Dick Cheney Unchained
Q: The American people are divided on how to respond to terrorism. How would the Great Law of Peace apply to this situation?
Chief Waterman: Democracy and freedom were born at Onondaga. That is in the Hiawatha Belt. There should be peace for everyone. Peace requires freedom and democracy.
But listen: when you say people are divided, think about this. Your military is dropping bombs and food on Afghanistan. That’s a divided approach, isn’t it? What might have happened if they brought food in before? Why isn’t it just as important to fight starvation and suffering, as it is to fight for oil and money?
-- Interview with Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman; 2002
I do not know a great deal about the group “Isis.” But from the little I do know, they are violent religious fanatics, who are willing to kill other human beings over differences of opinions. So, earlier this summer, when President Obama spoke about delivering humanitarian aid to people who were starving as they fled from Isis, I thought it was a good thing.
The part about bombing Isis from the air concerned me. I do realize that we live in an imperfect world, and that there may be times when “war” is necessary. At the same time, I know one of the primary imperfections in my lifetime has been a repeated choice for the US to go to war. It is hard to ignore how similar much of the chatter coming from politicians today is to what they were saying a decade ago.
There have been a number of recordings played on the news -- I’ve seen most of it on CNN -- of the recruiting tactics of Isis. These are appeals to emotion. Their target audience is young people, generally males, who are more prone to seek the excitement of fighting for a cause that they believe involves the opportunity to be heroic. To fight for a great cause. In a very real sense, it is similar in nature to the appeal to the emotions of young adults in the United States after 9/11, to join the crusade to fight for “freedom” in Iraq, as if Saddam posed any threat to this nation.
Time and time again, it is older men who arouse the passions of young men to fight in wars that the young men mistakenly believe are noble. Yet most wars are not for anything other than access to, and control of, resources. Last year, MSNBC had a good documentary, by Rachel Maddow, that shed light on the real reasons the Bush-Cheney administration was intent upon invading Iraq: access to Iraqi oil. Clearly, most intelligent people had figured out by 2013 that it wasn’t about yellow cake or mushroom clouds; but the kids who joined the military a decade before did so for patriotic reasons, not for Halliburton’s profit margins. Or so they thought.
Likewise, intelligent people today are questioning the actual motivations of those in Washington, DC, who are more than eager to reintroduce our military into Iraq. I think that President Obama is, overall, less inclined to push for US involvement there than republicans, and even a number of democrats. Yet, for a number of reasons, he still is pursuing a dangerous path. It seems highly unlikely that an air campaign alone will defeat Isis. “No boots on the ground” is an empty promise, when special forces and “advisors” are already active in the conflict. While Obama may appear sane in contrast to John McCain, it is delusional to think that the Muslims in that region of the world will see the effort to defeat Isis as anything other than American-led. The pretense that it is an actual coalition is foolish -- is it realistic, for example, to think that Saudi Arabia is morally outraged because of the beheading of the journalists? Really?
Earlier this week, it was reported on Rachel Maddow’s show that one of the ways that Isis is making big money is by the sale of oil. Shocking, I know. Among other things, Isis is selling oil cheap to gas stations; by cutting out the middle-men, it provides a larger profit to the owners of the gas stations. That is the type of information that Americans should have, in order to make rational decisions regarding Washington’s march to war. That’s not to say that Isis isn’t a brutal, vicious outfit. But it does suggest that they might enjoy far more “local” support than most Americans realize, which would surely translate into making any effort to defeat them that much harder.
It also raises another important question: would declaring war on Isis, and engaging in a conflict with them in Iraq and Syria make us safer? Or is the exact opposite true? Would the actions of a US-led “coalition in Iraq and Syria tend to increase the chances of violence reaching the streets of American cities?
The chances of the US not becoming deeply involved in yet another of these never-ending wars is narrowing every day. It is not an issue that we can wait on until 2016, in hopes of electing a new president opposed to such a war. We need to become active today. Obviously, too many of those in office in DC are avoiding having a real debate, including a vote, on the topic. Part of the reason is because of the upcoming elections. More, it is because the legislative branch refuses to accept the responsibility that the Constitution absolutely places upon them, as far as war powers. If Isis is indeed a “JV” team, then the US Senate must be competing in the pee-wee league.
I’ve just come home, after watching a high school boys soccer game. As I was watching the competition, I found myself wondering how many of these young men might be asked to don a uniform, and go to war, in the next few years. It makes me sick to think that it’s coming to this, yet again.
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