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August 18, 2005

Original Article (English)

President George W. Bush is enjoying his five-week vacation near Crawford, Texas, while outside his ranch at a makeshift camp, a California woman named Cindy Sheehan has been holding a vigil to meet with him. To prevent greater tragedy for American families, this angry mother whose son was killed in Iraq last year, is asking Bush to withdraw American forces immediately and completely from Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan in Crawford

“If Bush really believes this is a lofty cause, why not send his two daughters to the front?” Cindy asks angrily. She holds that the Iraqi War is an unjust war based on lies. She says she could ever understand why the United States would send troops to Iraq, nor did she believe that Iraq ever posed an immediate threat to the country.

Cindy's anti-war protest has attracted wide media attention at home, and Sheehan herself has become the "Peace Mom." Meanwhile, surveys show that public support for the war in the United States continues to fall: 54% of those interviewed said that the war is a mistake; 64% don't believe the war makes America safer; and 33 percent hold that Washington's Iraq policy will be a failure.

American governmental and non-governmental organizations and the media have all been hesitant to mention the Iraq War and the Vietnam War in the same breath. But now, more and more people have begun to put the two together. In a CNN interview, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said he feels "very uneasy," because factors that ruined public support for the Vietnam War have now appeared in regard to the Iraq War. Because of a similar domestic split, the United States failed to achieve its purposes during the Vietnam War. Senator Barbara Boxer said she also sensed a strong anti-war movement growing, because no one can see "the light at the end of the tunnel.”

At Cindy Sheehan's Camp

Have the deserts of Iraq started to become a "quagmire"? Endless suicide bombings and sectarian violence have prevented U.S. forces from putting forth a precise timetable for withdrawal. What's more, U.S. casualties have risen sharply this month, with the total U.S. dead reaching 1,840. The lengthening death list weighs heavily on American minds, testing their psychological tolerance.

For many Americans, this had once been a war beyond question, given the fear brought on by "September 11" and the nature of "patriotic political correctness." As columnist Norman Solomon put it in his new book War Made Easy: From Vietnam to Iraq, "As an astute cliché says, truth is the first casualty of war. But another early casualty is conscience. And for many Americans, the gap between what they believe and what's on their TV sets is the distance between their truer selves and fearful passivity." “Conscience is not on the military's radar screen, and it's not on our television screen. But government officials and media messages do not define the limits and possibilities of conscience. We do."

A bitter media critic, Solomon holds that before a war, the U.S. propaganda machine invariably paints the enemy as a “Hitler” or an invader, stresses that all diplomatic means have been exhausted, so through the media, people can "predict the next war."

On the Road in Crawford

More and more Americans have begun to question this unjustified war, asking for an explanation of the cause for which their young have had to lay down their lives. It may be that the administration has special considerations known only to insiders, or is working on a sort of a long-term strategy for "empire," but apparently the general public is unprepared to pay such a high price. To enjoy the conveniences of being a superpower is one thing, but to support the infrastructure of such power is another.

The United States has along cherished tradition of independence, and now many people, including some military men, have begun to recall what the nation’s founder George Washington once said: that the country should neither engage in unnecessary foreign interventions, nor keep a military too large in size.

For the Bush Administration, the worst thing may not be criticism over launching the war, but the belief by most people that the war has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on the homeland. The anti-terror war has been Bush’s strong point and suspicion over this issue is clearly a major challenge. Although Bush insists on “not cutting and running,” media have revealed that the administration has dramatically scaled back its objectives.

Looking back at the Vietnam War, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said ten years ago: we are not endowed with the right to mould other countries into what we believe they should be, but still today, in many places in the world, we are still repeating the same mistakes.

Today the United States is caught in a similar dilemma, a situation that tests the wisdom of Americans.

By People's Daily Online