http://www.azcentral.com/news/columns/articles/0323pimentel-CP.htmlWill 3/19 rival 9/11 for its folly?O. Ricardo Pimentel
Republic columnist
Mar. 23, 2003 12:00 AM
To us, 9/11 will always be the date.
For the world and its history books it may have just been replaced by 3/19, the day war began (U.S. time).
This is the day the world really changed, a change more laden with dreadful potential than even that tragic September day.
Even if this war is brought to a quick and decisive conclusion, this is the day when preemption became not just theory but imperial practice.
This is the day we told the world, in the unmistakable language of violence, that if we deem you a threat and you are relatively weak, you have much to fear from us. We get to say, with impunity, what constitutes a necessary preemptive war.
If we deem you a threat and you are strong enough, you become a "regional" problem. Ultimately, you may still have cause to fear. The only problem is that we may have alienated so much of the world on this road to preemption, a k a upholding the honor of the United Nations and striking a blow for democracy, that we may take a slower approach before the bombs fall.
With this administration and this president, we now have little patience for diplomacy to persuade the world to act as one on common goals. We view this as simply too difficult, too time consuming, far messier, believe it or not, than even war.
Today, it is Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Tomorrow it is Iran's nuclear potential. The day after North Korea's nuclear reality. The day after that, who knows?
We will invoke preemption not because of a populace's oppression but because, if we can't win friends and allies with reason and persuasion, we will simply create them.
No one ever argued that the status quo in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was OK, only that there were alternative means to change it. And, of course, we should support our troops, wishing all of them to come home safe. We shouldn't forget how they got there, but we should all wish for a quick and successful conclusion and simultaneously be fearful of recurrences.
But recurrences seem likely because 3/19 is the day we officially gave notice that the only world opinion we care about is that which conforms to the tunnel vision of our leaders. This is the day that we told the world that being No. 1 means never having to ask permission.
If Saddam is already dead or soon hanging by meat hooks a la Mussolini, and Iraqis are cheering us as liberators, this will be billed as the end that justifies the means.
But it will not be the end, if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz can be believed. It will be the beginning of using violent means to an end without end. This engagement, ironically, is just the latest manifestation of a new form of disengagement.
It started with shoving national missile defense down the world's throat, talking about free trade, then upping the amount of our subsidies to rich farmers here, disavowing the international criminal court and bailing from the Kyoto agreement.
In this war will be the victory that naive neoisolationists have been hoping for. In this world, the United Nations is irrelevant. This brand of neoisolationism will not demand we withdraw to the water's edge. It will demand that other countries simply conform to our comforts, desires and exigencies.
Lump it or leave it will be our motto.
No, the United States is not on a quest for world domination, no matter how long the troops have to occupy Iraq. It is on a quest for something a bit less physically hegemonic: a world that doesn't raise a fuss, is full of willing suppliers or consumers and is devoid of threats. On many levels this is a great goal. By force of arms, however, this is mission impossible.
It took awhile, but this country realized in the latter part of the past century that democracy and free markets attract more allies than does fear. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall tumbled not because we subdued foes militarily but because their systems could not sustain themselves and ours was better.
Ideals have always been our best export. And the world has been an eager market. The Mideast is a particularly ripe market for this product, but this product is best delivered by diplomacy, example and good, rational argument.
There is indeed such a thing as just war. But when alternatives that achieve the same goals are available, it is hard to argue that this is it, no matter the outcome.
The ideal we're now exporting is that diplomacy runs its course sooner rather than later, particularly if the votes are going against you; negotiation and appeasement are the same thing; and inspection and containment are fools' follies always, even when they're working.
note:3/19 3+1+9 = 13 concidence eh?
