War No More
Ten Years After the Invasion of Iraq, Are We Any Closer to Peace?
by Randall Amster
No one in power specifically called it “a date which will live in infamy,†but when the U.S. commenced the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, it changed the political map of the world in ways we are still trying to disentangle. The basic idea that nations would only wage war for bona fide reasons and with general support from the international community — tattered as those notions already were — was essentially laid to rest with the Iraq war. What is especially troubling is that we didn’t even need the benefit of hindsight to realize the full implications; in real time and without precedent, millions (perhaps even billions) around the world raised principled objections to the impending war before it commenced. Many people knew (and said) that it was illegal, unjust, and immoral, but to no avail. And so it goes…
A decade later, the fictitious rationales of “weapons of mass destruction,†liberating people from an evil dictator, promoting human rights, and “restoring democracy,†are almost laughable and are not seriously asserted as a viable basis for the war. (more…)