The Iraq War

The Iraq War was the event that really got me involved in politics. Before we started gearing up for war, I was a registered Democrat, but I had voted for the elder George Bush, once, and I considered whether to vote for George W. before deciding that Al Gore clearly shared more of my political values.

I have never considered voting for a Republican for president since. By the end of W's first term, I was a committed Democrat who would never go back. More than that, I was really amazed that anyone would vote for that man for a second term, and I began to predict the downfall of the Republican Party on the grounds that you could not sustain a political party based on lies, because the American people would eventually realize the truth.

Turns out, maybe they never will. A surprising number of Americans don't seem to care much about reality. That was unexpected.

When we went to war, I believed that Iraq had some chemical weapons at least, although as I recall the story that Iraq was working on nuclear weapons was already being debunked. What I did not see was any imminent threat to the United States. However, the Bush administration used 9/11 to argue that if Iraq had dangerous weapons, that already represented enough of a threat to justify going to war. I thought that was ridiculous. Suddenly we (and by extension Russia, China, anybody) were free to start a war against any nations we considered to be bad actors with dangerous military capabilities. It seems obvious to me that logically that opens the door to a global free-for-all.

One thing I remember pretty well from the run-up to the war was a reporter asking Bush what Saddam Hussein needed to do in order to avoid war. Bush answered that Iraq had to totally disarm. When the reporter asked what that meant, Bush answered (and I believe this is an exact quote) "You know, totally disarm." The president of the United States was getting ready to start a war and could not come up with any intelligible steps that might prevent it, which also meant that he did not really have any criteria for starting it. War is supposed to be a last resort; war is not a desired outcome. But it was clear to me that Bush very much wanted this war, that his preference was to send Americans to kill Iraqis and to die overseas, and he was going to start a war no matter what. By the time the war started, I really could not stand the man.

The war in Ukraine has made me think about the Iraq War during these last couple of weeks. There are some pretty important similarities. We were a superpower attacking a much weaker nation that presented no threat to us. Our "reasons" for going to war turned out to be more pretexts than reasons. We went in to topple the government and replace it with one that would favor us.

There were also some significant differences, the most important being that Hussein was widely recognized as a bad guy, whereas Zelensky is clearly not as threatening. Also, the US at least tried to make a plausible case for the invasion and even got several allies to go along. Those things kept us from being near-universally condemned the way Russia is being condemned, but still, the war in Ukraine is a reminder to me of what a mistake it was to go to war with Iraq and how much damage we did without any good justification.

In the six days since I last posted, I have taken 67,000 steps, and I am now 15 miles outside of Helena, Montana. As far as I remember, I have never been to Helena, but it's the capital of Montana, so it counts as one of two significant Montana cities that I will pass through (the other being Billings.) I have managed 10,000 steps all but three days this year (all in January), and I have averaged more than 11,000 steps a day for over a month now.

It will take me about a million more steps to get across Montana. I am less than one quarter of the way to Miami. Long ways to go.