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It has been over a year since Osama bin Laden and his cohorts destroyed the two World Trade Center buildings in New York City. There has been a large outcry among the populous, a call for revenge, an invoking of the Gods of war. There was nary a voice of dissent anywhere. People were angry, understandably. People didn’t want to rationalize, and who would? People just wanted Osama’s head on a plate, and if it meant taking out a few civilians in the process, oh well. But, it seems that the tide is beginning to change.
Ever since our President decided to clean up his father’s mess in the destitute nation of Iraq, our collective conscience has begun to perk up and take note. Secretary of State Colin Powel, President George Bush and his cabinet have been trying to assure us that Iraq is an imminent threat to our national security. They assure us that at any given moment we could be facing Sept. 11 part 2.
Now, people are beginning to question what they hadn’t before. Why now? What did Iraq do to earn future parking lot status? It’s not like they can really attack us, as they simply don’t possess the technology. Yes, it’s widely agreed that Saddam Hussein is a vile dictator, and perhaps it’s he, and not some member of a boy-band, that needs to be fired into space. It’s safe to say that Hussein needs to be removed, but is a unilateral war the way to do it?
According to a growing number of voices, it is not. Not only have there been world wide demonstrations denouncing this potential war, a good number of our own military generals are coming out against it. It is simply bad strategy, especially since Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the rest of countries in the region are not exactly keen on letting the United States use their land as a “home base.” Even Norman Schwarzkopf, the star of “Gulf War I: The Quest for Cheaper Oil,” isn’t 100 percent for a new war.
“The interesting thing is that the people who are saying we should go after Saddam are not the ones who would have to get shot at. They’re not the ones that are going to be killed, and they’re not the ones that are going to be leaving behind their families,” said Schwarzkopf.
It doesn’t seem likely that anti-war activists would turn to Norman Schwarzkopf as a key voice in their campaign to stop this war, but this issue has been a harbinger of unexpected support.
Al Gore, the same Al Gore who was critical of the elder Bush’s decision to leave Saddam in power back in 1991, can now be cited as one of the voices who led the charge of opposition, questioning the intelligence of such an attack today. In a speech given at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Sept. 23, Al Gore accused Bush and his cabinet of squandering whatever good-will we had accumulated over the past year, all in the name of an overly-brazen war. Hard-liners like Rush Limbaugh cried “heresy,” but the damage had been done – the question was out in the public sphere.
When Gore committed what many considered to be political suicide, he also gave a voice to the former voiceless – the anti-war contingent that now grows stronger each day. The United Nations recently rejected a resolution, proposed by the United States, that would have given us authorization to attack Iraq if they don’t comply with new weapons inspections rules. Keep your fingers crossed, folks. We may stay out of this war altogether.
Chris Gorman is a senior sociology major.
