Is this
any way to love our enemies?
Senator Leahy leads the mourning for 2000
fallen Americans, among a million Iraq War veterans headed for “a
deep sense of betrayal by their government”
The first 2000 American
casualties in Iraq have now been recorded, and tens of thousands
of people in their extended families have been irreversibly damaged
in the profound way that only death in the prime of life can affect
us. Religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, is the only
sphere of human inquiry that has anything to teach us about how
to deal with this kind of suffering. Because our Savior and his
mother suffered from a similar unjust death in the prime of life,
we know that we have a God who understands what this disaster of
a war has wrought in the lives of so many.
We could just wring our
hands and wonder again at why we suffer in this life. But the God
of our gospels calls us to respond to our suffering with love. And
what greater love is there than to seek an understanding of where
the suffering comes from, and to assure that others need not suffer
pointlessly in the same way. So it is that we speak out now in the
most forceful way possible against the evil intentions that have
now robbed so many young Americans and Iraqis of their lives. We
must start by asking whether oil industry profits and a narrow view
of preserving “the American way of life” are worth the
life of even a single serviceman or woman.
Aside from the 2000 deaths
now tallied, a new report from Reuters indicates that the suffering
is significantly more widespread within our military: “More
than 15,220 also have been wounded in combat, including more than
7,100 injured too badly to return to duty, the Pentagon said. Thousands
more have been hurt in incidents unrelated to combat.”
The suffering
of our own military personnel, profound as it is, is nothing compared
to that of the people in Iraq. The U.S. military command in Baghdad
keeps a running tally of “enemy dead” that is classified,
though periodically there is boasting in news reports of how many
“insurgents” have been killed in what Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice has euphemistically labeled “cleansing operations”
in Senate testimony last week.
New revelations
are emerging this week about the roles of President Bush and Vice-President
Cheney in fabricating the case for war in Iraq. Like every great
lie, more lies must be piled upon one another to keep justifying
the original lie. The CIA and US Military have now committed at
least 21 homicides, among the more than 100 deaths in US custody
in Iraq, according to an analysis of Defense Department data by
the American Civil Liberties Union. Analysis of autopsy reports
led to the conclusion that many had died as a result of strangulation
or blunt force injuries. Hundreds or thousands of others are being
detained in gulags--“undisclosed locations”--without
access to legal representation or international advocacy by human
rights groups. The Bush Administration has now destroyed the credibility
of the United States as an international advocate for human rights,
by making us the world’s most celebrated human rights abuser.
If our Christianity
means anything, it is a defiance of the common wisdom that “the
ends justify the means.” Below are the remarks this week of
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Catholic legislator who has stood up to
all those who believe that killing in the name of “economic
security” is acceptable. The American public already recognizes
the fruitlessness of the Iraq invasion, and the lies that led to
it. Our task now is to accelerate the wide recognition of the immorality
of this war, as a means to accomplishing its early conclusion and
stopping the pointless killing, in the name of our shared humanity.
Following
is Sen. Patrick Leahy's address on Iraq, delivered Tuesday morning,
October 25, on the Senate floor. Leahy (D-Vt.) is the ranking member
of the Appropriations panel that handles the Senate's work in funding
the State Department and US foreign operations and aid, and he also
is a senior member of the Appropriations panel with jurisdiction
over the annual defense budget bill. Leahy was one of 23 senators
who voted against the resolution that authorized the invasion of
Iraq.
Mr.
Leahy: Three years ago when the Congress and the country
debated the resolution to give President Bush the authority to launch
a preemptive war against Iraq, reference was often made to the lessons
of Vietnam.
Unheeded
Lessons
There are many lessons, both of that war and of the efforts to end
it. But one that made a deep impression on me came from former Secretary
of Defense Robert McNamara, the architect of that war, who said
our greatest mistake was not understanding our enemy.
Vietnam was
a relatively simple country that had changed little in the preceding
3,000 years. It was, for the most part, racially, ethnically, linguistically
and religiously homogenous. One would have thought it would have
been easy for U.S. military and political leaders to understand.
Apparently
it was not. The White House and the Pentagon, convinced that no
country, particularly not a tiny impoverished land of rice farmers,
could withstand the military might of the United States, never bothered
to study and understand the history or culture of Vietnam, and they
made tragic miscalculations. They lacked the most basic knowledge
of the motivation, the capabilities and the resolve of the people
they were fighting.
At the start
of the Iraq war, those who drew some analogies to Vietnam were ridiculed
by the Pentagon and the White House. Iraq is not Vietnam, they insisted.
Our troops would be greeted as liberators. Troop strength was not
a concern. Our mission would be quickly accomplished. Democracy
would spread throughout the Middle East. Freedom was on the march.
It is true
that Vietnam and Iraq are vastly different societies. But the point
was not that they are similar, but that some of the same lessons
apply. We did not understand Vietnam - a simple country - and we
paid a huge price for our ignorance and our arrogance.
Iraq - a complex
country comprised of rival clans, tribes and ethic and religious
factions who have fought each other for centuries - we understand
even less.
If this were not apparent to many at the start of this ill-conceived
and politically motivated war - a war I opposed from the beginning
- it should be obvious today. Yet to listen to the Secretary of
Defense, or to the President or the Vice President, one would never
know it.
Misled
into War
We know today that President Bush decided to invade Iraq without
evidence to support the use of force and well before Congress passed
the resolution giving him the authority to do so - authority he
did not even believe he needed - despite the Constitution which
invests in the Congress the power to declare war. Twenty-three Senators
voted against that resolution, and I was proud to be one of them.
We know today
that the motivation for a plan to attack Iraq, hatched by a handful
of political operatives, had taken hold within the White House even
before 9/11, and without any connection to the war on terrorism
that came later.
We know that the key public justifications for the war - to stop
Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons and supporting al
Qaeda - were based on faulty intelligence and outright distortions
and have been thoroughly discredited. United Nations weapons inspectors,
who were dismissed by the White House as naïve and ineffective,
turned out to have gathered far better information with a tiny fraction
of the budget than our own intelligence agencies.
And we know that the insurgency is continuing to grow along with
American casualties - 1,999 killed and at least 15,220 wounded,
as of yesterday - despite the same old light at the end of the tunnel
assertions and clichés by the White House and top officials
in the Pentagon.
The sad but
inescapable truth, which the President either does not see or refuses
to believe or admit, is that the Iraqi insurgency has steadily grown,
in part because of our presence there.
'Bring
Them On'
After baiting the insurgents to "bring them on," we got
what the President asked for. More than two years later, the pendulum
swung against us, and the question is no longer whether we can stop
the insurgency, but how to extricate ourselves.
According to
soldiers who volunteered for duty in Iraq believing in the mission
and who have returned home, many Iraqis who detest the barbaric
tactics of the insurgents have grown to despise us. They blame us
for the lack of water and electricity, for the lack of jobs and
health care, for the hardships and violence they are suffering day
in and day out.
Unlike our troops and their families who make great sacrifices,
most Americans have been asked to sacrifice nothing for this war.
The bills are being sent to our children and grandchildren, by way
of our rapidly escalating national debt and annual deficits. Yet
as the hundreds of billions dollars to pay for the war continue
to pile up and domestic programs like Medicaid, job training and
programs for needy students are cut, the sacrifices will be felt
today as well.
Slogans have become little more than political rallying cries for
the White House. Slogans as empty and unfulfilled as "mission
accomplished." Our troops were sent to fight an unnecessary
war without sufficient armor against these ruthless and barbaric
bombing attacks, without adequate reinforcements, without a plan
to win the peace, and without adequate medical care and other services
when they return home on stretchers or crutches or with eye patches,
unable to walk, to work, to pay their mortgages, or to support their
families. Many of our veterans have been treated shamefully by their
government when it sent them into harm's way under false pretences,
and again after they returned home.
Today I worry about places like Ramadi, where more than 300 members
of the Army National Guard from my State of Vermont are currently
serving valiantly alongside their comrades in the Marine Corps and
the Pennsylvania National Guard. Dozens of other citizen-soldiers
from the Vermont Guard are serving across Iraq, while hundreds are
deployed throughout the Persian Gulf region.
Many Vermonters
have been killed in Ramadi and elsewhere by roadside bombs and all-too
accurate sniper attacks.
The insurgents too often seem to attack and then escape with impunity.
You can open a newspaper and see photos of armed insurgents walking
the streets in broad daylight. Many of these cold-blooded attacks
are by people who are willing to trade their own lives to kill civilians,
security guards, and our soldiers who have no way of knowing who
they can trust among the general population.
'More
of the Same' Is Not Working
The President has no plan to deal with Ramadi, let alone the rest
of Iraq, except doing more of what we have been doing for more than
two years, at a cost of $5 billion a month - money we do not have
and that future generations of Americans will have to repay. Nor
has he proposed a practical alternative to our wasteful energy policy
that guarantees our continued dependence on Persian Gulf oil for
decades to come.
I am sure that
what our military is doing to train the Iraqi Army and what our
billions of dollars are doing to help rebuild Iraq - whatever is
not stolen or wasted by profiteering contractors - are making a
difference. Iraq is no longer governed by a corrupt, ruthless dictator,
and there have been halting but important steps toward representative
government.
I applaud the Iraqis who courageously stood in long lines and cast
their ballots for a new constitution, despite the insurgents' threats.
There are many profiles in courage among the Iraqi people, just
as there are in the heroic daily endeavors of U.S. soldiers there.
But this progress
masks deeper troubles and may be short lived, threatened by a widening
insurgency and a divisive political process that is increasingly
seen as leading to a Shiite dominated theocracy governed by Islamic
law and aligned with Iran, or the dissolution of Iraq into separate
Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite states.
Escalating
Toll, Escalating Costs
Mr. President, this war has been a costly disaster for our country.
More than half of the American people now say they have lost confidence
in the President's handling of it.
Far from making
us safer from terrorists, in fact it has turned Iraq into a haven
and recruiting ground for terrorists and deflected our attention
and resources away from the fight against terrorism. If anything,
it has emboldened our enemies, as it has become increasingly apparent
that the most powerful army in the world cannot stop a determined
insurgency.
Regrettably, it is no longer a secret how vulnerable we are, and
Hurricane Katrina showed how tragically unprepared we are to respond
to a major disaster - four years after 9/11 and after wasting billions
on an unnecessary war.
Our cities are little further than the drawing board when it comes
to developing workable evacuation plans for a terrorist attack or
other emergency, not to mention how to feed, house and provide for
millions of displaced people.
This war has caused immense damage to our relations with the world's
Muslims, a religion practiced by some 1.2 billion people and about
which most Americans know virtually nothing. We cannot possibly
mount an effective campaign against terrorism without the trust,
the respect and the active support of Muslims, particularly in the
Middle East where our image has been so badly damaged. Our weakened
international reputation is another heavy price that our country
has paid for this war.
Each day, as
more and more Iraqi civilians, often children, lose their lives
and limbs from suicide bombers and also from our bombs, the resentment
and anger toward us intensifies.
And every week, the number of U.S. service men and women who are
killed or wounded creeps higher, will soon pass 2000, and shows
no sign of diminishing.
This war has
isolated us from our allies, most of whom want no part of it, and
if we continue on the course the President has set it could also
divide our country.
Course
Correction
Other Senators and Representatives, Republicans and Democrats, have
expressed frustration and alarm with the President's failure to
acknowledge that this war has been a costly mistake, that more of
the same is not a workable policy, and that we need to change course.
My friend Senator Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, has pointed out the
increasing similarities with Vietnam. We learned this week that
the Administration has even resumed the discredited Vietnam-era
practice of measuring progress by reporting body counts.
White House
and Pentagon officials, and their staunchest supporters in Congress,
warn of a wider civil war if we pull our troops out. They could
be right. In fact, it could be the first thing they are right about
since the beginning of this reckless adventure.
My question
to them is, when and how then do we extract ourselves from this
mess? What does the President believe needs to happen before our
troops can come home, and what is his plan for getting to that point?
If we cannot overcome the insurgency, what can we realistically
expect to accomplish in Iraq, and at what cost, that requires the
continued deployment of our troops?
What is it
that compels us to spend billions of dollars to rebuild the Iraqi
military, when our own National Guard is stretched to the breaking
point and can't even get the equipment it needs?
Unfortunately
I doubt that the President or the Secretary of Defense will answer
these questions. Instead of answers, we get rhetoric that conflicts
with just about everything we hear or read, including from some
of this country's most distinguished retired military officers who
served under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Six months
ago the Vice President said the insurgency was in its last throes.
That was just the latest in a long string of grossly inaccurate
statements and predictions and false expectations about Iraq.
Secretary Rice,
when asked recently when U.S. forces could begin to come home assuming
the Administration's rosy predictions come true, could not, or would
not, even venture a guess.
Without answers
- real answers, honest answers - to these questions, I will not
support the open-ended deployment of our troops in a war that was
based on falsehoods and justified with hubris.
Even though
I opposed this war, I have prayed, like other Americans, that it
would weaken the threat of terrorism and make the world safer, that
our troops' sacrifices would prove to have been justified and that
the President had a plan for completing the mission.
Instead, it
has turned Iraq into a training ground for terrorists, it is fueling
the insurgency, it is causing severe damage to the reputation and
readiness of the U.S. military, and it is preventing us from addressing
the inexcusable weaknesses in our homeland security. The Iraqi people,
at least the Shiites and Kurds, have voted for a new constitution,
as hastily drafted, flawed and potentially divisive as it may be.
Saddam Hussein,
whose capacity for cruelty was seemingly limitless, is finally facing
trial for his heinous crimes.
And elections for a new national government are due by the end of
the year.
By then, it
will be more than two and a half years since Saddam's overthrow,
and we will have given the Iraqi people a chance to chart their
own course. The sooner we reduce our presence there, the sooner
they will have to make the difficult decisions necessary to solve
their own problems.
Our military
commanders say that Iraq's problems increasingly need to be solved
through the political process, not through military force. We must
show Iraq and the world that we are not an occupying force, and
that we have no designs on their country or their oil. The American
people need to know that the President has a plan that will bring
our troops home.
Once a new
Iraqi government is in place, I believe the President should consult
with Congress on a flexible plan that includes pulling our troops
back from the densely populated areas where they are suffering the
worst casualties and to bring them home. Those consultations should
begin in earnest as soon as Iraq's new government is in place. It
is also long overdue for the White House and the Congress to reassess
our policy towards the region. The President has declared that democracy
is taking root throughout the Middle East, and there have been small,
positive steps. But they are dwarfed by the ongoing threat posed
by Iran, Syria's continued meddling in Iraq and Lebanon, repression
and corruption in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the danger that the momentum
for peace from Israel's withdrawal from Gaza will be lost as settlement
construction accelerates in the West Bank, and the widespread -
albeit mistaken - belief among Muslims that the United States wants
to destroy Islam itself.
Just as the
White House's obsession with Iraq has diverted our resources and
impeded our efforts to strengthen our defenses against terrorism
at home, so has it made it more difficult to work constructively
with our allies to address these regional threats. Mr. President,
as I have said, I did not support this war, and I believe that history
will not judge kindly those who got us into this debacle by attacking
a country that did not threaten us, after deceiving the American
people and ridiculing those who appealed for caution and for instead
mobilizing our resources directly against the threat of terrorism.
I worry that
many of our young veterans - nearly one million so far - who have
gone to Iraq and experienced the brutality and trauma of war and
who may already feel guilty for having survived, will increasingly
question its purpose. As the architects of this war move on to other
jobs, fear that we are going to see another generation of veterans,
many of them physically and psychologically scarred for life, who
feel a deep sense of betrayal by their government.
Mounting
Trade-Offs
If President Bush will not say what remains to be done before he
can declare victory and bring our troops home, then the Congress
should start voting on what this war is really costing this Nation.
We should vote on paying for the war versus cutting Medicaid, as
some of those across the aisle are proposing.
Or versus cutting VA programs that are already unable to pay the
staggering costs of treatment and rehabilitation for our injured
veterans.
Or versus rebuilding our National Guard.
Or rebuilding FEMA.
Or securing our ports and our borders.
Or investing in our intelligence so we can finally capture Osama
bin Laden.
Or investing in health care for the tens of millions of Americans
who can not afford to get sick.
Or fixing our troubled schools, so our children can learn to do
a better job than we have of making the world a safer place for
all people.
Mr. President, these, and the tarnished reputation of a country
that so many once admired as not only powerful but also good and
just, are the real costs of this war.
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