My former colleague Steven Greenhut today writes a column about how the Register was right to oppose the Iraq War months before it began. It was the finest hour for the paper during my 19 years there. The Register was the largest paper completely opposing the war. I’ve written about my disagreements with the paper’s management. But it’s worth noting that they let us write freely against the war.
How did we get it right? I think it’s because our philosophy of freedom is right. We followed the Founding Fathers’ distrust of government, including distrust of “our” government. We insisted that the Founders’ design for America was non-interventionsim, not the Neocons’ hyperinteventionism. As George Washington insisted in his Farewell Address,
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
By this logic, we on the editorial page saw that America was not designed to be an imperial power, and that any such adventurism would end in disaster.
It did.
It’s also worth pointing out that this war was designed by chickenhawks — Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Condi, Perle, Scooter — who, if they even heard a car backfire, would micturate their pants.
I don’t take any pleasure in being right. The long war already has led to more than 4,000 Americans dead, almost 30,000 seriously wounded, more than 1 million Iraqis killed, the destruction of American prestige around the world — and, domestically, to massive inflation, with the dollar losing more than 2/3 of its value, bringing on the coming recession.
If there’s a silver lining to this dark cloud, maybe it’s that Americans will realize that you can have freedom or imperial conquest, but you can’t have both. Even imperialism to implant “democracy” in Iraq — a place that never had it and likely never will — still leads in America to domestic tyranny, economic collapse, and chaos.
It’s not just the Neocons, but a lot of Americans, on the left and the right — check the comments at the bottom of Greenhut’s article — who believe that the laws of common sense and gravity do not apply to them or to America. But they do.
The Iraq War still is teaching us that the hard way.
Myblog's Blog 
March 31, 2008 at 7:44 am |
I read Steve’s article yesterday and the comments today as a result of this blog entry. I cannot believe the tone of them. I thought people in Orange County were more sane than that.
As to the Register burying its anti-war position in a few articles on the back pages, that does not square with my recollections. All of you writers, you, Greenhut and Bock, were frequently very clear on your position. Thanks to all of you for that and your continued opposition to an imperialistic, militaristic America.