by Don McIver
Daily Lobo Guest Columnist
Over the weekend, our car died. And after several fruitless attempts at getting it started, we resorted to calling a tow truck.
The tow truck driver, after pulling the car up on to the truck, said that he'd follow us back to the house where the car would sit until I figured out what to do with it. A half-hour later, as he was unloading the car, I thought to myself, "He surely must've noticed our 'No War in Iraq' sign in the car and now, in front of our house, our two 'No War Against Iraq' signs in the front yard."
I was right.
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He'd noticed and, after tilting the flat bed down, said to my girlfriend, "You know my son's in the military and he's fighting for you. Nobody protested when we were in Bosnia, but this is all about politics."
I'd only caught the tail end of the conversation having run inside for something, but heard her say, "Yeah. And I think we should bring 'em home. Nobody wants a war to happen."
He responded, "Yeah, nobody wanted September 11 to happen either."
We didn't respond. I didn't have the stomach for a conflict, couldn't narrow my position down to a few choice words, so I just let that comment sit there.
But, upon later conversations with my girlfriend, I realized that he saw our opposition to the war based on our dislike of Bush.
When he referred to our objections to war being "about politics," it meant to him that we just didn't like this president. And she confirmed that when I was inside, he'd commented to her that we "didn't like" President Bush. And when we'd confirmed that it was "about politics," it meant to us that Bush's decision to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iraq was motivated by politics, not by a desire to liberate the Iraqis, create a democratic regime in the Middle East, rid a dictator of weapons of mass destruction, enforce U.N. resolutions or end state-sponsored terrorism, but about politics: good, old-fashioned oil politics, foreign policy as a diversion from a lack of any domestic policies politics, treating his defense industry donors with a lot of government subsidy politics, creating fear as a way of distracting us from what he's doing with the tax cut, the cut on the dividend tax, the rising deficit, the gutting of the clean air act, the consolidation of corporate control of the media, conservative judicial appointments, etc. Yes, it was about politics.
Using his son, and the military, as a pawn in a political game is something no president should do. And, yes, I don't like President Bush. I'm willing to concede that. I don't trust him, either.
This whole exchange got me thinking. Is my opposition to war really just a cover for my opposition to Bush? On one hand, he's right. I didn't speak up for my opposition to bombing in Bosnia. I didn't protest and agitate over President Clinton's foreign policy because he was a Democrat; his style made it more palatable. I also don't remember reports about Bosnia possessing the second largest deposits of oil in the world, so it was a little easier to swallow that Clinton's decision to send American troops to Bosnia was, indeed, about "humanitarian interests."
Clinton, likewise, didn't have close ties to the oil industry, so even if he'd started a build up to possibly invade Iraq, I might have been inclined to not resist so vigorously (and yes, my resistance is more than just a few key signs in my car and my yard).
I also don't think my opposition to the war in Iraq by logical conclusion thinks I am not in support of our troops. That argument, being dusted off now that we've committed several thousand troops to the region, doesn't make sense. Supporting our troops means not using them as political sticks to achieve self-serving ends. Supporting our troops means bringing them home.
Finally, I don't buy the connection between Iraq and Sept. 11. If anybody benefited from Sept. 11, it was this president, whose popularity soared as a result because he was willing to bomb the poorest country in the world. He let the mastermind of the crimes escape because he was unwilling to commit ground troops in Tora Bora and now uses Osama bin Laden's boogieman tactics as justification for the further militarization of our country.
Being opposed to the government does not make me unpatriotic, nor does it mean that I am immune from the suffering of the families that lost loved ones on that fateful day. It just means I am not naãve. It means the bar for casually inflicting death and destruction on innocent people should be much higher.
I am awake and the real terrorist threat is not terrorism, but that we can eliminate terrorism with war. The time for humanity solving its conflicts with the use of force has come to an end. It's time to evolve.
Don McIver is a UNM student and host of KUNM's Spoken Word Hour.
