After

For those of us in opposition, the after has always been a critical issue. It has also been a central part of the Bush promise – creating this new beacon of democracy in the Middle East. This is the really tough time, time to take a look at what this conflict has wrought. If part of what bothers me is the dogmatic assuredness of those who feel they possess the absolute truth, then I can't be sucked into the same arrogance of rightness. At this point, I haven't changed my mind about this war, but I will be watching the results and hoping for the best, not the worst.

After. It's hard not to be moved by the bodies — individuals who died for a cause in which they believed, the many, far too many, caught in the crossfire. But none of that is unique to Iraq. It is the horrific nature of war, and part of why some of us try so hard to avoid it, see it as a last resort in an absolute not relative sense. Bodies of people who, assuming they are survived, will be missed by parents, by wives and husbands, by children and by the community of which they were a part. They are brought home to Any-Town USA and we cry. We strain to hear their individual tale, the only way we can prevent their becoming a statistic. But none of them are statistics, they are people and there are Any-Towns in Iraq as well. The high cost of war.

After. Then there are the photos of smiling faces, cheering crowds, finally emerging from the shadow, ostensibly welcoming liberation, their dream and ours come true. Is it real? We all hope so. They show us where they were tortured. It too can't help but move, make us think that perhaps it was worth it. Again, we hope for the best. But that isn't all we feel. It's sobering to know that these halls of horror are mirrored in other places, in the back corridors of so-called friends and allies and in places that we don't think about, much less care about. Selective war, selective relief. It's hard to overlook that, and worrisome to think that there are some in Washington who would take us further into conflict, make other selections — selections because the reality is that we couldn't possibly address them all without imploding ourselves under the strain.

After. These are complex issues in what appears to be an increasingly complex world. But of course that's an illusion. It's no more complex that it ever was, it is only that with our technological reach we're seeing it, often for the first time. When Tommy Franks was challenged very early on as a planning bungler and Donald Rumsfeld as an interferer, both pleaded for patience. Ah patience, the one thing Americans don't have whether waiting to pay a toll, judging a company's quarterly performance or getting our food, fast (and unhealthy). Not being a military expert, and not wanting to be one, I can't comment on patience in the battle field. But what of after? There I know we need patience. We must take the time to see if this worked. The instigators need to prove, without doubt, that they were right. The doubters, like myself, need time to be convinced that we were wrong. Oh do I hope they were right and I was wrong. We won't know for a while and we shouldn't "jump the missile" and move on to other things or back to our insular comfort until we do.

After. It must ultimately be in their hands — those on whose precious land we intruded, sooner not later. They require not imposition, but support. They need it to come from the many not from few, from the community of nations not from a single superpower. They need it and if we look at in a historical context, so do we, perhaps even more urgently.

After. We're all waiting, we're hoping and many of us are also praying.

Marketing

If you've found the polls showing a 70% approval rate for the War a disconnect with your own anecdotal experience you're not alone. But in the realm of "we tend to talk to ourselves," they may nonetheless be accurate. They also may not be of long term significance, something the Bush people should take to heart. There seems little doubt that many Americans buy into Hail to the Chief in times of war, regardless of party. That, and a visceral impulse not to endanger the troops, can influence poll responses. But, perhaps as much as anything else, high approval numbers reflect successful and consistent marketing.

From its first days, the Bush team has tried to stay on message and, in doing so, control the conversation. Marketing, pejoratively called propaganda in times like these, is routinely used as a wartime weapon, regardless of the players. It was used heavily in both World Wars and in all succeeding conflicts. Any dispassionate observer would have to say that those in charge this time have executed particularly well since the bombs began to drop in Iraq. Language is a key component of any marketing message and the words employed are never accidental. Notice the two critical terms: the Regime and the Coalition. Notice also the virtual disappearance of WMD, weapons of mass destruction from the core rhetoric.

Before the war, the Administration went through an extended period of fluid language. The argument changed daily and the marketing effort was disjointed to say the least. You'll remember, in addition to WMD, arguments like Iraq is thwarting the UN and international community, is threatening their neighbors and is harboring terrorists. Regime Change was a recurring theme but, particularly when there were hopes of obtaining UN approval, it was soft peddled, portrayed as a secondary objective or necessary result, sometimes hardly mentioned. This isn't to say it wasn't heard or that the ideas about a new Iraq as some kind of democratic beacon in the region were not put forth. It simply wasn't central.

Fast forward and Regime Change has become the War's singular objective. So referring to the enemy, whether Saddam himself or his most straggly paramilitary, one always hears the briefers talk of the Regime. And who are we? We are the Coalition even though everyone knows that it's a coalition of 1 to .00005. I don't mean to sell the valiant British troops who are dying in the desert short, but the numbers make this largely a US venture with a US command. Coalition is a marketing device to suggest that, even absent the support of the vast majority of the world, we aren't going it alone.

So current polls no longer evidence concern for our having moved without UN sanction as they did pre-war and, significantly, respondents no longer feel that ridding the world of the WMD threat is central. They feel Regime Change does the trick. From a practical standpoint, this terminology, it would appear, immunizes our leaders from blame should we not uncover those heralded cashes of biochemical-terrible. And you say marketing doesn't matter. When it comes to winning the hearts and minds of our own people, marketing is everything.

It's also carries a huge risk. Branding — using terms in this way is a form of branding — is ultimately only successful when it can be backed up by substance. If all goes well as a result of this single focused Regime Change, the branders may be sitting pretty. If our short term willingness to constrict the coalition hasn't destroyed our ability to interact effectively with the global community, the bet will have paid off. These are big ifs. If, on the other hand, the aftermath of this conflict brings the unintended consequences that many of us fear and that has played such an important role in our difficult decision to oppose War before and during, then all bets are off. As a partisan, I'm with John Kerry and would like to see a Regime Change at home in 2004, but not for that reason. The cost to the world will be far too high.

Silence of the Donkeys

So it's not such a good movie title, but it describes where we are these days. In this time of stress and challenge the Democratic Party has virtually gone silent. Give it to him, George Bush has bet his entire beloved Crawford on this war and its underlying geopolitical policy. Democrats haven't even put their Outer Banks Timeshare's at risk. I know, it's supposedly a long honored tradition not to criticize the President when our troops are in battle, but that's a convenient excuse. The voice of dissent, was virtually inaudible — out to lunch — long before our planes and ground forces hit the road toward Baghdad. Protect the kids in harm's way. What happened to protecting them from harm's way? Every night Jim Lehrer ends his News Hour with photographs and names of the fallen, mostly 19-22 year olds. It makes me cry.

Democracies are great when the debate is hot, when those who hold strong views of any stripe are challenged. Checks and Balances is not merely an organizational principal, it is a metaphor for the essential need of countervailing views. The Founding Fathers wanted discussion and they want to prevent the rule of extremes. I don't agree with all those young Conservative talking heads in their ubiquitous little bow ties. People like Bill Kristol and Richard Pearle put a chill down my spine, get my dander up, but I respect their conviction and relentless commitment to their cause. My civil libertarian body shivers when George Bush says "you're either with us or against us," in a not so veiled threat at a time of intrusion and tribunals. Apparently, Democrats have taken his words to heart, and that really scares the hell out of me.

It seems today that Democratic Politicians are either totally sidelined or, worse, espouse a kind of pabulum acquiesce in the name of supporting Commander and troops. And it isn't just now. Since 9/11 everyone has been, or allowed themselves to be, forced into this unquestioning lockstep as if only the Administration had all the answers endowed by an absolute Divine Right to mandate unquestioned adherence. Let's remember that George Bush wasn't elected in the traditional way, which is not a statement of sour grapes but of the fact that this country (at least the few of us who vote) was split right down the center. In other democracies that might require a coalition government. It certainly should engender more humility. And despite the hype and the punditry about unprecedented gains by a President mid-term, that election resulted in only a razor thin GOP majority in the Senate and far short of mandate-supremacy in the House. We remain a divided nation.

As such, one would expect a far more vocal, albeit loyal, opposition. I know it's not easy. When Tom Daschle criticizes, he is branded unpatriotic. How dare him? So with John Kerry who suggested this week that we too need a regime change. Of course Kerry, a Viet Nam vet, stood his ground against the non-patriotic nonsense. But there haven't been many more and the critiques have been more elliptical than direct. I don't really buy this "in time of war" rule. The troops have nothing to do with it. Regardless of where we stand, we all desperately want them to come home safely. This is not the first time loyal Americans have questioned a war. Perhaps it's happened somewhat earlier this time, but everything (including the battle) has been foreshortened in the nanosecond world that James Gleick describes in his book Faster. But why is this debate so urgent, and why must it be led by Democrats?

We have gone to war in the past, but this conflict has unique characteristics. Korea and Viet Nam were fought in the context of the Cold War. Bosnia responded to a genocide that echoed memories of the Holocaust (even though similar horrors in Africa evoked no such response). Afghanistan was a direct response to 9/11, a hit on the people who claimed credit for terrorism. But this represents the first (and the very use of that word is chilling) war under a new and, for many of us, alarming doctrine of pro-active interventionism. It isn't simply a war to prevent the potential use of weaponry, but part of an envisioned mosaic that will refashion the democratically unwashed across the globe. So it's not simply why we should or should not be at war in Iraq, why our kids should or should not be exposed to injury and death, but whether we are signing on to this new Bush team doctrine for the 21st Century? Do I take it that Joe Lieberman, perhaps the happiest among Democratic co-warriors, agrees with the underlying concept of forcefully reformatting allegedly rouge nations in our own image? I hope not, but his vociferous support would suggest his concurrence.

Simply put, the stakes in this conflict transcend the actual battle and the question is not whether it's appropriate to challenge in the time of War, but whether we are not compelled to challenge its underlying assumptions and direction, and do so with some urgency? Why is there no Democrat including my two Senators (one who has never met a microphone he doesn't like and the other with possible Presidential ambitions), substantively challenging this fundamental shift in policy? Wayne Morse and Bill Fulbright challenged the underlying Domino Theory that brought us to Viet Nam at the height of war. Both refused to be silenced by meaningless and artificial restrictions. Why doesn't Tom Daschle speak out regularly and more substantively and why, aside for Governor Dean and Reverend Sharptan, haven't the Presidential hopefuls? Are Robert Byrd, who is largely, if respectfully, ignored and perhaps Ted Kennedy, who has politically nothing to lose, all that we have left? Even their criticism has been ad hoc.

Perhaps there have been times in which it wasn't dangerous to have two parties whose differences were only at the margin, mostly stylistic. This isn't one of them, which is what prompted Ralph Nader to interject himself into the last Presidential race with, in my view, disastrous results for the country. If this were a game, I could smile and say the Democrats and Al Gore deserved the loss. But it's not a game and fudging differences, not articulating a cohesive counterpoint, has been extremely costly in every respect. I hope we as a Nation can recover from it. How many wakeup calls does my party need before it finds its voice? In the words of the Pink Floyd's Wall lyric, "is there anyone out there?"

What if it had been Al Gore?

Among the unanswerable questions of my generation was, what might have happened in Viet Nam had JFK's Presidency run its course? We'll never know. Now we could ask, where would we be if the decision had gone 5-4 in the other direction and Al Gore was sitting in the White House? We'll probably never know that either.

His late intervention in Bosnia symbolized Bill Clinton's wariness about going to war. His own lack of military service probably impacted upon it. Gore has no such problem. He served in Viet Nam and was among a handful of Democrats in the Senate to vote for the first Gulf War. So, post 9/11, he too may ultimately have taken the military path like George Bush — like, but not the same. We don't know what military plan of action would have been implemented but, the present conversation notwithstanding, that isn't the critical issue.

I think the real difference is more likely to have revolved around the coalition which would have been broad and committed rather than narrow and willing. George Bush's early bravado and concrete actions in pulling away from important global treaties set in motion an antagonistic, not partnering, relationship with the world community including a grudging acceptance only of a UN that would function on our terms. Gore, like Clinton, is an Internationalist. The man who "invented the Information Super Highway" is a connector and its hard to visualize him hanging up on the world. I can't see Gore making provocative American go-it-alone pronouncements or using phrases like "you're either with us or against us." A hard core environmentalist, he certainly would not have pulled out of Kyoto. Richard Holbrook, likely to have been his Secretary of Stated, tilts hawkish on issues like Iraq, but he is a negotiator and coalition builder much as was another former UN Ambassador, George, the father. It's unlikely Evil Axes or Old Europe would have come into the vocabulary with a Gore team in place. This doesn't mean there would be no disagreements with France and others, but that bridges would have been crossed rather than being burnt.

There are numerous reasons why some of us (probably many more than the polls in a time of war reflect) have opposed this conflict. They relate to the war itself — to a lack of demonstrable proof of any near term threat or of any link to the terrorists who attacked our country and my city. But in the long run, the most profound concerns America's intrinsic philosophy and identity and what follows from it. George Bush's America it turns out is not what he pictured during his campaign, humility and respect of sovereign individuality, but a self possessed kind of Isolationist-Imperialism. It's one thing to be proud of our democracy and capitalistic system – both have been good for us. It is another, to see them as the only right way, one that should be adopted by, or imposed upon, others. Among the most disturbing realities of our time is the rise of fundamentalism which, whether Islamic, Christian or Jewish, essentially operates under a notion of absolute rightness and self possessed truth. It's an essential part of what we say we're fighting in our war against terrorism. But democratic fundamentalism as George Bush seems to espouse can have the same characteristics. I believe in our way of life absolutely, for me, but I don't assume it is the only truth, for you.

I don't know if Al Gore would have taken us to war. Perhaps, I'd be writing critical things about him. But I am confident that he is not a fundamentalist, that he never would have gone it alone and that the growing expressions across the world of hatred and disdain for my country would not be moving from rhetoric to the heart. Words are out in the open to be refuted, but the heart is deep inside and changing it is a much greater, perhaps insurmountable, task. How did we get to this place Al Gore, and why aren't you talking about it?

Colonialism Redux?

I love my country and its ideals passionately, but a sense of history is not always our strong suit, especially other people's history. Our egocentric culture, can blind us to the other side. When perplexed briefers try to explain the unexpected resistance and concurrent lack of uprising by oppressed Iraqis, they attribute it all to repression by a despotic regime. That may in part be true, but Iraqi dissidents also have little reason to trust us. It was only yesterday when a President Bush abandoned them and benignly watched their brutal slaughter. It's hard to see why anyone would want to chance that again under what is assuredly seen by them as the reign of the Bush "Crown Prince." But I think the underlying problem may be much more profound. Saddam may be a brutal dictator, but his people seem to be saying "he is our brutal dictator." The trouble with this invasion of foreign troops is that it raises the ugly head of Colonialism, something not far from the immediate memory of Iraqis. Perhaps Americans could introduce a greater measure of democratic governance, but they are asking, "is it our governance?" And let's not forget that our most visible "willing" coalitionist, the British, were a principal, and not welcome, Colonial power in the region just scant decades ago.

Forget whether you believe the threat Iraq posed to the world community is credible. Perhaps that is our issue, but it isn't theirs. As many experts have told us, the Arab world suffers from chronic low esteem. It infuriates their youth — makes them lash out and do unspeakable things. Feeding that unease is that people in the West, people who don't even share their belief system, feel it's their right and obligation to reengineer Arab societies, impose what many in the region see as an alien way of life. "Been there done that," they say. All these dictators in the region may be bad, but they represent emancipation from Colonialism. In fact, one might argue that the single most important issue for the Muslim world is the potential of return of Colonialism.

Listen to the rhetoric and it's clear that it has become the overriding issue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the consistent deal breaker. Ironic as it may seem, the Israelis, who played an active and critical role in ousting the British from Colonial rule after World War II (some among them, like the founders of a predecessor of today's Likud party, using terrorist tactics), are now seen as a Colonial power close to home on the West Bank. It's not that Jews worship differently from Muslims, it's that they are perceived as alien occupiers, not inconsequentially a Western rather than Near Eastern society. People fighting for their real or perceived homeland are not dispassionate combatants. They don't just sit down, have a cup of tea and work things out. Nobody wants to be reminded of Viet Nam and this conflict hopefully will end quite differently, but the Vietnamese were fighting for their homeland. It shouldn't be lost on us that in the end, the Southerners whom we desperately tried to Americanize, cast their lot and loyalties with their Northern countrymen, however repressive they may have been.

So, looking at this Iraqi incursion in the context of Colonialism, one really has to wonder if it's winnable in the long term. George Bush truly wants to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi street. Something which, despite now using more politically correct language, he probably still sees as a Crusade. I don't think that works. I know it wouldn't work if someone came to these shores with similar designs wanting to impose their cherished system on us. Perhaps Iraq was a threat. Perhaps they harbor terrorists. Surely their citizens suffer under a monstrous dictatorship. But refashioning them in our image, however great it might be, seems a human conceit. My theological training tells me that only God has that power.

Embedded and Under Control

Ed Murrow stood roof top in London watching the bombs and inventing modern broadcast journalism. Spoken journalism came out of war, and Morrow's boys were the best in the business, were and remain. They were in the thick of it, identified with "our side" in a war where right and wrong were easily defined. They worked with some restriction, but nonetheless with an independence that they maintained for the rest of their professional lives. Another group of independent journalists walked the streets of Saigon and through the marshes of a hostile country side. They saw horror and they reported it straight and independently to the great consternation of LBJ, another generally controlling US President from Texas. From the 40s through Watergate journalists held sway and the news was found on broadcasts.

I shudder for Ed Murrow's memory every time a CNN reader passes the baton and wishes her or his successor a good "show." News is a show today, with its obsequious anchors telling the girls and boys what a good job they're doing as if they were arbiters, much less practioners, of a good job. Then there is that obnoxious music, specially composed theme songs to communicate the drama underscoring the "showness" of it all. Frank Rich calls it the Mediathon with its laser-like focus on the simplistic singular as if we were all too dumb to handle more than one fact at a time or collectively possessed the attention span of a two year old or Alzheimer's victim. And the greatest insult of all, thanks to Ted Turner who, rather than having been a visionary destroyed journalism as we once knew it, is that it goes on regurgitating the same stale news 24/7. If I hear another pundit say what a great job of reporting is being done on the same bit of information I've heard for two days straight, I most certainly will be violently ill.

And now we have embedded journalists. Forgetting how damaging it probably is for any of us — adults and children — to watch war so close-up, the idea of this melding of warrior and reporter as comrades in arms has some very disturbing ramifications. Every administration, regardless of party or ideology, seeks to manage and spin the news. FDR was a master at it. But few have managed this closely, and I don't know of any that set up a $2Millon briefing theater in the field. But embedding the journalists goes a step further. Listening to their reports it's clear that these guys are trying their best to put a good face on things, to stand up for their comrades in the field. You can't blame them and you have to admire them. These uniformed kids beside them need and deserve all the support they can get. But one has to wonder if an embedded journalist will ever uncover a Mi Lai? I'm not suggesting one is happening or would happen. All of us hope and pray for the best. But war is hell and good people sometimes do bad things in the heat of battle — bad things that really are bad and need to be reported by independent journalists. During the first Bush war, the press complained that it was left out of the loop. I guess it was George H.W.'s revenge for having himself been left hanging during Iran Contra. No such complaints this time, because George W's team believes in the old management adage that keeping the adversary close is the best way to neutralize. Embed the suckers and keep them under control. Ed Murrow where are you when we need you so desperately?

The T Word

Donald Rumsfeld uttered the T word in his press conference yesterday. He called Iraqi soldiers who shed their uniforms, pretended to be surrendering civilians and then came out shooting, terrorists. Clearly these guys were breaking the accepted rules of military etiquette and civilized war. But aren't those oxymorons. War is the least polite and the most uncivilized thing we do. What is a soldier who is outgunned and outnumbered but still believes in his cause to do? What would Rambo have done? There is nothing wrong with believing in your cause (and I have no doubt that those who support this war believe in its rightness), but it's critical to understand your opponents' point of view – to envision how they see the world. Only then can one understand what they will do and why they will do it. Isn't protection of home an hearth a basic right that we Americans espouse, even to the degree that ordinary citizens can fire registered weapons against invaders? Think about an Iraqi soldier who twelve years ago was ousted by an outraged world for invading the sovereign and far less powerful nation of Kuwait. What is he thinking now when a huge world power invades his home? Don't tell me our Special Ops and CIA people are walking the streets in Baghdad in full dress uniform or that they have never engaged in any military act in civvies. Are they terrorists? Of course not. Terrorism is not part of this war equation. Name calling doesn't help the situation.

You many not agree with Don Rumsfeld, but his brain power is undeniable. He is perhaps the smartest and most articulate of the entire Bush team. Rumsfeld doesn't use words lightly and his press conferences are vehicles for getting the Administration's point across, selling them if you will, much as he did during the Afghanistan conflict. Those of us who questioned this war did so because we were unconvinced of its necessity. The Bush administration put forth a series of arguments among them the immediate threat of weapons of mass destruction and the brutality of the regime that demanded liberation for an oppressed people. All their arguments required a leap of faith. I am not saying their contentions were wrong, only that they never demonstrated the proof necessary to commence a war. The weakest of all their arguments was in making a connection between Saddam and Bin Laden, between Iraq and 9/11. The more you repeat something, the more you can convince a portion of the population, especially in a society which relies on and is so influenced by often repeated advertising slogans. But repetition doesn't make it correct. That said, it works. A recent poll suggested that 61% of the public believes our March into Iraq does have a 9/11 connection. So the introduction of the word terrorist into mix was intentional supporting a strategic marketing purpose. Calling these desperate soldiers terrorists confirms and supports the unproved theory that Iraq is a partner in terrorism. It's calculated to put fire in the belly of an unnerved nation.

Some may be disturbed to read my continuing critique of this war now that our kids are in harms way. I understand that, but like many other Americans of my age, it took me far too long to oppose war in Viet Nam. My enthusiasm for Camelot and my pain at my hero JFK's violent death, clouded my judgment. I have always regretted being a laggard. I won't make that mistake again. That's especially true since we now lack voices like those of Martin King, Wayne Morse and Bill Fulbright. I feel for the troops, fear for them, want them to come home safe and soon. They are our nation's children and I can't even imagine what it would mean to lose one of my precious sons. I love my country and no less the world in which I live. I fear for both. My father delivered one of the principal addresses at the 1963 March on Washington. His message was clear: in the face of what you think is wrong, silence is the worst of all crimes. Silence in this instance is simply not in the cards.