"the fork in the road America never took"

[pynchonoid]

"the fork in the road America never took" (GR 556)

Tackling the 'inevitability' defense
by Rose Berger

What do you do with 200,000 soldiers after you've
called off the war?

Former Supreme NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark
perfectly
captured the "inevitability defense" on a recent
Sunday
morning talk show. He said that he could not envision
a
scenario where the United States backs off from war
with
Iraq. "It's too late," said Clark, with all those
troops
in place, "war is inevitable."

Conventional thinking (and the higher in a bureaucracy
you
go the more conventional the thinking gets) says that
the
United States is now committed to war with Iraq, even
if
tens of millions of people and most of the world's
governments are against it. You don't send 200,000
troops
to staging areas in the Mediterranean, Kuwait, and
Jordan
only to call them back without a fight.

I agree. It is a waste of time and money. The question
is -
What kind of fight?

One of America's shining military moments occurred
between
May 10 and June 13, 1991, just after the Persian Gulf
war.
Just as troops were returning home, Cyclone Marian hit
Bangladesh. It was a disaster. More than 100,000
people
died and millions were left homeless. More than 1
million
cattle died. Crops on 74,000 acres of land were
destroyed.
The soil was contaminated.

The president of Bangladesh turned to the world for
help. Within 24 hours President Bush directed the U.S.
military to provide humanitarian assistance. A 15-ship
Navy amphibious force returning from the Persian Gulf
was
redirected to Bangladesh. When a Bangladeshi citizen
spotted
the force arriving from the water, he allegedly called
them
"Angels from the Sea." Operation Sea Angel had begun.
It was
one of the largest military disaster relief forces
ever
assembled. Thousands of U.S. soldiers worked with
multinational
forces over the next month to provide food, water, and
medical
care to nearly 2 million people. The valiant relief
efforts of
the troops were credited with saving as many as
200,000 lives.

What would it take for American to wage an "Operation
Sea
Angel" in Iraq, rather than a repeat of the horrors of
Desert Storm? What would it take to win the hearts and
minds
of the Iraqi people? This is the kind of "war" our
troops could
wage and win with honor.

Imagine our 200,000 troops working with multinational
agencies
to rebuild Iraqi water systems; rebuild roads;
transport
medicine and food to the non-urban areas where access
is
severely limited; rebuild hospitals, churches,
mosques, and
homes; assist UNICEF's social mobilization for a polio
free Iraq.
Imagine our troops serving as teachers, doctors,
engineers, and
veterinarians. Imagine them rebuilding Iraq's
agricultural base
that has been so badly neglected. Imagine them
training people
for democracy. Imagine starting a massive humanitarian
aid project
for the people of Iraq now, not after a war.

Imagine also our troops coming home without
nightmares, without
"syndromes." Imagine them bringing home pictures of
kids they
helped save, rather than images of children they were
trained
to kill. Imagine not having the post-war spike in
depression,
addiction, and domestic abuse among our vets.

Would Saddam Hussein ever allow such a thing? Probably
not,
but it's hard to know without trying it.

Rose Marie Berger is associate editor of Sojourners
magazine.

SojoMail 02.26.03
<http://www.sojo.net>


...imagine!

-Doug

P.S.  From SojoNews Daily Headlines for 02.27.2003:

Remember Afghanistan: The U.S. is still far from
achieving a
lasting humanitarian victory

We have spent billions of dollars and lost precious
lives to
vanquish the Taliban. Yet the groundwork is being laid
in
Afghanistan for a regime that may be almost as
repressive as
the Taliban, particularly with regard to religious
freedom.
This is occurring with consent and, in some cases,
help from
the United States.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8496-2003Feb26.html>
Washington Post

Democracy in Kuwait Is Promise Unfulfilled
Despite the prospect of another U.S.-led war against
Iraq,
one that President Bush says will foster
democratization
throughout the Middle East, many Kuwaitis look
skeptically to 
the example of their own country.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8287-2003Feb26.html>
Washington Post






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