Tulsa, OK

Pull the Plug on the War State

by Charley Reese

Hopefully, the next president, whoever he is, will have sense enough
to realize that an anti-missile site in Eastern Europe is not worth
rekindling the Cold War with Russia.

Though the press pays little attention to it, the Bush administration
has already practically wrecked relations with Russia by insisting on
adding the Eastern European countries to NATO and siting his
anti-missile system in the Czech Republic and in Poland. The Russians
are right that it represents a threat to their security.

President Bush’s lame excuse that the system is designed to protect
Europe from Iranian missiles is no doubt another deliberate lie. I
can’t think of any reason whatsoever for Iran to attack Europe, and
I’m sure the Iranians can’t, either. Iran hasn’t attacked anybody for
more than 100 years. They would have absolutely nothing to gain by
firing a few missiles at Europe. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Nor does it make any sense to add the small countries of Eastern
Europe to NATO. This was a war-fighting alliance set up at the end of
World War II specifically to deter and, if necessary, go to war with
the Red Army. The Soviet Union set up its own alliance, the Warsaw Pact.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia withdrew its army from Eastern
Europe and dissolved the Warsaw Pact. The United States should have
dissolved NATO. Its sole purpose vanished with the Soviet Union. It
has no enemy, unless fools in the U.S. create one. The American
politicians have used it in the Yugoslavian Civil War, and now has it
involved in the Afghanistan insurgency. Why the Europeans put up with
this nonsense is beyond me.

As for including little countries, that’s a strategic blunder. Do you
think that if the Russians one day launched nuclear missiles at the
United States that Poland and Lithuania would go to war against their
large neighbor? Will France become a nation of teetotalers?

In fact, including small countries in military alliances is worthless
posturing. All you do is allow the little country to get you into
trouble by its bad behavior. The little country is confident that its
big ally will rescue it if it goes too far in antagonizing its larger
neighbors. It’s like a spoiled brat with a bodyguard. Sixty years
after its founding, Israel is still at war with most of its neighbors
precisely because it has no incentive to make a sensible peace. Why
should it? It has its American attack dog. The only peace treaties it
has signed are with Egypt and Jordan, both of which the U.S. bribed to
make peace. Bribe or not, in both cases it’s a cold peace.

Believe it or not, we are not at war with any nation at the present.
We made war on Iraq, but that has long since become nothing but an
occupation. We are occupying or trying to occupy Afghanistan, but
other than that, we are not at war. Why then do we need military
alliances? Why do we need troops in Korea, Japan and Germany? Or, I
hasten to add, Iraq and the Persian Gulf?

President Bush’s war on terror is a false metaphor, and a dangerous
one at that. There is no terrorist army or air force. There are some
gangs of criminals. What the president did when he adopted this
specious metaphor about a war on terror was to commit the United
States to perpetual war. Ask your local warmonger how he defines
victory in the war on terror. Ask why when Iraq was very violent we
couldn’t leave, and now that it’s less violent, we can’t leave. Ask
him how he defines victory in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

We really have neither a republic nor a democracy. We have a war state
and an empire. We should pull the plug on both.

Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=13200