Now that 5 years have passed since the invasion of Iraq, multiple things come to my mind regarding the whole issue.
First of all, I think of these prophetic words by Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on October 2002, the day when Bush and the congress agreed on a resolution to authorize the war:
“I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.”
At least, it is quite encouraging to think that someone who publicly said this at that time is currently running for the White House. We’ll see if hope does eventually get a chance to prove its audacity.
On the other hand, I recently saw a video of an interview with Jon Stewart, where he said something worth transcribing:
"You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it's very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it's over really crucial-- you know, foundational issues. That come sort of sort of a tipping point. [...] But war that hasn't affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that's why they're so really — here's the disconnect. It's sort of this odd and I've always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, "We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. "And, so what I'm going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children's children all suffer. So, what I'm gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad."
So, there's a disconnect there between — you're telling me this is fight of our generation, and you're going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that's gonna do it. I'm sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can't, because he doesn't have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country's not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we're doing and really examine how it is that they've been waging this."
This video, actually reminded me of a fragment of “Manufacturing consent”, a fantastic documentary on the life and deeds of Noam Chomsky (which, by the way, I higly recommend and can be found online at youtube), where he also mentioned people being busy as one of the chinks in the armor of modern democracies, a chink that is thoroughly exploited by the ruling elite to favor their own interests at all times while maintaining the delicate balance that Jon just mentioned:
I guess that, after all, wise minds do think alike. What about us? Time, energy, commitment... precious treasures often lost in the rush of our daily routines. Are we too tired, too busy to stand up for our beliefs and to fight for the things that are truly worth fighting for? As long as this stupid war goes on, some of us may continue to struggle to get busy living, but many others will be tragically forced to remain busy dying.
