Lies That Aren't Lies, Mistakes That Aren't Mistakes, and Hypocrisy That Isn't Hypocrisy: Taming the American Bully

The Unity Festival in Tokyo




Dear friends of peace, thank you for allowing me to speak today on behalf of Military Families Speak Out and Bring Them Home Now!
Let me say first that in many ways, I do not represent peace. I am a very direct representative of American wars. My father was a machine gunner on a B-17 bomber in World War II. He was shot down over Germany and remained there as a prisoner of war until the conflict was over. My younger brother was an infantry soldier in Vietnam, returning home wounded in body and spirit. His physical wounds healed, but his mental ones never did. He committed suicide in 1981, one of so many tortured and delayed casualties of that war of lies. I followed in the great family tradition as a platoon sergeant in Desert Storm, the US Army's code name for the first war against Iraq. I was in a support unit, so I never shot at anyone and no one shot at me. But I do know first hand what it's like to be in Iraq, to sit in a hostile land in a canvas tent when temperatures pass 120 degrees. Of all of these things about my background, my brother's death wounds me the most. I still grieve for him. I still get angry that my country, my president, would lie to the American people, would create something as devious as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in order to convince us there was justification to go to war against the Vietnamese people. And how many people on both sides died because of those lies? How many people died because President Johnson couldn't admit his mistake? How many people died because America accused the Soviet Union of imperialism in order to justify American imperialism? This is the height of hypocrisy.

The only thing that soothed my pain and anger about my brother's sacrifice was my belief that at least this would never happen again. No US president would mislead Americans in order to start a war of aggression. Never again would the administration continue to lie in order to hide a mistake of such monstrous magnitude. Never again would Americans accept such behavior. The concept of “my country, right or wrong” died with the Vietnam War. It has become part of patriotism to stand up and shout against our leaders when they wrong.

Comparisons to the Vietnam War abound. The lie of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was used to give President Johnson the authority to wage an undeclared war in Vietnam. Our current president used the dual threat of the imminent use of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's ties to al Qaeda and the attacks of September 11th to convince Congress to give him the same authority President Johnson had. We now know both were false premises. There are no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein had no ties to al Qaeda and no connection to the attacks of September 11th. President Bush claims these are not lies because he believed them to be true before the war. In some respects, he still claims to believe them. So these lies are not lies.

The war is over and the mission is accomplished in Iraq. We know this because President Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and told us so on May 1st. Yet more Americans have died since that day than during the war before it. Just as in Vietnam, we hear about the loss of every single American soldier, but almost nothing about the deaths of Iraqis. People on both sides are dying, and for what? According to our president, they are being sacrificed to create a model democracy in the Middle East, something other Arabs can emulate once it's established. This is the new “white man's burden,” a carry-over from British and subsequent American imperialism from over a century ago. Instead of Christianity, we are saving the unwashed, the unclean, the unenlightened, from their own inferior concepts of self government. This is our president's true road map for the Middle East – create a government friendly to the US in Iraq, then expand the concept to other countries in the region. The so-called democratization of the Middle East is only thinly veiled American imperialism.

This brings us to the mistake. No constitution the puppet Iraqi Governing Council writes, no government they create, will survive the withdrawal of US troops. Iraqis do not believe in this process, do not accept this process, and do not understand why the US troops are still in their country. Any long-term goals the US has in Iraq are doomed to failure. We cannot impose a government on Iraq, anymore than we could impose a government on South Vietnam. We are pouring money and the lives of our young soldiers into an enterprise that cannot succeed. This, by anyone's conceptualization, must be deemed a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, a mistake must be recognized as a mistake before we can begin to rectify it. But if you listen to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Powell, this mistake is not a mistake. It was necessary to wage all-out war to remove Saddam Hussein from power so that he could not use weapons of mass destruction that he did not have and so that he could not support al Qaeda through connections that did not exist. So this was not a mistake. If it's not a mistake, then we can continue to waste American lives and American money in Iraq. Iraqis can continue to die in the American occupation which, according to the US administration, is not an occupation.

We are saving Iraq by destroying it. We are saving Iraqis by killing them. We started the war because we claimed Saddam Hussein was developing the same weapons of mass destruction we already possess. The axis of evil – Iran, Iraq, and North Korea – were labeled as such because of their repressive regimes and because of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since September 11th, the US has rescinded the rights of people both inside and outside our country. It has the most active nuclear weapons development program in the world. It has “defense” labs for both chemical and biological weapons. In other words, the US is telling the world, “Do as I say, not as I do.” This is hypocrisy by anyone's definition. Our justification is that we are the good guys; that we would never use the new nuclear weapons we are developing, that our chemical and biological weapons labs are just to help us defend against attacks from such weapons. We pompously declared 12 years ago that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait could not stand, that the world must unite in undoing this unjust invasion of a sovereign country. Now we are the invaders. We had no more justification for invading Iraq than Saddam Hussein did for invading Kuwait. But this is not hypocrisy because we are the good guys and Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.

Before the war, the United States claimed that the only solution to Saddam Hussein was immediate full-scale war. We know now this was false. Three countries – France, Germany, and Russia – all opposed this action. They claimed war was not justified and that diplomacy and sanctions needed more time. They also stated that the UN inspection team headed by Hans Blix needed more time. They were right. Now, these same countries have a plan for turning the rebuilding efforts over to the United Nations and returning sovereignty to the Iraqis. Once again, they are right.

Japan now stands at a crossroads. The US has become, not the world's policeman, but the world's bully. The only way to control a bully is to unite against him. If one person or one country sides with the bully, he gets to continue his destructive ways. In the child's fable “The Emperor's New Clothes,” everyone claims to be impressed by the emperor's fabulous and magical clothes. They have been persuaded to believe that naked is not naked. Then a child points out the fact – the emperor is naked. I am not a diplomat. I am not an official representative of my country and as such cannot make a plea to your government. But it is my fervent hope that Japan will be as the child in the story, and cry out that a lie is a lie, that mistakes are mistakes, that hypocrisy is hypocrisy. Do not enable the bully. Your own constitution prohibits the use of military force except in defense of your homeland, yet now Japan is considering sending troops and money to support the aggression of another nation. The US is asking Japan to do this because of another lie – President Bush claimed before the war that we could do this alone. Now he's finding out that we can't. We can't afford the occupation and rebuilding – we need international help. Politically, he can't afford the cost of US lives. If other countries are willing to share the sacrifice, it will in some ways validate his many costly mistakes. I pray Japan chooses not to validate the acts of a bully. I pray Japan does not empower and enable the bully. Most of all, Japan should cry out against the new US policy of pre-emptive strikes. The United States claims they have the right to strike any country without waiting for that country to strike first. This premise allowed them to initiate the war in Iraq. It sets the precedent for a dangerous new world. Not only does it make the US more dangerous, it creates a world order where North Korea can use the same premise to reduce the threat in South Korea, Pakistan could do the same to India, and Israel already has used this premise to strike in Syria. I pray Japan will stand against this concept, along with Kofi Anan and the United Nations.

I began this speech with a reference to my own family history in America's wars. That tradition continues. My nephew is a vehicle mechanic stationed somewhere north of Baghdad. His mother, my sister, goes to sleep every night, wondering if her son will ever come home to her. Her life goes on, but every day she steels herself against the possibility that she will get a notification that her son has died in a faraway land. It grieves her even more to know that he has spent over six months there, risking his life for a false cause. She is one of over 120,000 American mothers who fear for their children's lives. I tell you this because now Japan is considering creating its own pool of fearful mothers, mothers who know their sons could die at any minute, and for what? To support and defend lies that aren't lies, mistakes that aren't mistakes, and hypocrisy that isn't hypocrisy. I have faith in a better Japan. I have faith in a better world.

I pray Japan will join forces with organizations like Military Families Speak Out and help us Bring the Troops Home Now!

Thank you.