US Training of Death Squads in Iraq? - War Is A Crime .org

This year's Democratic primaries and the general election will be key tests of whether the U.S.citizenry will be willing to challenge the bipartisan support for the Iraq War, the doctrine ofpreventive war, and the exaggerated claims of foreign strategic threats brandished to frighten thepopulace into supporting war. Scores of U.S. representatives and senators who voted in October2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq are up for re-election this year, and most of them stillsupport funding the war. If the majority of these pro-war Republican and Democratic lawmakersare re-elected, it will signal Washington politicians that the growing grassroots opposition to thewar will not threaten their political careers. Despite the message it would send, some leaders inthe peace movement are insisting that progressives work to re-elect pro-war members ofCongress, including those who lied about Iraq still having WMDs, simply because they areDemocrats. Such a strategy will virtually guarantee many more years of death and destruction inIraq, and- as the 2004 presidential election showed us- such Democrats will probablyend up losing anyway.But a determined citizenry is the decisive factor. The anti-Vietnam War movement, the antiapartheidstruggle, the nuclear freeze campaign, and Central America solidarity effortsdemonstrated that the particular individuals or party that the American people elect are lessimportant than the choices we give them. As the old adage goes, “If the people lead, the leaderswill follow.”The United States will eventually have to leave Iraq. The question is, how many Americans andIraqis will have to die in the meantime? For the United States to pull out, Bush and his bipartisangroup of supporters would have to recognize that they cannot Americanize Iraq, establish U.S.hegemony in the Persian Gulf region, control Iraq's vast oil reserves, or intimidate other nationsby subduing an intractable insurgency. In short, the leadership of the greatest militarysuperpower the world has ever known would be forced to accept a humiliating retreat.It may be unrealistic to believe that the Bush administration would simply pull out of Iraq evenin the face of growing popular opposition. The Nixon administration was unwilling to simplypull out of Vietnam. However, the anti-war movement forced Washington to negotiate with theSouth Vietnamese resistance and their North Vietnamese allies, which eventually led to thewithdrawal of U.S. forces. Demanding negotiations that include a timetable for a total U.S.withdrawal may be the most realistic strategy that today's anti-war movement could advocate.Otherwise, President Bush will likely hold firm and leave the painful decisions to a Democraticsuccessor, who would then take the blame for not “finishing the job.” This is why it is soimportant for Democrats to stop funding the war and to insist that President Bush negotiate asettlement to withdraw U.S. forces before he leaves office, thereby accepting full responsibilityfor the consequences.Another question is, what will the United States learn from all this? Will it be just a tactical,stylistic precept that in the words of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee JohnKerry the war against Iraq was not a mistake but rather that “the way the president went towar is a mistake”? The next time the United States invades and occupies another country, shouldit be done the “right way” by a Democratic administration?149