Is America actually at war? Iraq insurgents aren't America's enemy.

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Is America actually at war?

James Carroll The Boston Globe
MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/30/opinion/edcarroll.php

BOSTON State of the Union, state of war: They have a nice ring. When George W. Bush goes before the Congress and the nation Tuesday night, he will present himself (again) as a war president. Personally and politically, the identity defines him. Instead of the callow leader he was in the beginning of his presidency, he will conduct himself as a man of sharp determination, with defiance born of the impression that his fight is to the death. He will justify all of his policies, including the illegal ones, by citing his responsibilities - and privileges - as wartime commander in chief. He will not have to remind the men and women in front of him that twice (just after 9/11 and just before Iraq), they voted to license his use of "all necessary and appropriate force" - enabling acts by which most of them still stand. The United States became a nation at war with congressional collusion.

But did it? Here is the embarrassing question: Is America actually at war? We have a war president, war hawks, war planes, war correspondents, war cries, even war crimes - but do we have war? We have war dead, but the question remains. With young U.S. soldiers being blown up almost daily, it can seem an absurd question, an offensive one. With thousands of Iraqis killed by American firepower, it can seem a heartless question, as if the dead care whether strict definitions of "war" are fulfilled. There can be no question that Iraq is in a state of war, and that, whatever its elements of post-Saddam sectarian conflict, the warfare is being driven from the Pentagon.

But, regarding the Iraq conflict as it involves the United States, something essential is lacking that would make it a war - and that is an enemy.

The so-called "insurgents," who wreak such havoc, are not America's enemy. They are not our rivals for territory. They are not our ideological antagonists. Abstracting from the present confrontation, they have no reason to wish us ill.

Americans who bother to imagine the situation from the Iraqi point of view - a massive foreign invasion, launched on false pretenses; a brutal occupation, with control of local oil reserves surely part of the motivation; the heartbreaking deaths of brothers, cousins, children, parents - naturally understand that an "insurgency" is the appropriate response. Its goal is simply to force the invaders and occupiers to leave. Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have intrinsic reasons to regard each other as enemies, from competition over land and oil, to ethnic hatreds, to unsettled scores. No equivalent sources of built-in contempt exist among these people toward America. Taken as a whole, or in its parts, Iraq is not an enemy.

full article: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/30/opinion/edcarroll.php

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. The "war" is over. Amerika lost another one.

All that remains is an inept occupation force throwing kerosene on the fire they started.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Notice that it is called "The battle for Iraq" anymore

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7. war on terror is the name that grabs for power

[enough]

3. As always, James Carroll makes a profound point about both

the "war" in Iraq and the "war" on terrorism.


Thanks for posting this.

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5. I love this article

glad to have run across it.

[Protagoras]

4. I've been asking people to explain this over and over

but no one can. Who are we at war against? Since when did a war of ideas or a war against abstracts...or a war against dispirate criminals...war against poverty...war against drugs...war against terror...

Suddenly become WAR in a constitutional sense that allows the president ANY powers? To the extent there was anything approximating a war when we invaded this tiny country...isn't that over the day the President says "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"?!?

Every lemming out there talking about "BALANCING FREEDOM WITH SECURITY" needs to be asked one simple question..."DO YOU IDIOTS REALIZE THAT THIS IS A WAR THAT HAS NO END, MEANING YOU NEVER GET THOSE FREEDOMS BACK?"

God, just thinking about it makes it feel like my head is going to pop.

This isn't about security. This is about a permanent rollback our our basic, fundamental, inherent liberties for the sack of an administrative powergrab and massive corporate profits.

K%R till everyone gets it (sadly most here do...so we aren't the ones who need the message).

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6. Bush has used the authorization from the 9-11 attacks to reign supreme

stoking the flames of fear, claiming special powers, insisting that only his notion of an everlasting war will keep us from another attack . . . the bulk of the resources of our government goes to militarization and corporatist leeches. The justifications keep shifting, every dissent is the enemy to their cause. Disinformation, misinformation? Who's the enemy? Anyone who stands in their way. And they have the full weight of our government and military backing them up, save whatever regulation Congress can muster. We need our legislators to exercise their constitutional check on this Executive military oligarchy marquerading as the Office of the Presidency.

[Disturbed]

8. Amerika is not at war.

The Neo Fascist Regime in power now in Amerika is in Occupation mode of Iraq and Afghanistan.

[The Magistrate]

9. No, Mr. Tree, We Are Not At War

On the one hand, the regime is conducting an imperial venture involving the U.S. military in ocupying another land, and on the other hand, the country is confronted with a polie problem of proportion so sizeable military power is sometimes required to supplement the police and enable their operation. Neither of these things vcan properly be classed as war.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Poiuyt]

10. It was Bush's plan all along to become a "war president"

He told his biographer in 1999 that "if I get the chance to invade Iraq" he wouldn't waste political capital like his father did. He wanted to invade Iraq to increase his political power. God damn war criminal.