The Iraq War dominated the electoral landscape during the recent mid-term elections. Voters swept in candidates across the nation who vowed for change in Iraq. But making good on his pledge that “I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney [his dog] are the only ones supporting me,” President George W. Bush is readying the largest request for funds so far to continue the war. Even worse, he’s on the cusp of actually increasing troops.
Back on February 15, 2003 millions of people across the globe made headlines as they protested against the impending Iraq War. While that mass mobilization failed to stave off that unpopular and tragic war, it’s hard to believe that President George W. Bush will miss the message voters delivered on Election Day–it’s time to change course in Iraq.
Photo: Jonathan McIntosh
Otto Dix, The Skat Players (1920) © 2006 Nationalgalerie. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz
Polls show that the American people are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the war in Iraq and want our beloved troops to come home as soon as possible. Nearly 80 communities nationwide have put these sentiments in city and town council resolutions that call for bringing our sons and daughters home from a war that has become a deadly quagmire and an occupation as unpopular in Iraq as in the United States.
We believe that our plan to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace offers the best chance of ending the war and helping to repay our huge debt to the people of Iraq and to our returning soldiers, themselves made victims of this war. But we also understand that whatever the plan, it must be based on knowledge.
Knowledge of the staggering costs in lives, in money, in human rights, and so much more of this illegal war. Knowledge that this war has made all of us—the U.S., Iraqis, and the rest of the world—less safe. It is time to share the information, to open the debate and to work towards the common ground that will be required to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace.
One event in Baghdad went unreported this month, not only by the mainstream media but also by the “alternative” press, even though it implies that U.S. control over Iraq’s political future may already be waning. In August, the White House supported the establishment of an Iraqi National Council comprising 100 Iraqis from various tribal, ethnic, and religious groups in an effort to influence the composition of an electoral oversight body. Yet this month, two large political parties, each of which has long been viewed with suspicion by Washington, came out ahead in the voting.
After failing to obtain authorization for war from the UN Security Council, the Bush
Administration has scrambled to assemble a so-called “Coalition of the Willing” to lend the
military action against Iraq the illusion of genuine multilateralism and legitimacy.
The Institute for Policy Studies has analyzed the relationship between the United States and the
nations in the Security Council and those in Bush’s non-UN coalition. Are these allies supporting
the United States on the merits of the case, or is their support of the U.S. war effort more a result
of coercion, bribes, and bullying?