When should we go to war?
Although we would all agree that the war in Iraq has become a disaster, we have not come to any clear consensus about when and where we should go to war. But if we are to prevent another Iraq from ever happening again, we need to take a long hard look at this question. There have been many simplistic opinions and views about the wars we have fought over the last 15 years, but no clear standards.
First of all, here is Madeline Albright's comment about the 500,000 dead children of Iraq during the time of the sanctions:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
If we can call out Bush for callously disregarding the 180,000 Iraqi civilians, we need to call out our people for the same kind of callous disregard. And we cannot accept the stereotyped answers that have dominated the debate up to this point. Is Albright a mass murderer for this? No; murder involves deliberately ordering their deaths. Are our troops as a whole evil for participating? No; only they can decide for themselves, although it is true that world peace will not come about until each last person decides for themself not to participate in war.
In some ways, Gulf War I was brilliant, while other aspects were a total disaster. The elder Bush along with his sidekick James Baker brilliantly assembled a coalition of many nations in order to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. The war itself was well-planned and executed, with clear, limited objectives and a clear exit plan. Yet Gulf War I planted the seeds for Bin Laden and his ilk.
Bin Laden was the member of an Islamic religious sect that taught that the Islamic world should not let themselves become corrupted by foreign influences. As a result of this war, he took that belief to its logical extreme and actively began plotting to attack American interests. He found a willing audience from people appalled at the excessive bombings of the First Gulf War as well as the elder Bush's building of permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia.
There were other blunders as well. After the Gulf War was over, Bush encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam. It failed, and Saddam brutally put down the rebellion, murdering thousands of people. This was a disaster similar in scale to the Hungary uprising of 1956. In that case, the US also incited the Hungarian people to rise up against the communists. In both cases, the people were given the understanding that we would help them out of they did. But the help was not forthcoming. In so inciting rebellion against Saddam, we permanently forfeited any chance of toppling Saddam without us coming there ourselves.
The next blunder was the excessive sanctions against Iraq. Not only did they fail to topple Saddam, it only made him stronger. First and foremost, it allowed Saddam to hold on to power by rallying his people against the common enemy - us. Even Hitler was able to hang on to power until the end by rallying his people against the common enemy. Saddam could withhold food and medicine from his people and then claim that we were the villians. We know that Saddam never was affected - he continued to build his extravagant palaces, live a lavish lifestyle, and accumulate billions of dollars of wealth. Our leaders should have considered the possibility that Saddam would try to save himself and leave his people to starve.
In addition, the US (same link as above) targeted the water infrastructure during the war, included life-saving medicines in the sanctions, destroyed chorine (leading to massive disease), and bombed their dams. Hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq during the 1990's as pawns in a power game between the US and Saddam.
So, the First Gulf War as well as its continuation was no unqualified success. It provided a short-term benefit (containment of Saddam) at the expense of many more long-term problems later. For every innocent civilian you kill in war, you make 10 new enemies. This takes into account the friends, relatives, and neighbors of the person killed as well as the orphaned children as a result. Therefore, any war we fight in the future should be designed to minimize civilian casualties.
And furthermore, there was another factor at work - the fact that the Iraqi people were starving under our sanctions meant that they did not have the time or the will to work to overthrow Saddam after 1991. It is a fact of human nature that when you are simply fighting for survival on a daily basis, there is no time for people to organize efforts to overthrow dictators. There is no time for idealism - only basic survival.
The Somalia War was a total disaster. It was framed as an attempt to protect starving people from being killed in a fight between warlords. But there was never any clear objective in the fight. On the one hand, there was the need to protect people from ethnic cleansing and protect aid workers. But the US tried to get involved in the tribal politics instead, leading to a total fiasco. But one thing is true - Clinton was much better than Bush II would have been. He recognized the futility of our involvement there and pulled out. This is one of the key qualities that separates him from Bush - the ability to recognize when to get out.
The Kosovo War has been billed by Democrats as a complete success. But that view is an oversimplified one that does not take into account the fact that it was a near thing. For one thing, it did not have the kind of international support that Gulf War I, Haiti, or even Somalia had, as Russia and China were not aboard. The war, managed by Wes Clark, was a successful one that was conducted over 78 days without the loss of an American life and with a minimum of civilian casualties.
Yet the Clinton Administration took a big risk with the war. The Russians were historical allies of the Serbs; the risk was that they would rush to the defense of Serbia, triggering World War III, undermining the mission, or break off future cooperation with the Americans. In fact, they chose the second option, allowing the war to proceed. But afterwards, they sought to undermine the allies by sending in massive amounts of peacekeeping troops and set up their own zone of control in Kosovo. This could have completely destroyed the purpose of the war and sucked the US into a long prolonged conflict in which the Serbs did not comply with the conditions of ending the war. It was only quick thinking by Wes Clark, persuading neighboring countries to deny the Russians use of their airspace, that allowed this war to succeed.
In addition, there are ethical and practical considerations as well - can we, as the strongest country in the world, play Superman and try to solve everybody's problems? We already know that our military is stretched to the end of their resources in Iraq. We know that we have enough trouble maintaining sufficient force in Iraq, let alone try to fight Iran, North Korea, or China. We simply don't have the forces necessary to fight another war even if we wanted to.
Genocide is used all the time to justify starting wars. On the surface, it would seem that it was the perfect just cause. But genocide or human rights abuses could also be used to justify starting wars with:
China
Burma
Ethiopia
Somalia
Congo
Liberia
Zimbabwe
North Korea
Iran
Libya
I will get to Sudan later. But we simply don't have the resources or the money to go after all these countries at once. That is why we have to build an international consensus that a certain place requires military action. Not only that, we have to be able to persuade the international community to commit substantial numbers of troops like Bush I did with Iraq and Bush II did with Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was the one war which I would support. Despite what I said about Gulf War I spawning Bin Laden, two wrongs do not make a right. Bin Laden's bombing of the World Trade Center was an unprovoked act of aggression that was condemned even by virtually all of the Islamic community; even Islamic leaders who had actively worked against us in Lebanon condemned the 9/11 bombings. There was clear international support for the removal of the Taliban allies from power as well as the capture and arrest of Bin Laden..
But even here, Bush completely mismanaged the war. Understanding how Bush thinks and acts requires understanding how tyrants act. Tyrants are in a state of perpetual fear of violent death. This would explain why Bush froze up for several minutes as our country was under attack. This would explain why Bush froze up and his delivery was much less confident afterwards when the hecklers broke in during his speech.
This explains why Bush let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora and why he could not wait to get out of Afghanistan so he could attack Iraq. He wanted nothing more to do with a man whom he perceives as a killer capable of striking at any time. This is why Bush has outsourced the job of catching Bin Laden to Pakistan. In his twisted mind, if Pakistan fails, it is their fault, not his. This explains his otherwise incomprehensible decision to sell nuclear technology to India and then visit Pakistan afterwards - I suggest Bush's goal was to publicly humiliate Pakistan's leader for what Bush sees as a lack of loyalty.
So now, the question becomes, what should we do about Sudan? Should we go to war there? It is clear that there is a just cause to go; however, China opposes war there. Furthermore, knowing his history, we know that Bush cannot be trusted to manage a war of any kind, while Clinton was much better. Although Clinton wasn't perfect, he was realistic enough to know when to stop and to set only limited objectives.
So, here is what I think about Sudan:
1. On the paper, it looks like a just cause. But the problem is that there are plenty of hot spots all over the globe, and it could be argued that Bush is simply pandering to his fundamentalist base here. It is not a matter of not wanting to help or defending dictators; it is a matter of recognizing our limits and operating within these limits. We should not work for regime change in Sudan when the only mandate is to establish safe zones for refugees and to protect Chad from the conflict, for instance.
Another factor to consider is the fact that our leaders let the Kosovo War get to their heads when passively going along with Bush's plots against Saddam. Nobody, besides the Bush administration, ever thought during the stages of planning the Iraq War that we would still be there years later. Our political leaders operated under the faulty assumption that because our previous war involvement had been brief and/or limited in scope, we did not need to ask the tough questions.
So, we cannot start a war unless there is clear just cause or we were attacked unprovoked, there is clear international support, the objectives are limited in scope, and there is a clear plan for withdrawal.
2. We should not go to war in Sudan as long as George Bush is President. We know he bungled Afghanistan and Iraq; why should we trust him with Sudan? And we do not have the resources to do so even if we want to.
3. Therefore, it has to be an international effort. Other countries have to be able to contribute substantial amounts of troops; not the token amounts we saw with Iraq.
4. Any military action should be limited in scope to the protection of refugees and villagers not involved in the conflict. If we get too involved militarily with trying to help one faction or the other, it will only make the problem worse. This could include no-fly zones as well as monitoring the conflict through reconnaissance technology.
5. The main obstacle to international action is China. We know that China is rapidly demanding more and more oil to fuel a booming economy, and they are desperate for oil. Therefore, human rights considerations take a back seat to getting more oil. Remember the Schweitzer Plan? We should begin the process of changing coal to oil and then sell it to China. That would offset any losses they would incur as the result of any military action in Darfur. We should sweeten the deal by selling it to them for less than they would have through Sudan. The objectives are simple - China wants oil, while we want to stop genocide. So, we need to give China what they want in return for getting what we want.
In addition, we should share with them renewable fuel technology so that they can ease the demand for oil that way as well.
And we cannot even begin to remotely consider action beyond diplomacy as long as we are stuck in the Iraqi quagmire. So, it is time for the right to put their money where their mouths are. If they are so concerned with human rights in Sudan like they were with Saddam's, then they should immediately start calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq to give us more leverage in dealing with Sudan. If we fail to do so, Sudan will simply thumb their noses up and laugh at us.
Bush has thumbed his nose up at the world for a long time. And his administration has been drunk with power. So, it would be pretty ironic that Sudan is in a position to smirk at Bush and say, "Oh, yeah? What are you going to do about it?"