Dissent. It’s one of those things that people claim crucial but rarely endeavor to participate in. It’s one thing to write about something like – say – the invasion and occupation of Iraq (yes, I am pointing at myself) and another thing altogether to actually stand up and make a significant statement.
Is George W. Bush a murder? Most would say that he isn’t because he’s never killed anyone. But as President of the United States he did illegally and preemptively invade a nation that has since resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions. He, along with members of his administration, peddled speculation passed off as fact to convince the people of the United States and their representatives that it was something that had to be undertaken. In the end, every one of the justifications given by the Bush Administration turned out to be fallacies. The regime of Saddam Hussein did not possess WMD’s, nor could any evidence be found that it was even capable of producing them. What was found in Iraq was nothing more than the rusted leftovers from its war with Iran and the realization that Saddam Hussein had done something that the Bush Administration’s illustrious thinkers never imagined him capable of – he faked it. That said, he faked it so badly that the UN could have proved him a liar had they been given the opportunity to finish the job. After all, what was Hussein going to do, back down? He wasn’t in a position to, as dictators never are as it pertains to sustaining a level of fear to keep people in line.
So the Bush Administration cut Hans Blix off at the knees and went to war. Thinking it a cake walk, The Pentagon seriously underestimated the Iraqi public’s response to an occupational force, drew up plans that lacked any foresight as to what would occur after the US military reached Baghdad, and subsequently created all of the elements required for an insurgency to take root. The CIA’s Baghdad Station Chief at the time sent aardwolves back to Langley that so infuriated the Administration that he was replaced rather than listen to. In the end his concerns proved to be accurate. By the fall of 2003 the insurgency had started to seriously find its feet and the world’s foremost military couldn’t even hold a stretch of road from the airport to the Green Zone only seven and a half miles in length. In fact, it would take the US military longer to secure that road than it did for them to defeat the Germans after the continental invasion of Europe.
But there was never any admission of wrongdoing, only changes of focus. What had been sold the American people as a military action required to protect the United States was replaced by a plethora of convenient secondary justifications – the crimes of the Hussein regime (all of which occurred while Hussein was a US ally), human rights, and, of course, the instillation of democracy.
After all, a free people are a happy people.
Unless, of course, they lack the most basic of services, the infrastructure of their country has been completely destroyed, sectarian factions within the country are engaged in a civil war, foreign terrorists have been drawn to the country in hopes of killing Americans – and anyone else that disagrees with them for that matter – millions are forced to leave their homes and flee to other parts of the country or to foreign countries, the country itself is considered the most dangerous in the world, the state of medical affairs is in the toilet, you have to wait in line for three days to get gas for your car in a country that has some of the richest oil reserves in the world, there are madmen suddenly blowing themselves up in markets where terrorist attacks had never occurred prior to the occupation, American forces are lighting up cars at checkpoints, and on and on.
The truth is that the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld believed an exit strategy was unnecessary because they never planned for US forces to leave. Iraq would, in essence, become another South Korea. And from Iraq the US would then work towards the destabilization of Iran and in one fell swoop lock up the majority of the world’s oil resources. After all, Americans (and Canadians) like big trucks and they need gas to keep all those Hemi’s happy.
Saddam Hussein was hung, purple fingers covered the front pages of American newspapers, images of flag draped coffins were banned, the military found itself so stretch to the limit that National Guard Reservists suddenly found themselves on the front lines and in many cases returned home only to be sent back because of a legal loophole, the state of the nation’s Veterans hospitals were found to be in shambles, the number of soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder shot through the roof, suicides increased – and all of it played out in front of a massive video screen on which an entirely staged toppling of a statue in Baghdad played on a loop.
A free people are a happy people – if they, themselves, strive for and ultimately secure that freedom. Everything besides is a cautionary tale of history.
And so – dissent. A journalist who had watched his country come apart removed his shoes and threw them at the man whose administration was responsible for it all. In the Muslim world to do so is considered a grave insult. For having the balls to do it he was beaten and held incommunicado by the authorities of a supposedly ‘free’ nation. After months of waiting for his day in court, today Muntadar al-Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison.
There are those that probably consider that a rather light sentence. After all, his target was the President of the United States. How dare he.
Some years ago on Prince Edward Island an activist named Evan Wade Brown shoved a pie in the face of then Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Brown didn’t throw the pie from a distance, he literally assaulted the leader of this country.
So what do you think Brown got for his act of dissention? A whopping thirty days. In the end, he would only serve eight of them.
After all, a free people are a happy people.
