GOOD MORNING, BAGHDAD-NAM

I derive no pleasure from these words, and certainly no gratification from a smug I-told-ya-so. I for one staunchly supported the war in Iraq. I was certain that weapons of mass destruction were in plain view, deployable without trepidation at a moment’s notice, trained on the free world. I knew as an article of faith that Saddam’s demise would be met by the jubilation by the Iraqi hoi polloi, setting it irretrievably on the road to democracy.

I cannot yet say that any of that is patently untrue, but neither is it the slam-dunk that Bush, Powell, et al, would have had us believe. The most strident among us would say that the party line on Iraq was intended to dupe us for whatever hidden agenda the military-industrial complex had in mind. The more circumspect among us, and herein I include myself, would be more tentative, now surmising that we were subjected to hyperbole and overstatement of the imminence of the threat and the democracy-craving spirit of the Iraqi people.

As the war transitions from a raging infection to a low-grade case of fibromyalgia, we who are children of the 60’s cannot help but feel a stomach-souring wave of déjà vu as we consider the ambiguities and hyperbole that sustained the war in Vietnam well beyond its dubious justification. Back then, the overarching concern, we were told, was not weapons of mass destruction, but the “domino theory,” that somehow stanching the rot of communism in Southeast Asia would prevent it from one day infecting Boise.
The theory, of course, was not entirely lacking in merit, but was certainly outrageously overblown and demonized, as we are now coming to surmise about Saddam’s vaunted arsenal. Likewise, the anticipated thwarting of the domino effect in Vietnam did little to stabilize Southeast Asia, certainly no more than Saddam’s defeat will bring stability to the volatile Middle East.

A generation ago, we were told that the plight of South Vietnam was an external evil perpetrated by Ho Chi Minh and his Soviet handlers on an oppressed, democracy-hungry populace. Yes, the populace was oppressed, but much of the defiance, we came to understand, stemmed from the core of that populace, and the regime we supported was so evil and corrupt that it made Ho Chi Minh look like a poster boy for brotherhood week.

Did the people of South Vietnam have a cultural and political context to understand democracy, much less appreciate and eagerly embrace it? Does the everyday Iraqi, much less its leaders-in-waiting, have any more context for craving democracy? Is it mere coincidence that the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, was founded and populated primarily by democracy-driven European transplants? Does “natural law” ensure that the unfettered human spirit anywhere in the world would instinctively be drawn to democracy?

Whether democracy is an eventuality in Iraq remains to be seen, but we were taken for suckers once we came to believe that the oppressed Iraqis would instantly celebrate democracy. No, Iraqi soldiers demand their back pay from the people they were commanded to vanquish. Folks want their water, and they want it now, likewise the other amenities that now, in retrospect, seemed so accessible in Saddam’s times. We take them for ingrates, but the psyche must be understood in terms of its origin in dependency, not self-determination. It is well to remember that another group of Middle Easterners, the Israelites, also reminisced and clamored about the good ol’ days of Egyptian enslavement just days after Moses introduced them to the insecurities of the wilderness. Not to worry, God will lead you forward. Right. And now, introducing the pantheon of Bush, Powell and Tommy Franks.

There will come to be a point, I sadly predict, when those pesky snipers in the Iraqi countryside will stop looking like frustrated Saddam holdouts and more and more like the Viet Cong. And, we will be told to be patient, that we are expecting too much too soon, that “victory is close at hand.” Perhaps we will be told that we will gradually replace American intrigue with “Baghdadization,” pitting Iraqis against each other, just as Robert McNamara tried to snooker us into believing in “Vietnamization” (pronounced “Veetnimization”) as a euphemism for defeat. Then, I fear, after years of futility, we will depart not with a bang but a whimper, once again crowing “proud to be an American” to the tune of “Taps” over the graves of 52,000 Americans who died senselessly prosecuting a war that we could not win, for reasons that even the decades could not help us to understand.