Features » April 9, 2003

The Looking Glass War

By Peter Freundlich

All right. Let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We ignored the United Nations in order to teach Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We’ve waged war to preserve the United Nations’ ability to avert war. The paramount principle has been that the United Nations’ word must be taken seriously, and if we’ve had to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then, by gum, so be it. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?

Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq was to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we were honor-bound to do that too because democracy as we define it is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.

Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension here: We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein’s failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We have sent our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does, and we twisted the arms of the opposition in order to force it to agree to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people, and if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them.

Listen, don’t misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush Administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like “We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,” but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that.

As a collector of laughable arguments, I’d be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know—we all know—that lives will continue to be lost in what amounts to a freak circular-reasoning accident.

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• Reader Comments

  Mr. Ricci:

  No, get your head out of your glass of Budweiser (or is it Pabst Blue Ribbon) and realize the high-minded rhetoric used by the Bush Administration to justify this invasion was just a propagandistic smoke screen!  If we were so concerned about brutal dictators, why have we not invaded Saudi Arabia, Congo or Indonesia?  All have governments that routinely use torture on political enemies. Of course, let’s not forget about the suspects that the U.S. tortured to death at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan - really gives us the moral high ground, doesn’t it?  Isn’t it curious how that story disappeared down the memory hole?  What about the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that are kept in metal dog kennels in steaming heat, often hooded and shackled?  We really know how to treat our POWs, don’t we?  Of course, we just play a semantic game of calling them “enemy combatants”, instead of POWs and then we don’t have to comply with the Geneva Conventions? How tidy.  Of course, you could also ask the hundreds of Middle Eastern men we are holding in custody since 9-11, without charging them and without providing them with counsel, as the Constitution guarantees. Ask them about due process and Miranda rights and the glories of American jursiprudence.  Just an itty-bitty bit of untidiness, right?  As Mr. Rumsfeld has indicated, we don’t mind a little “untidiness”, do we?

  Open your eyes, fool.  This country has no claim to any moral superiority and the invasion of Iraq was not some high-minded Christian soldiering, either.  It was a greed and power-driven money grab by morally sick men like Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al.  Pull the flag decals off your windshield and see the truth!

  Posted by Stephen Kriz on Apr 21, 2003 at 6:16 PM

  I don’t think it matters in this case whether just as many people would have died if Saddam had been left in power.
  It most certainly doesn’t matter to people who are now dead and may have lived - at least for a bit longer. Or for those maimed and mourning.
  What is more important is why we got rid of Saddam, how we did it and who did it.
  The long run isn’t just the next couple of years. If we’re lucky the future will last longer, if we’re bright we won’t keep storing up trouble for those there to see it.

  Posted by susan on Apr 22, 2003 at 5:41 PM

  I think the discussion of the article is more interesting than the article itself! I think the reason the article enrages so many is that they have only started to realize that we are not even pawns in the great scheme of geopolitical affairs, because pawns have some worth. We, as citizens are subject to the whims and desires of the the corporate, military-industrial elite ruling class. Republican or democrat makes no difference.  All government actions eventually work to serve the status quo, keeping this elite class in power.  Doesn’t matter what religious leaders and Noble Peace Prize winners say.  And to think there might be two people in Boise who think like this!

  Posted by Greg on Apr 25, 2003 at 12:26 AM

  September 11, 2001, war was declared on America.  We are now at war against Global Terrorism.  It rages now.  Iraq was just the second stop.  Get it???

  Posted by roypendy on Apr 26, 2003 at 12:09 PM

  What a fabulous article! I absolutly loved it! Thank you so much, Mr. Freundlich for writing an article that gets you laughing and thinking at the same time.

  Posted by Lila on Jun 23, 2003 at 7:05 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 45 posts.

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