gracchusdixit

The inability of Republican Presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio to state clearly whether they would have authorized the war in Iraq, had the decision been theirs to make, has created a predictable media flap. If we are lucky, this furor may cause us, once and for all, to own up to the awful mess we have made of the Middle East.  If we are even luckier, it may point us in a direction that is more constructive and hopeful.

On a purely human level, it is tempting to pity Jeb Bush, because he has a brother’s reputation to protect—which in this case is not an easy job.  There is, however, no reason to pity, let alone excuse, Marco Rubio as he tries to wiggle his way through this wormy quagmire.  Jeb Bush may be worth a bit of pity.  Marco Rubio and his ilk deserve nothing but contempt.

The invasion of Iraq, and the invasion of Afghanistan which preceded it, are arguably the greatest military and foreign policy disasters in American history, having unleashed a whirlwind of chaos and carnage that shows no sign of abating nor any hope of being contained or controlled.  A case could be made—though I for one don’t propose to make it—that some justification existed to invade Afghanistan.  No conceivable case can be cobbled together to justify the invasion of Iraq.  That decision seems not merely wrong today, in retrospect, more than a decade later; it was dead wrong on the day it was made, and to pretend otherwise is an exercise in folly or falsehood.

The invasion  of Iraq wasn’t an honest, rational decision that simply didn’t work out.  It wasn’t a defensible response to the best evidence available at the time.  It wasn’t an “error in judgment” made by well-intentioned people.  And it wasn’t a “simple mistake”.  The invasion of Iraq was nothing less than the inevitable consequence of a premeditated lie.

Who were the liars?  President George W. Bush liked.  Vice President Richard Cheney lied.  National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice lied.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lied.  UN Ambassador John Bolton lied.  CIA Director George Tenet lied.  Neo-conservative intellectuals Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl lied.  All these people, and others, lied to Congress and the media.  They lied to the American people and our allies.  They lied to the United Nations and the world.  Indeed, they are still lying, unrepentant and apparently unashamed.  Hiding behind their credentials and their casuistry, holed up in their lavish homes and their lush academic and foundation jobs, these people are worse than liars; they are common criminals.

The crimes these people have committed, however, are anything but common.  Their lies killed 5,000 Americans and left at least 50,000 wounded, many of whom will never recover from their wounds, will never be whole again, will never be fathers or mothers, will never become the productive citizens and human beings they might have been.  We shall never know how many Iraqis were killed, were maimed, or made homeless.  Their number is certainly in the hundreds of thousands, more likely in the millions.   The maiming and the killing and the dying continue to this day.  This will never stop until we call out the criminals and proclaim to the entire world the enormity of their crimes.

The German people learned this awful truth when they were forced to confront the fundamental evil of Nazism, to confess their own culpability for the carnage of the Second World War, and to come face to face with the demonic attempt of their country’s leaders to exterminate the Jews and the Gypsies and all the “inferior races” of Europe.  This process of confrontation and confession, of remembrance and restitution, is not yet complete in Germany, and it never will be.  Nonetheless, truth-telling was the only road by which Germany was once again able to win for itself a place among civilized nations.  It was the only way the German people could once again live with themselves.

In saying this, it is not my intention to indulge in the cheap trick of comparing what we have done in the Middle East with the uniquely awful tragedy of the Holocaust.  My sole purpose is to talk about means and ends.  If our end is to put an end to the awfulness we have wrought, then we must begin with truth.

Truth-telling is the only possible remedy for us.  It is the only possible expiation for what has been done in our name.  We are a democratic people.  As such, we cannot escape responsibility for the deeds done and for the actions taken by our leaders.  Like or not, we elected these people.  Like it or not, we must hold ourselves accountable for what they do, and have done, as our representatives.

We could go on pretending, of course.  We could go on evading, explaining, and excusing.  But none of that would, or will, alter the truth or even begin to repair the damage.

It is the criminals who are ultimately responsible for the crimes.  But until we brand them as the criminals they truly are, until we judge them, hold them accountable, and punish them for their crimes, the guilt will also be ours.