Ed Garvey: 'We're just crazy' over war

Ed Garvey  —  7/01/2008 9:19 am

Remember the wonderful movie, "The Gods Must be Crazy"? Well, change a few words and you will catch my flow. "We must be crazy."

Think about it. We are on the verge of bankruptcy, flag lapel pin or not, because of the costs of a war and occupation we cannot win -- Iraq. It's costing us $341 million per day. Yes. Per day. We are rattling rockets at a country that we could never defeat and occupy, Iran, and while that is ongoing, our nuclear-armed ally, Pakistan, is teetering on the brink of chaos. And the Taliban is doing quite well in Afghanistan.

Watching Condi Rice flit around the Middle East from crisis to crisis would make a wonderful movie for the late Peter Ustinov, but it isn't funny.

The latest estimate of Iraqi refugees is in the millions. Homeless people add millions more. Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times last week, said 8 percent of Jordan's population consists of 480,000 Iraqi refugees -- and they are not welcome at an annual cost of $1,000 per year per Jordanian family. (Jordan opposed the invasion but ends up paying for a large chunk of it.) Their schools are overflowing and so are the brothels in Amman, writes Kristof. Desperate people in dire straights.

Health care, decent housing, and employment? Are you kidding? A bright future for this generation of refugees? C'mon. What is our message to those families? "Hey, don't worry, Saddam is gone and ExxonMobil is back. Things will soon improve."

We started the awful war with a warning from Colin Powell -- "you break it and you own it." Well, Iraq is broken, we broke it, we own it, but we are doing nothing.

Bush stepped up to the plate and whiffed at the first three pitches.

Last year the U.S. took in only 1,606 refugees from Iraq. That is an embarrassment.

What is John McCain talking about? Security has improved after the "surge." Suppose security is better. Is there a connection between the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, the flight of millions from their homes and the improved security? I don't know but I do know it will take years and billions of dollars to restore Iraq as a functioning nation. And has security improved to the point where our troops can leave, senator? Get serious.

But surge or no surge, what are we willing to spend to build infrastructure -- schools, libraries, roads, railroads? Can we find jobs for millions of Iraqis if we can't find work for millions of Americans?

This country had better be prepared to spend tens of billions per year in Iraq after peace is restored or face an explosion in the Middle East. Like it or not, there are consequences in going to war. More than 4,100 American soldiers have been killed and 25,000 seriously injured; millions of Iraqis have had their lives ruined. Thank you, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, George Bush, and Don Rumsfeld. Thank you.

Yes, "we must be crazy."

At Fighting Bob Fest on Sept. 6, we will seek answers. We need a sea change in attitude, from permanent war to permanent peace. See you in Baraboo.

Ed Garvey is a Madison lawyer, political activist and the editor of the fightingbob.com Web site.

Ed Garvey  —  7/01/2008 9:19 am