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Drop
Everything and Stop This War
Scores
of important issues, foreign and domestic, are vying for our
attention – but unless we stop the Iraq war and prevent
the others planned for the Middle East, our nation will dash
over the cliff.
By
Scott Horton
 Could America wage its imperialist wars if the small-town kids
who make up its mass did not believe the trope that they are
fighting "for our freedom"?
There are always economic incentives for kids to sign up, but
if the larger society saw soldiers for what they are – hired
killers of those who've done nothing to harm our country – instead
of buying into the myth that all our freedom is granted to us
by the State when we allow it to conquer small foreign countries,
would they still get in line?
Our million-and-a-half man army is already overstretched as it
is. What if American parents, instead of going along like the
Pentagon's TV ad says, told their sons that it was forbidden
in their families to take part in aggressive warfare? What if
our country's pastors, ministers, priests and other religious
leaders let it be known in their congregation that it was their
considered opinion that Jesus would prefer that Americans not
act like Romans? If school teachers reminded their students that
all empires fall, and that the way to preserve the good in their
society is to practice restraint and keep your eye on the Bill
of Rights?
It's quite likely that the war in Iraq would be over tomorrow,
the envisioned war in Iran would be a threat that thankfully
no longer looming on the horizon, and the rest of us could then
immerse ourselves in the necessary work of repealing all the
laws passed in the 21st Century before we get going on those
passed in the 20th.
Americans, it is said, used to believe in liberty; they didn't
simply chant slogans about it, but really believed that live-and-let
live was the path to a better future. They prided themselves
on being brave and yet deliberate in their reactions to threats.
If that country ever existed, it's mostly gone now.
Now slogans – such as “they hate us for our freedom” --
inspire the deepest fears, catch-phrases justify the most serious
of felonies, and half-sputtered, obvious lies become excuses
to slaughter masses.
The liberty, it seems, is gone from liberalism, while the conservatives
want to preserve the flag, but not what it stands for. These
ideological movements have sold their souls for power.
Where liberals and conservatives tend to side with liberty part
of the time, the politicians who supposedly represent them only
enact the parts of their agenda which enhance their own power.
The trap seems at times inescapable – especially in terms
of America's aggressive foreign policy.
But perhaps it's not too late. Maybe the incredible growth in
government power in the U.S. in the last few years has finally
achieved what the libertarian movement never could – awakened
the jealousy of large portions of the American population for
their liberty. There are many on the Left who've learned valuable
lessons about the centralization of power; there are many on
the Right who never trusted Bush and opposed his wars; and there
are many more who have come around recently in the face of such
affronts as the waging of aggressive war, kidnapping, torturing,
spying, murdering, passing out Treasury vault keys to the Military
Industrial Complex, building the skeleton of a full-fledged national
police state here at home, and otherwise destroying the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights.
Even the Establishment – or at least some members of it
-- has had it. Zbigniew Brzezinski -- that pillar of the Establishment
who conceived of and co-founded the Trilateral Commission, for
heaven's sake! -- has been reduced to trying to stop the next
war from the bully pulpit of Jon Stewart's sofa. The Council
on Foreign Relations recently released a study calling for a
tail-between-the-legs-withdrawal from Iraq in the face of what
they say would be a worse fate if we stay. And James Baker III
and Henry Kissinger have resorted to publicly decrying Bush/Cheney's
refusal to talk to Syria and Iran.
However, what we need is not the UN- and NATO-centered Empire
Lite™ of old, as these men and those of their ilk, would
attempt to foist back upon the world.
What is needed is a new movement, a new ideological and political
realignment led by those who truly put liberty first against
foreign empire and the national garrison state. It is already
happening in small ways: progressives using the term "old
republic" when lamenting their losses during the Bush years,
a rising movement of paleo-conservatives who reject what they
term a "Jacobin" movement in DC posing as conservatism.
The War Party has proven that it is still possible to get Congress
to obey, but it defers only to those who have their act together.
We just need a few good organizers to bring the various antiwar
and pro-civil rights groups together into one massive Antiwar
League.
If they made one, would you join?
Come on! There will be plenty of time
to fight about abortion,
immigration and global warming when we've brought our nation
back from the edge of the cliff.
Scott Horton is an assistant editor at Antiwar.com and the
director of Antiwar Radio; read his posts – and check out his selection
of anti-war and anti-State bumperstickers – at thestressblog.com.
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