Lessons from the U.S. war on Iraq.

   Unpopular during even the happiest of
   stock-market booms, in time of war dissent
   attracts the attention of the police.
   The parade marshals regard any wandering
   away from the line of march as unpatriotic
   and disloyal.

   --Lewis Lapham

Something unsettling happened as bombs began to rain down on Baghdad during the U.S. war on Iraq. Where before there had been healthy and quintessentially democratic debate on the morality of bombing a nation because it might harbor terrorists and have weapons of mass destruction, suddenly there was an uneasy silence as many Americans were told to behave and support President George W. Bush. For a nation that boasted the right to liberate Iraq and bring American values to the repressive nation, this bit of polite censorship was ironic and contradictory. Patriotic Americans have failed to defend celebrities' right to speak out against the war, and a New York lawyer was even harassed, asked to leave a mall, and then arrested for donning an anti-war T-shirt. All across the nation, people warily removed antiwar stickers from their cars in fear of vandalism. Therefore, without ever being officially censored, Americans began to feel pressure to support U.S. troops and cease their skepticism about the war. Radio disk jockeys announced with incredible constancy that it was time to stand behind U.S. fighting soldiers and be "good Americans." For many, it was no longer patriotic to question the bombing and bloodshed of an international conflict. Fealty had replaced undiluted American expression as the nation began to censor its people.

Through it all, as "smart" bombs continued to explode in the streets around innocent Iraqi citizens, revelations began to stir unrest and suspicion among Americans. Was this really a war to end terrorism or was it about imperialism and transnational profits? While the president ignored the intrepid few who continued to march in protest, a collection of alternative news magazines uncovered disconcerting contradictions about this so-called war for democracy. Many wondered why Iraq was suddenly so dangerous and such an imminent threat to the United States when there was virtually no talk of "liberating" it during the 2000 presidential election. Was Iraq not the same nation that was bombed into submission just ten years earlier, and was this not the nation that had been dealing with sanctions and constant inspections by a United Nations team? Was this a war to end terror or was it more about the fount of oil that flowed under the Iraqi sand? Finally, was it about a president and vice-president who wanted peace or a piece of the action?

Fundamental to a successful democracy is the ability of its people to be given honest and accurate information about their government and the actions that government takes on their behalf. Americans can't participate in a system that only feeds them a steady diet of propaganda and mendacity, leading them to believe what isn't true or is only part of a larger story. At the same time, to be truly free, Americans must be able to reject the policies of their president and practice civil disobedience when they see nefarious policies coming to fruition and hurting others. This was the centerpiece of Henry David Thoreau's night in a Concord, Connecticut, jail and his essay Civil Disobedience. This, we must remember, is the essence of a real, robust republic--one that is governed for and by the people. And yet, as the first week of the war passed in a blaze of explosions and death--with twelve British and American soldiers dying in a helicopter crash--Americans felt increasingly pressured to decide between supporting the war and being depicted as un-American.

Democracy, we must always remember, is never a stable and fixed entity. As with any dynamic, it is the product of tenacious struggle and unremitting pursuit. Blacks weren't granted their right to emancipation but had to win it through the crucible of a Civil War and another century of civil disobedience in the streets of the South and urban North. The right to vote was denied to women until their voices were heard in fractious speeches and aggressive political campaigns. Heroines of the era weren't respected in their own time because the prevailing wisdom suggested that it wasn't feminine or moral for women to march for suffrage or demand the right to decent contraception. Even today, few Americans know about the intrepid heroism of Frederick Douglass, Margaret Sanger, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Progress, it seems, is almost never embraced during the time that it is proposed--few wanted a Civil War to emancipate blacks and even fewer saw any real utility in extending the right to vote to women. Entrenched power likes the status quo or, as Howard Zinn writes in Declarations of Independence, "What normally operates day by day is the quiet dominance of certain ideas, ideas we are expected to hold by neighbors, our employers, and our political leaders; the ones we learn are the most acceptable. The result is an obedient, acquiescent, passive citizenry--a situation that is deadly to democracy."

Such has been the case with the U.S. war on Iraq. As soon as Bush chose to ignore the UN's recommendations--and the voices of millions of protesting Americans as well as others throughout the world--to allow nuclear weapons inspections, there was a dramatic change in the political terrain of the U.S. landscape. Instead of Americans being free to voice their dissent about a questionable war, many found that they were virtually forced to accept the conflict or be branded anti-military. Much like abolitionists over a century before, advocates for peace were increasingly given the moniker of apostates, of radicals who didn't love their country, of people who didn't appreciate the sacrifice of their soldiers. Morning talk radio--always a reflection of what is most sordid and lurid in the American psyche--trumpeted the might of the U.S. military and excoriated the "traitors" and "cowards" who would rather protest war than stand behind U.S. troops. Pathetic jingles were created to lampoon Saddam Hussein and his imminent demise, while disk jockeys with limited vision and respect vilified those who refused to support the "American cause." Gradually, the American right to dissent and disagree was evaporating like morning dew as stridency supplanted debate and war became the mantra for those in power.

Consider the example of Stephen Downs who was arrested for wearing a T-shirt that had on the front the innocuous mantra of "give peace a chance" and on the back "peace on earth." When asked why Downs was arrested, Tim Kelley, the executive of the company that manages the Crossgates mall, suggested that Downs was being "disruptive." When pushed to define what he did to be depicted as "disruptive," Kelly admitted that the expulsion from the mall had been prompted by the T-shirt. According to Leonard Pitts, in his March 10, 2003, Miami Herald article, Downs, who is a sixty year-old attorney, simply donned the T-shirt, talked to a few people in the food court, and then was asked to either remove the shirt or leave the mall. Pitts writes, "When Downs refused, the guards went away, only to return with police officers. They repeated the demand, he repeated his refusal, and Downs was arrested for trespassing." Pitts says in his analysis of the situation, "There's something chilling in the very act of Downs' arrest. Especially in light of local media reports that this isn't the first time Crossgates has ejected shoppers wearing anti-war T-shirts."

What is perhaps most chilling about the arrest--and the swirl of raging patriotism--is the fact that many Americans seem to have forgotten what is unique about their freedoms. When Americans burn a flag, march in protest, or wear T-shirts that declare their contempt for a leader, they are engaging in acts that define them as a people that revere free expression, especially since these acts are often punished harshly in other countries. The United States becomes yet another repressive regime when it penalizes the voices of the minority and tries to squelch those who expose its peccadilloes. The United States becomes little better than the countries it seeks to "liberate" when it stifles dissent and stymies protest.

Some Americans have confused the United States with an abstract idea of set, venerated, and dynamic principles--ones that make American's collective culture unique. Burning a flag isn't an action that should be outlawed but one that should be protected and inspired since it symbolizes expression and active engagement in the search for justice. Without dispute and rebellion, human beings become obedient machines, saluting a flag that ceases to epitomize the right to be free. Indeed, if Americans can't safely express their opinions, to what, exactly, are they pledging allegiance?

Isn't the essence of American freedom rooted in the right to express disapproval and to articulate the basis for that dispute? I was educated to believe that Americans are a restless, demanding people--ones who don't brook injustice and who are quick to have their voice heard. Americas don't have their tongues chopped off for speaking their minds and deriding their president, as in other nations. However, what does it say about Americans if their opinions are punished with the destruction of compact disks that represent a musician's livelihood? For some, it seems that iconoclasm isn't American if it conflicts with the U.S. government's point of view.

In the United States during times of war, Americans begin to feel an aggressive brand of jingoism gradually supplanting their freedom to speak, which is why they must be forever vigilant in maintaining their right to question their government while caring for those who are sent into dangerous conflicts. David Crumm writes in a March 19, 2003, Detroit Free Press article: "As U.S. forces head toward war, antiwar sentiments are butting up against the instinct to rally 'round the flag.' ... Sometimes the collision can hurt."

Of course, the United States has always fancied itself to be a bastion of free speech and unbridled expression. History, however, recalls a more sordid and checkered story. During World War I, hundreds of people were arrested for simply criticizing the war effort while, during the Cold War, celebrities had their livelihood wrested away from them by being labeled communists. The blacklists, which made Joseph McCarthy infamous, were a lamentable symbol of what can happen when antiwar emotions collide with ensconced power.

Sometimes it doesn't matter if one is antiwar. Sometimes simply telling the truth can result in a collision with so-called patriots. Perhaps this is why the case of Peter Arnett is so important. During the 1991 Gulf War, the CNN reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner was labeled a traitor by many Americans, including Senator Alan Simpson (Republican, Wyoming), for simply reporting the bombing of an Iraqi milk factory by U.S. aircraft. The accusations were curious since Arnett, by all accounts, had reported the bombing faithfully and with the professionalism that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts in Vietnam. Indeed, a building that clearly appeared to be producing milk had been destroyed. However, as the condemnations began to grow, it seemed clear that Simpson and other Americans weren't angry because Arnett was a traitor but simply because he had revealed an unpleasant truth about U.S. practices. In the days after Arnett's report, letters demanded his dismissal while others accused CNN owner Ted Turner of being sympathetic to the enemy. Suddenly Turner was being branded with the moniker of "Baghdad Ted" because he allowed Arnett to chronicle the ugly side of U.S. war tactics. Telling the truth in time of war was seemingly no longer allowed. It was yet another example of the United States displaying its fear of freedom and its unwillingness to reveal the shadowy side of its policy. Indeed, while Arnett and others were being vilified, one wonders why other journalists had refused to uncover the carnage, why they refused to tell the whole story.

In "Television, the Crisis of Democracy and the Persian Gulf War" published in the book Media, Crisis, and Democracy, Douglas Kellner writes:

   The lack of significant critical voices during the
   crisis in the Gulf and then the Gulf War disclosed
   the timidity, narrowness, and fundamental
   subservience of the mainstream media
   in the United States, especially the television
   networks.... The broadcast media are afraid to
   go against a perceived popular consensus, to
   alienate people, to take unpopular stands.

This timidity is a blemish on U.S. democracy and a reflection of how impotent Americans' freedoms really are when they are tested in times of crisis. Much like the U.S. war on Iraq, when citizens were pressured to support their troops and president, Arnett and others were being castigated for failing to follow a narrow patriotic line. In many ways, they are a reminder of the proclivity in the United States to react in despotic ways when people question national policy. Americans are often not as free as they think they are--or as they should be.

Of course, the blacklists were a generation ago, but today the United States has the Patriot Act, which seems to have the same chilling and paralyzing effect. Passed in the frenetic days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the law makes it easier to stifle dissent, creating a nation that is more tentative, more reticent, and less outspoken. While it began as a response to terrorism, the Patriot Act permits the U.S. government to collect information about people who use the Internet, whether they are doing so for a library research paper or simply to engage in personal enlightenment. For example, the act makes it easier for government officials to collect information about Web browsing and e-mail accounts without meaningful judicial review. Government officials can simply suggest that they are investigating possible terrorism and begin to use the Patriot Act as a ruse for government intimidation. The American Civil Liberties Union decried Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Patriot Act, and its potential for limiting rights and said, "He's supposed to defend the constitution, not rewrite it."

Lamentably, the string of special rights granted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation isn't limited to people's computers. Karen Schneider writes, in the "The Patriot Act: The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel" published in the fall 2002 Colorado Libraries, that this legislation also:

   allows law enforcement
   agencies to search homes
   and offices without notifying
   the owner for days or weeks
   after, not only in terrorism cases, but in all
   cases--the so-called sneak and peak authority
   is not antiterrorism legislation; it is anti-speech
   legislation. It was hustled into reality in the
   post-9/11 environment so quickly, secretively,
   and undemocratically that our Bill of Rights
   had been clocked with a one-two punch well
   before any of us realized it was under attack.

In the April 2003 issue of Harpers magazine, Lewis Lapham says, "The USA Patriot Act has been reinforced so many times since it was first passed by Congress in October 2001 that by now the country's law agencies have been equipped with as many powers as they choose to exercise--random search, unwarranted seizure, arbitrary arrest."

In exploring the specifics of the Patriot Act, one can quickly appreciate Schneider's and Lapham's concerns and the relevance they have to the United States' diminution of democracy. Where before there were constitutional protections in what one researched, wrote, and observed on the Internet, there is now an easy means for the government to intimidate those who might undermine its policies. If a teacher wants to explore the ways to protest an unjust war--as Thoreau did over a century ago--they could have their homes searched without prior notice. It becomes an easy way to thwart free expression, to scuttle the voices of those who are unhappy with the government. In the end, it is yet another example of liberties becoming attenuated in what is supposed to be a free society. Schneider says, "Do you really think it helps democracy to put everyone in America under the lens of unbridled government surveillance?"

Of course, there will always be those who wonder why anyone should worry--why essays should be written about the U.S. government's long and sinewy arms of investigation. The U.S. government tells Americans that they should trust in their president and have faith that he will do what is best. Such incredible romanticism has been repeated several times as news programs blithesomely carry out report after report on the heroism of American troops and the inherent goodness of removing Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. In times of war, the mainstream media becomes an organ, a willing toady of the government, reverting to the role of glorified cheerleaders for the home team rather than engaging in a skeptical investigation of what is right. Zinn writes:

   There are two false assumptions about
   experts. One is that they see more clearly and
   think more intelligently than ordinary citizens.
   Sometimes they do, sometimes not. The
   other assumption is that these experts have
   the same interests as ordinary citizens, want
   the same things, hold the same values, and,
   therefore, can be trusted to make decisions
   for all of us.

Zinn's declaration is especially pungent when compared to news anchors like CBS's Dan Rather who told a caller on Larry King Live that he trusts his president and believes in his wisdom and choices. Where is the scrutiny of the media when they are compliantly trusting in a president--a former oil executive--who is invading a nation with more oil reserves than in all of North America?

During the U.S. war with Iraq, nightly programs--and mainstream newspapers--became little more than chroniclers for the daily travails of the marching soldiers. Gone from the discourse was the watching, observing eye of the critical press. Gone from the discussion were questions of why the United States is invading another country and killing people to liberate them. What if Bush was lying in his reasons for launching a war in Iraq? What if his motivations aren't to bring democracy to the Iraqi people but, rather, to obtain access to their oil?

On May 1, 2003, Bush stood on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and declared, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. I am honored to be your commander in chief." Between the backslapping and handshakes, there was never a mention of the 138 U.S. casualties, the 32 British deaths, or the estimated 2,300 Iraqi fatalities. All of this is expected in a war that seeks to protect persecuted people and subjugated populations. However, what if this war was about political gain? What if this was simply an attempt to divert attention from a failed domestic policy, and what if the deaths of these brave soldiers were driven by a lust for Iraqi oil? Would Americans be as willing to send their children to die if they knew the whole story about the U.S. invasion into Iraq? More importantly, can Americans call the United States democratic if its media stops asking these questions and treats the war as a moral inevitability?

News headlines on April 3, 2003, discussed an interesting fact: Bush's approval rating had jumped to over 70 percent. War, it seems, is often good for presidents. It unites a nation and asks citizens to choose between their leader and the dark nemesis thousands of miles away. The question Americans must ask, however, is whether it is ethical for a president to use war--and the deaths of innocent and brave people--to plunder another country's oil or to bolster their own political popularity. Moreover, without a curious and investigative media, how can U.S. democracy ever expose this unpleasant possibility?

According to Eric Alterman in the November 25, 2002, issue of the Nation, Bush has consistently lied about his motivation for attacking Iraq. Alterman suggests that Bush lied as a pretense for committing troops to a war, using mendacity in exaggerating the military might of Hussein and his ability to launch missiles. Alterman says, "Most particularly, [Bush] has lied consistently about Iraq's nuclear capabilities as well as its missile-delivery capabilities." Alterman says the result is that the United States will again dive into a war that will cost it lives and respect. Much like previous incursions in Vietnam, it subverts U.S. democracy when the media supplants information and skepticism with propaganda and prevarication. He is provocative in his conclusion:

   Reporters and editors who protect their
   readers and viewers from the truth about
   Bush's lies are doing the nation--and ultimately
   George W. Bush--no favors. Take a
   look at the names at that long black wall on
   the mall. Consider the tragic legacy of LBJ's
   failed presidency. Ask yourself just who is
   being served when the media allow Bush to
   lie, repeatedly, with impunity, in order to
   take the nation into war.

The foundation of a democracy is in many ways rooted in the kind of information that Alterman discusses. Americans can't make educated decisions about their lives if the nightly news does nothing more than describe military victories and provide a running death count. The nation can't feel truly empowered if news anchors like Peter Jennings and Dan Rather subscribe to the notion that it would make people too uncomfortable to hear the darker, more shadowy side of U.S. foreign policy.

The failures of the media in investigating the untold story of the Iraqi war--and the U.S. involvement in the Middle East--could also include questions of whether or not Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney actually wanted to invade Afghanistan and Iraq long before terrorist attacks killed U.S. civilians. According to Gore Vidal in his book Dreaming War, the oil company Unocal proposed to construct in 1997 a pipeline across much of Afghanistan in an attempt to develop the rich resources o! the Caspian Sea. The plan was to ignore Afghanistan's atrocities and repression of human rights, its abject misogyny, and use Afghanistan for its oil. However, when Osama bin Laden became a bigger player in the Middle East, Vidal suggests that the United States turned its back on the Taliban and suddenly became interested in the Taliban's violations of human rights as a pretext to overthrow its government. Vidal says, "By 1999 it was clear that the Taliban could never provide the security we need to protect our fragile pipelines. The arrival of Osama as a warrior for Allah on the scene refocused, as it were, the bidding. New alliances were now being made."

Frederick Starr, chair at Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Maryland, said in a 2000 Washington Post article, "The United States has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out Osama bin Laden." Therefore, Vidal suggests, the attack on Afghanistan wasn't about ending terrorism but about solidifying the area for oil. He adds that much the same is happening in Iraq where there is more oil than any country except Saudia Arabia. The conquest of the oil-rich Middle East, he intimates, isn't about peace and democracy but about oil, power, and influence.

Michael Niman's article in the March/April 2003 issue of the Humanist shows how the American media has also kept the public in the dark about the role the U.S. government played in originally arming Iraq with weapons of mass destruction. According to Niman:

   When Iraq presented its weapons declaration to the
   United Nations in December 2002, the Bush administration
   immediately attacked the report as incomplete....
   But that's because the United States
   removed over 8,000 pages of information from the
   11,800-page document before passing it on. The missing
   pages implicated ... the successive Ronald
   Reagan and George Bush administrations in connection
   with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein's
   Iraqi government with myriad weapons of mass
   destruction and training to use them.

Niman suggests that U.S. companies supplied much of the chemical and biological weaponry obtained by Hussein. This occurred with the assistance and knowledge of people like Cheney, whose company (Haliburton) received the contract to rebuild Hussein's oil fields after the Gulf War, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who could be seen as culpable in the use of the chemical weapons used in the slaughter of Iraqi Kurds. Indeed, it was Rumsfeld, acting as an envoy for then-President Ronald Reagan in 1983, who went to Baghdad and discussed Iraq's war against Iran. Niman says, "In 1984 Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran. In 1988 it used them against one of its own oppressed ethnic minorities, the Iraqi Kurds." During the entire series of murderous episodes, the United States stood mute. When the UN Security Council condemned Iraq's use of chemical weapons, the United States stood alone as the only nation not censoring Iraq.

So why didn't the mainstream press report or even discuss this, and what does this curious neglect suggest about U.S. democracy? Niman writes, "Clearly, there is a desire--whether for love of country or love of money--to keep certain history a secret." Therefore, how can a democracy flourish if the people aren't told about the underhanded deals and duplicitous motives of their government--a government that will send its children to war? Only time will reveal the mendacity of the U.S. government and the neglect of the media. However, as the soldiers fight and die, and the journalists eschew the more thorny issues of U.S. government deceit, too many Americans remain patriotically stupid, waving flags and marching for a war they fail to understand. Is there an axis of evil? And if there is, do the American people--the citizens of a great democracy--appreciate their government's complicity in making it a reality?

Greg Shafer is an assistant professor of English at Mott College in Flint, Michigan.