At 8 PM Eastern U.S. time, 7 PM local time, March 19, 2003, I sat
cross-legged in the tranquil gardens adjacent to the Louisiana state
capitol building and lit a candle in mourning for an era of international
hope and cooperation suddenly expired. As the 7th chime from a nearby clock
tower faded, I closed my eyes and listened, beneath the evening quiet, to
the powerful hum of a great nation perverted from its ideals of peace and
cooperation to a new militarism of fear and isolation. There are occasional
moments when, if one listens closely, one can hear the clock of history
shift forward a notch. This was such a moment, as the President's 48 hour
deadline for capitulation ended and the United States of America entered
into a state of preemptive war against a sovereign nation.
As I write these words, the television pundits in the background are
contorting themselves to figure out how it could come to pass that a nation
founded on the principles of democracy and freedom from tyranny has
developed a foreign policy at odds with the values of so many of our
international partners. They never will be able to answer this question,
for the Bush policy toward Iraq is not a Foreign policy, at all; it's a
Domestic policy. The U.S. policy of militarism was borne in the
presidential glory of a successful international coalition against
terrorists in Afghanistan. Such is the banality of evil. The President
didn't Intend that America should come to terrorize the world. But, to
sustain his popularity, he adopted a Posture of war against Iraq before the
Argument for war was established. Only in the ensuing months, as the
evidence and argument for war failed to materialize, did this populist
strategy turn into a policy of international bullying.
What we need to fear most from the Bush policy is not that it will fail,
but that it will succeed. For, once President George W. Bush is reelected
in the afterglow of a successful Iraq campaign, no U.S. leader in the
foreseeable future will be able to be elected otherwise. Oh, sure, the U.S.
political discourse will still include appeals to international cooperation
and peace. But such appeals will always lose out to the call to arms
trumpeted in the name of U.S. moral, intellectual, and spiritual
superiority over the rest of the world. So it comes to pass that the
world's hope for peace and unity that ensued from the collapse of the
Soviet Union after decades of cold-war stalemate is squandered by the petty
politics of a small president who appeals not to our courage and our ideals
but to our fear and our ignorance.
There is no turning back the tide of history now submerging the hopes for
international rule of law to settle the affairs of nations. In the years to
come, at 8 PM on March 19 let people of good faith in all nations light a
candle to renew the memory and hope of international trust through this era
of darkness.
David Kirshner
5428 Halls Ferry Drive
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA 70817
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