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Chickenhawk Politics
(The Nation, October 17, 2002)
he war debate is not over. Bush's chickenhawk brigade huffed and bluffed its way to an important victory in Congress, and the boardroom commandos--Field Marshal Cheney and Generals Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle--may imagine they can topple Saddam, capture Iraq and rearrange control of Middle East oil merely by firing off more bellicose, deceitful threats. But they have not won the American people, or a substantial number of their elected representatives, or their allies abroad, to the cause of war. . . . Congress, it is true, did sign another blank check for open-ended war, acquiescing in the same chickenhawk politics that produced the Gulf of Tonkin resolution of 1964, which led to the quagmire in Vietnam. . . . majority leader Tom Daschle sulked, whined and then, as usual, caved. So, too, did John Kerry, who made a somber speech echoing his Vietnam experience, then crumpled (despite the nearly 20,000 antiwar e-mails his office received), joined by other White House wannabes John Edwards, Joseph Lieberman, Joseph Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton. . . . One reason we are convinced the war issue remains unsettled (perhaps even within the Bush crowd) is that it was birthed and developed by the White House as a political strategy, then foreign policy and defense strategy tagged along. Thus, during the past nine months, Bush has "campaigned" for going into Iraq but never squarely articulated either the justifying evidence or why he was unconcerned by the very dangerous potential collateral consequences. . . . The New York Times revealed recently a US occupation plan calling for Iraq to be governed by a military proconsul. That scheme sounds like a formula for an oil protectorate run from Washington in which the United States attempts to steer global oil prices while handing out drilling and service contracts to Texas business buddies of the Commander in Chief and his field marshal from Halliburton. . . . If domestic politics is the true subtext of Bush's imperial adventure, then an aggressive politics of public opposition can stop it. The targets now are bipartisan--every Democrat and Republican who supports war--and the pressure must not cease after the election. A vocal citizenry can put the chickenhawks to flight. . . . [Editor's Note: A chickenhawk is a leader who sends other people's children into battle without ever having participated in war himself or herself, as is the case of the Bush junta.]

posted by LoZo 5:39 PM