberals are falling for this line, wondering out loud if maybe George Bush got it right after all.

Leaving aside that this viewpoint cavalierly dismisses the terrible human cost of the war, this is wrong on so many levels that I couldn't possibly list them all this afternoon. But let me just highlight a few.

First, the war was fundamentally wrong, not because the Bush administration was wrong, or even because it flat-out lied, about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and about ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda. The war would have been wrong even if Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. The fact is, our government attacked and invaded another sovereign nation that had not attacked us, had not threatened us, and posed absolutely no threat to us. That is what made it wrong; that is what made it illegal – and it is still wrong and illegal.

Second, you cannot impose "democracy" at the point of a gun. You can coerce or entice people to vote but that's not democracy, not if there's no real control by the people. The U.S. government has already told the new political leadership in Iraq that they had best not call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The elections followed the destruction of Falluja, which virtually guaranteed that most Sunni Muslims would boycott the elections, and that the insurgency, which has now brought terrorists into Iraq, will continue, perhaps turning into a civil war. What kind of "democracy" is this?

Third, none of this changes the new economic domination of Iraq by U.S. profiteers, which was, and remains, one of the principal true motives for the invasion. When Paul Bremer first took over in Iraq after the invasion, his very first act on the job was to lay off about 500,000 Iraqis from their civil service jobs. Then he began overseeing a "reconstruction" process that took away jobs from Iraqis and turned them over to foreign private contractors. Corporations like Bechtel are raking in millions while schools, hospitals and infrastructure are being repaired at a snail's pace, often incompetently. Now the International Monetary Fund is in Iraq, pushing privatization of state enterprises, which will mean more foreign control of its assets. The so-called "democracy" is a smoke-screen for the systematic looting of Iraq and continued bilking of U.S. taxpayers.

Finally, while George Bush gives speeches in which he repeats the words "freedom" and "democracy" over and over again, what are the facts about our government's foreign policy? The truth is, our government is giving away, and promoting the sale of, millions of dollars' worth of weapons to dictators around the world – today, right now. And it is outrageous that the mainstream news media do nothing to expose this.

The independent watchdog group Freedom House lists 45 nations in the world today as dictatorships. It uses fairly objective measurements of civil and political rights to come to its conclusions and it does not seem to have an ideological bias. It includes in its lists so-called "left" or communist governments like that of Cuba and North Korea, right-wing dictatorships like the current regime in Pakistan and monarchies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

I compared this list of the world's dictators to two State Department publications: The latest listings of recipients of U.S. foreign aid, including military aid, and the latest listing of countries that received military weapons or equipment from sales made by U.S. arms manufacturers, with State Department permission.

The result: Of the 45 dictatorships in the world today, the U.S. government – your government, your tax dollars at work – either gave military assistance or authorized the sale of weapons and military equipment to 33 of them. To name just a few, they include Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Syria-controlled Lebanon, Rwanda, Uzbekistan (where political detainees are routinely tortured and have even been boiled alive), and, purchasing over $1.1 billion in U.S. weapons in 2003, the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the country from which most of the 9/11 terrorists actually came. And, by the way, a look at aid and sales figures from previous years shows that such support for dictatorships occurred under the Clinton administration only somewhat less than under the Bush administration.

The notion that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the goal of promoting democracy is a Big Lie.

Now, if we don't stand up as American citizens to do something about this corporate big-money dominated, oil guzzling, greenhouse-gas belching, militarized economic and political order in this country, and replace it with an economic and political order that represents real human values, then you can bet some future U.S. president will decide that one of these countries isn't serving corporate America's interests anymore – and then he'll announce: "Hey! This country's run by an evil dictator! They have weapons of mass destruction! (Don't ask where they got ‘em!) They have rape rooms! They're a threat to their neighbors! We need to invade!"

Because, after all, that is exactly what happened with Iraq. And if we don't combat ignorance now, this will happen all over again.

So let's step up the other war – the war to win over the American people to take back control of their government. Let's get the facts out. Let's get the truth out. Let's engage our friends, co-workers and neighbors. Let's engage the media. Let's engage our representatives. We know what needs to be done. Let's organize to do it better.

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