The Truth is Out There
I went to see Body of War this evening. The post war injury experience of Tomas Young, a young man paralyzed from the chest down when after only five days in Iraq he was hit with a AK-47 round. A coming home statement. It is clearly a beautiful and important film. Overtly anti-war, but I can only say I recommend it, even for those not inclined toward anti-war films.
Though it is with hindsight most of the country looks back at March of 2003, this film also points out all too clearly the fact that for some people it wasn’t hindsight. Senator Robert Byrd knew.
On February 12, 2003, (the February prior to my high school graduation ) months after asking for a Delay on Resolution to Attack Iraq, and subsequently voting against it, Senator Robert Byrd gave a should of been attention getter speech on the Senate Floor, Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences.
I never heard the speech of course, nor did most of the country at the time, though C-Span carries round the clock coverage of both legislative branches, and most media outlets, major and minor, had their minions stationed there. The Senate, or at least most of them, didn’t appear to hear it either.
If only our media had been willing to calm their excitement at the thought of how much a real war would give them to discuss in their well lit studios, and shown us that speech as often as they were feeding us the White House press releases or Angelina’s itinerary.
The Truth is Out There they say. The new alien age music plays, and we think of strange truths from other Galaxies.
The truth is not out there. The truth is here. It was here on February 12,2003.
Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences
by US Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor Speech - Wednesday, February 12, 2003
To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.
Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent — ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.
We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war.
And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world.
This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption — the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future — is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of world-wide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our — or some other nation’s — hit list. High level Administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off of the table when discussing a possible attack against Iraq. What could be more destabilizing and unwise than this type of uncertainty, particularly in a world where globalism has tied the vital economic and security interests of many nations so closely together? There are huge cracks emerging in our time-honored alliances, and U.S. intentions are suddenly subject to damaging worldwide speculation. Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11.
Here at home, people are warned of imminent terrorist attacks with little guidance as to when or where such attacks might occur. Family members are being called to active military duty, with no idea of the duration of their stay or what horrors they may face. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection. Other essential services are also short-staffed. The mood of the nation is grim. The economy is stumbling. Fuel prices are rising and may soon spike higher.
This Administration, now in power for a little over two years, must be judged on its record. I believe that that record is dismal.
In that scant two years, this Administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the eye can see. This Administration’s domestic policy has put many of our states in dire financial condition, under funding scores of essential programs for our people. This Administration has fostered policies which have slowed economic growth. This Administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This Administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. This Administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders.
In foreign policy, this Administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This Administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, International order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This Administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned, peacekeeper. This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come.
Calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil, denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant — these types of crude insensitivities can do our great nation no good. We may have massive military might, but we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and friendship of our time-honored allies as well as the newer found friends whom we can attract with our wealth. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages our economy. Our military manpower is already stretched thin and we will need the augmenting support of those nations who can supply troop strength, not just sign letters cheering us on.
The war in Afghanistan has cost us $37 billion so far, yet there is evidence that terrorism may already be starting to regain its hold in that region. We have not found bin Laden, and unless we secure the peace in Afghanistan, the dark dens of terrorism may yet again flourish in that remote and devastated land.
Pakistan as well is at risk of destabilizing forces. This Administration has not finished the first war against terrorism and yet it is eager to embark on another conflict with perils much greater than those in Afghanistan. Is our attention span that short? Have we not learned that after winning the war one must always secure the peace?
And yet we hear little about the aftermath of war in Iraq. In the absence of plans, speculation abroad is rife. Will we seize Iraq’s oil fields, becoming an occupying power which controls the price and supply of that nation’s oil for the foreseeable future? To whom do we propose to hand the reigns of power after Saddam Hussein?
Will our war inflame the Muslim world resulting in devastating attacks on Israel? Will Israel retaliate with its own nuclear arsenal? Will the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian governments be toppled by radicals, bolstered by Iran which has much closer ties to terrorism than Iraq?
Could a disruption of the world’s oil supply lead to a world-wide recession? Has our senselessly bellicose language and our callous disregard of the interests and opinions of other nations increased the global race to join the nuclear club and made proliferation an even more lucrative practice for nations which need the income?
In only the space of two short years this reckless and arrogant Administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years.
One can understand the anger and shock of any President after the savage attacks of September 11. One can appreciate the frustration of having only a shadow to chase and an amorphous, fleeting enemy on which it is nearly impossible to exact retribution.
But to turn one’s frustration and anger into the kind of extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing is inexcusable from any Administration charged with the awesome power and responsibility of guiding the destiny of the greatest superpower on the planet. Frankly many of the pronouncements made by this Administration are outrageous. There is no other word.
Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. On what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq — a population, I might add, of which over 50% is under age 15 — this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare — this chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the United States Senate.
We are truly “sleepwalking through history.” In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings.
To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is “in the highest moral traditions of our country”. This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.
###
peace
Wow. To think how many people missed this is staggering. It’s just like you said, if more attention had been given over to this call to attention there might have been a more singular voice against the war.
If only our media had been willing to calm their excitement at the thought of how much a real war would give them to discuss in their well lit studios and shown us that speech as often as they were feeding us the White House press releases
The - um, sorry, that’s Our - media were chasing the Almighty Dollar, for sure. But, as I understand the matter, they were also chasing access. To newsmakers, including “officials”, and their quotes. Which one of the most vindictive of all American Presidential Administrations was prepared to deny to any news reporter or agency that went against its wishes. And since any agency that couldn’t get Dubya’s quotes could kiss its profit margins goodbye - well, that ensured the burial of Byrd’s speech.
Too bad. It was a good, wise, and true speech. But We the People weren’t buying …
… the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. - Hermann Goering
Of course, Byrd also has this masterpiece on his record:
Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
The occasion, national debate on the racial integration of the armed forces of the USA - which Byrd, as an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, vehemently opposed.
OK, that was 1945. But still, it goes to show that no politician is always right.
The decision not to think is always justified by extremity and leads to extremity. 49 more thinking senators and we might be alright.
mojo: I feel the same way.
amoeba: I don’t think the people were given the chance to buy, but then again many had already been convinced - as you say in the quote - a fav of mine which has been sitting on that sidebar for a short time - it doesn’t take much to convince the people, and most of that had already been done.
There is film of the speech though, so it was out there.
Yea, his race issues are well known, it appears environment greatly affects ones view being, brought up a hundred years ago almost literately in the South.
Yet he was the one which opened up the doors of the Senate to C-Span. Has had % 100 approval rating from the NAACP Much to be despised yet no truer a statement was made at the time, and it was made more than once.
Doug: Maybe a few times a day we should place a fifteen second commercial which e says” THINK” .
If you look at the approval ratings for the various conflicts, police actions, and wars that Americans have been asked to stomach over the years… what we are doing in the Middle East is all the more shocking. Where are the 60’s era protesters? We have a wider disapproval of this war than we had during Vietnam, yet hardly anyone dares speak out for fear of internment.
Great post …A real indictment of our mainstream press and legislative body. I may borrow this from you for my next post if you don’t mind. How the world could have been different!
I’m with you, Dave - what will it take for the American people to say “enough already”? Is it complacency, drugged and lulled into stupidity by the mass media, or an insidious anti-intellectualism ala Hofstadter? Where are the protests?
Great post Coop
Great speech by Senator Byrd. And I’d love to blame the media, but I’m thinking back to that time period, and I think Bush’s approval rating was super high, the public still excited by revenge for 9/11, and nobody in congress wanted to risk being against public opinion. That’s what’s sad. I blame this as much on the people of this country that vote for Bush and I do the media. In some ways I wonder if this would have happened had there been YouTube, blogs and other new media outlets around at that time.
Never heard that speech. I don’t think I was paying much attention given my age at the time, but the Hermann Goering quote you have on the sidebar, the one also quoted by amoeba, tells a good part of the story.
Thank you for this post. I never heard the speech. Well, I was somewhere between South Africa and the UK back then. Like so many here said. Sometimes the leaders are right in front of us but we are just not buying. Now we know that what we bought only got us into more debt. And our children will pay as well. Thanks for reminding us of those of knew from the start.
Great idea on the “THINK” ad.
People did pay attention. Much of the city of New York did
Yes I had always associated Byrd with racism and was shocked–very pleasantly–45 was a long time ago
I can’t understand the anger of the president after 9/11. Were he truly angry he would have gone after Bin Laden
It’s that damn simple–and the senate including the senators from my home state–not Hillary’s–she’s from Illinois or Arkansas–would have stopped him
I blame the media for just about everything
It always seems the best and most important things get missed, when, at a time of crucial decision, we should be weighing those options most carefully.
When this speech was being made, I was locked up. I avoided articles on the run up to the attack in Iraq (I still looked at the paper, as I got a subscription via my family) and I choose not to express my viewpoints “inside” that particular situation, as many had their ideas, some not so informed, while others were actually quite sound.
If you like that piece, you might find this piece enlightening: (http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/iraq_the_war_of_the_imagination) I recently read it in the Best Essays of 2007 which includes some interesting essays on a wide array of topics.
It describes quite a bit of the underlying, um, “logic” being employed by the Bush administration and the obvious failings. (And also their objective(s) - such as they were - of a fast and decisive attack, and the hopeful political outcomes envision in the entire Middle East region….
quote: “It represented as well a breathtaking gamble, for if the victory in Iraq was to achieve what was expected—which is to say, “humiliate” the forces of radical Islam and reestablish American prestige and credibility; serve as a “demonstration model” to ward off attacks from any rogue state that might threaten the United States, either directly or by supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists; and transform the Middle East by sending a “democratic tsunami” cascading from Tehran to Gaza—if the Iraq war was to achieve this, victory must be rapid, decisive, overwhelming.”
Robert Byrd has for a long time given me the creeps. He is the politician’s politician. But on this one, he was spot on.
Dave: We speak loudly with our silence.
Even mentioning that most of us really did not hear much in the way of protest, the media and the legislators - those we elect to do what is best for us - missed the boat.
It was a far away war which would not affect us, and it made us think we were doing something about those scary terrorists.
Of course there was no draft. The upper middle class really had nothing to lose, and frankly it was the middle and upper middle class which protested the Vietnam war, protested mostly for fear of having to go to Vietnam, at least at the start before they really realized what a travesty it really was.
Kak: I believe if the truth had been blasted all over the networks it would certainly have made a difference, but as people have pointed out there were many roadblocks, those being the information was contrived or blatantly false, despite the fact that at the time of this speech Powell was preparing for his March appointment with the U.N. to tell the world lies in order to convince them to join us.
Harriett: I think we are there now Harriett, I really do.
IrishSM: I was young, and though not one to sit around and worry about the trivialities of something like a prom I was limited to reading what was in the paper and discussions with with family.
My parents were against the war from the start, both of them, so my information came from them, but I don’t remember the speech. I do remember their doubting the truthfulness of the information given, though they weren’t running down any streets carrying signs - it was not much later they wished they had been.
I was writing in a deadjournal at the time - not about politics of course, but as I didn’t discover blogs blogs until the next fall and it was a year until the political stuff started really coming out - it may have made a difference.
john: Exactly, after that, well there just wasn’t any question.
Angry African: I was happy to find the speech, it was obviously around at the time, but so few of those sites were massively read at the time - and CSpan, I guess it just wasn’t something the general public tuned in. What a difference even a year or two makes.
Pia: The problem is the anger and fear clouded our reasoning skills. They knew it would of course.
Jasonp: On that reason thing, we the people need to use logic, the legislators need to use logic. This administration used cunning…..
SK: Certainly, but over the years you can see the evolution of the man, though as we have seen old habits die hard. It doesn’t prevent him from having been very very right on this.
I was out marching in 2003 vainly trying to get Bush to back off a war that was predetermined from the time he took office. It doesn’t take a lot of digging to see what this was always and is about. The neocons had been planning the invasion since Clinton took office (how many Americans know about the Project for a New American Century?). CNN proved during the first gulf war that the media could do very well for themselves (financially of course) by playing along with the patriotic bs. Not to mention the regressive affect of 9/11 to suppress any form of dissent.
Byrd was responsible at least partially, for allowing cameras in the Senate, prior to that they were only in the House.
I’ve never heard that speech thanks for posting it.
The film isn’t showing in Baltimore it has a limited distribution at this time. Guess I’ll have to to take a trip down the BW Parkway.
You might be interested in this commentary.
The Failure of Journalism in Iraq
Critical decisions should not be made in times of emotional duress. This war’s history also tells us to beware those that would incite us with patriotic fervor. …The rush to the great American past time of payback is a bitch has slapped us all in the face. Let us pray for right, sanity and reason!
To read Senator Byrd’s speech now is chilling. Well done.