Time For Peace

The United States lost this terrible war in Iraq long ago. Those of us who oppose the war have not done enough to wake up people to reason.

Why is the war already lost? It does not matter how despotic Saddam Hussein was; the people of Iraq did not want the United States to invade and occupy their nation. The American people were told that the Iraqis would welcome our incursion, and hundreds of billions of dollars have been completely wasted and many thousands of lives needlessly lost. It seems right now that no one is to be held responsible for this madness.

Six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the resistance was getting organized. Those resisting the U.S. occupation are not primarily members of al-Qaeda. This news was duly reported to CIA headquarters outside of Washington by the CIA’s lead man in Iraq. Not only was his report criticized, personal accusations against him were circulated. Soon thereafter, he quit the CIA in disgust.

Iraq is in the midst of civil war, whether the politicians or the news media call it civil war or not. Dozens of Iraqis die each day in sectarian fighting and at the hands of American forces. The horror is growing. Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia asks, “Do we fire at the Sunnis in the sectarian strife? Do we fire at Shia? Who are we fighting?" These are questions being raised now by the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Imagine that the United States had been invaded and occupied by another nation over, say, our nuclear weapons arsenal. Wouldn't that likely exacerbate the many tensions that already exist in our culture, thus leading to chaos and internal fighting—Democrats v. Republicans, whites v. racial ethnics, north v. south, immigrants v. native citizens, Christians v. Muslims v. Jews v. non-religious. I’m not convinced a scenario is unrealistic.

Iraq’s population is less than one-tenth that of the United States. Imagine if every day, hundreds of Americans were being shot or blown up in our own streets each day, and thousands more wounded.

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