The Iraq War, or America Betrayed
by James P. Pinkerton, Newsday
July 15, 2003

The book-fed brainiacs who helped talk George W. Bush into the Iraq War are commonly known as neoconservatives, "neocons" for short, but they are anything but conservative. After the Cold War ended, they had a vision of America's exerting "benevolent global hegemony," in the words of William Kristol and Robert Kagan.

After 9/11, Bush wisely chose to move against the Afghan attackers, but apparently, at about the same time, the decision was made to move against Iraq, too. "National greatness," "spreading democracy" and, most portentously, "regime change," were heard from a thousand Beltway tongues. It all sounded stirring in the abstract, in the web of words that cloaks the realities of warfare.

Meanwhile, neocon word-creations, such as "moral clarity," "axis of evil" and "Bush Doctrine," spread far and wide. These word-weavings were repeated over and over again, in magazines, books and cable news shows. Bush became Winston Churchill, Saddam Hussein became Hitler, the Arabs were ripe for Americanization, and the U.S. military became the sword not only of vengeance, but also of do-gooding and nation-building.

But, in a world that's mostly gray, "moral clarity" becomes a synonym for tunnel vision. To see something complicated as simple requires that the seer leave out critical details. In their Quixotic madness for war, the Bush people exaggerated, and maybe even fabricated, their "evidence." Words had gotten them into positions of power, and now more words, even fictional words, would get them into war. A lionized, neocon-ized Bush didn't worry about such variables as the world reaction to America's plan, not to mention the Iraqi reaction.

Few in the Bush Brigade have actually worn their country's uniform. Their service, even in the Pentagon, consists of sitting in carpeted corner offices. And this is where the Iraq mission passes, in my mind, into the realm of outrage. In my trip there, I met lots of uniformed Americans who had obviously read or heard a lot of neocon propaganda. They believed they were there to help the Iraqi people. To believe that, they had to look past the fact that the United States had to bomb and shoot its way in. But even after "peace" was established, the well-meaning Americans were unprepared for the mission at hand.

First and most obviously, they didn't have non-lethal weapons for crowd control, and so many confrontations became deadly incidents, starting up a cycle of violence that spirals further every day. Second, few of them had been taught the language of the people they were supposedly going to be working with; I did not meet a single American who knew more than a few words of Arabic. Finally, the Pentagon was heavy on tanks for intimidation, but light on techniques for winning hearts and minds, such as immediate plans for rebuilding infrastructure.

Thus the ultimate irony: The war that was schemed and dreamed by eggheads turned out to be just another cracked example of poor planning. The Pentagon may have omnipotence in war, but it lacks common sense in peace.