The most important lesson to be learned from the Bush administration is this: If the President of the United States is determined to start a war, there isn’t much the rest of us can do to prevent it.
That’s because the President has an advantage over everyone else. The President has access to the CIA, the NSA, and all the other government agencies and experts who gather and analyze secret information about threats to our national security. So even if there’s no real evidence to justify a war — no “smoking gun,” as it were — the President can still say “we don’t want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” and fear of a nuclear attack will make it challenging for even the most powerful and knowlegeable American to confidently contradict the President’s claims. We don’t know what we don’t know.
I believe war is evil. I won’t go so far as to say war is never justified — I would have gone to war to prevent the Holocaust during World War II or to free American slaves pre-Civil War, for example, and I would go to war to protect America’s existence, to protect our freedom – but I believe any nation that goes to war will pay a very heavy price that goes beyond soldiers killed and wounded, families destroyed, cities burned.
This is why it is so important that we elect a President who won’t take us to war recklessly. This is why it is crucial that we elect a President who will work to avoid wars, rather than working to start them.
This is also why it is extremely important for us, the American people, to have a national conversation about what principles should guide our decision-making when it comes to future wars. We Americans can’t wait until the next President — who could be John McCain, God forbid — makes the decision to take us to war, before we mobilize to oppose his decision. By then, it will probably be too late. I believe Bush had an easy time convincing America to attack Iraq because we hadn’t really thought much about why we would or should go to war in the post-Cold War world.
Let’s hope that when the next stupid president tries to convince the American people to support a “dumb war” — as Barack Obama called the Iraq War in 2002 — we’ll have the clarity of mind as a national community to push back in a responsible and pursuasive way.
The Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly is engaging the American people in a conversation about why America would or should launch a war. A few days ago, for example, he discussed the prospect that the United States might intiate another world war. His comments were part of a larger conversation about what the government should do to bring gas prices down, and one idea he’d previously discussed was selling oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve:
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Caller: Oh hi, Bill. I had to pull off the road because my blood-pressure is boiling. Whenever I hear them talk about the strategic oil reserve, it makes me very upset because, um, we’re in a crisis now as you all keep saying but what happens when we dip into that and we get into a real crisis and there’s nothing left.
Bill O: Well, here’s what (Newt) Gingrich said last night on it. He said we should sell 50% of the, uh, oil that we have in the reserve, put it on the world market, sell it to anybody who wants it at these high prices. Ok? That, Gingrich claims, would drive the world price of oil down $50 a barrell, Phyllis, because we’d put so much on the market at the same time, all the speculators would get out, the price of oil would drop $50 down to about $90 a barrell. Then, Gingrich says, buy it back at $90. So you’re making a huge profit. And then I said to him, “well, what would you do with the money?” He said, “well, you could pay down the deficit.” To me, I’d take the money and invest it in alternative fuels. That’s what I’d do with it. So, would you have a problem with that?
Caller: Yeah, because I just worry that what happens if, you know, we had a major crisis where we needed the oil or something for our military or we can’t buy it from other people because they decide to take a different turn on us, or whatever.
Bill O: Well, if it came to that we’d take the oil, Phyllis.
Caller: Oh, Ok, because we’re–
Bill O: You know, I mean, look. If it comes to, if it comes to OPEC not selling it or (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez not selling it, our soldiers will go in and take it. I mean, that would start a world war. That’s what would happen. Now, I hope that never happens, but that’s what started World War II. That’s why Japan went on its expansionary route, because it needed fuel. So, I mean, I see where you’re going with that but that’s not a realistic concern. Anybody blackmailing the United States on oil or China or India is going to start a world war. That’s what it will start. We’ll be back.
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O’Reilly, who has millions of regular viewers (many of whom vote), is saying that if another country has oil, and if we Americans believe we need that oil to maintain our standard of living — and if that other country won’t sell us the oil — then we have a right to invade that country, kill it’s people, and take the oil. The oil may reside within that other nation’s borders, but that doesn’t mean this other nation ”owns” the oil in the sense that its people get to decide whether or not to sell it to us. We “own” it, in the sense that ultimately we get to have it when we want it. And why do we “own” it? Because our military is superior. Might makes right.
As O’Reilly sees it, we’re effectively pointing a gun at these people, and we’re saying, “Don’t you dare stop pumping the oil, don’t you dare stop selling us the oil. Because if you stop, we’ll kill you and take the oil for ourselves.” And it seems entirely natural that we Americans would have this attitude, according to O’Reilly, who compares us to the Japanese fascists as if there is no difference between America’s approach to war in 2008 and the Japanese approach in 1941.
Is O’Reilly wrong? Are we really any different from Hitler’s Japanese allies? Wouldn’t we go to war to protect our economy from the horrible collapse that would probably ensue if oil prices skyrocketed? What would stop us from doing so? Wouldn’t it be in our national interest to do so?
O’Reilly is preparing Americans to accept the idea that the oil-producing nations of this world have an obligation to fuel our economy, and violating this obligation justifies war. He’s preparing Americans to adopt the same mindset that prompted the Germans and Japanese to start World War II. O’Reilly is probably doing this prep-work because he figures war with the oil producers is inevitable, and he figures the quicker we Americans get used to this idea, the better we’ll be as a nation. His fear is that the day will come when war will be necessary but the American people won’t have the will to fight. (To be fair, O’Reilly is also encouraging us to quickly develop alternative energy sources.)
In a way, this hypothetical war has already begun. At a recent campaign event, John McCain said the U.S. should eliminate our dependence on foreign oil so we’ll never again have to send our soldiers to fight in the Middle East. McCain accidentally acknowledged what many Americans and the vast majority of non-Americans believe: oil was a major factor in Bush’s decision to go to war. This contradicts the rationales purported by McCain and other supporters of the Iraq war over the years: that the war’s purpose is to eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction, liberate the Iraqi people and spread democracy.
I believe this: If we Americans start using our military to hold the rest of the world at gunpoint, we will eventually turn the rest of the world into our enemy. If that happens, the United States will eventually be destroyed, from without or from within. We cannot defend ourselves against the rest of humanity, nor can we survive as a nation if we violate the core American principle that all human beings – even non-Americans — are created equal. My patriotism is motivated, in part, by my belief that the United States will lead the world toward peace, prosperity, and freedom. If we do as O’Reilly seems to be suggesting, and take what doesn’t belong to us with no regard for the self-determination of non-Americans, we will come to symbolize war, destitution and humiliation for the world’s people. In that case, America will have shot itself in the face.
Meanwhile: Does anybody buy Gingrich’s scheme to sell oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, drive down the price, and then buy it back at a profit? Can somebody weigh in on whether that could possibly work? My gut tells me it’s nonsense but I’m not confident enough in my grasp of the oil economy to have a solid opinion. (For example, didn’t Gingrich kill the plan by talking about it publicly?)