December 23, 2003
Putting Iraq in Perspective
The more I hear about Saddam Hussein’s capture, the more I get upset about the war in Iraq.
Political chatter in the wake of the one-time CIA operative’s capture on Sunday, December 14 centered on what it meant for the Democratic Party’s chances of unseating President George W. Bush. A better question would have been: Was capturing Hussein worth the loss of the life, billions of American tax-payer dollars, surge in Anti-American sentiment, curtailment of civil liberties, and diverted world attention begot by the Bush Administration’s misadventures in Iraq? This question is seldom asked and no one, not even Howard Dean, has been able to give voice to an answer that resonates among a broad cross-section of the country.
Perhaps, if the Democrats were to couch anti-war critiques in terms of tradeoffs, the public would be forced to rethink their stance on Iraq. When the costs and benefits of the quagmire are compared to a bigger problem facing the world and America, the fact that our priorities are grossly out of whack becomes clear. This strategy would also demonstrate that Democrats have an alternate vision of the world.
With all of the problems plaguing the world, deposing Saddam does not rate high on my list. HIV/AIDS is devastating an entire continent in ways that Westerners cannot fathom. Millions of children have been orphaned and left to raise other kids in societies with very weak, if any, social support from their government. Millions of adults are dying or are severely ill and, as a result, are not able to contribute to their country's economic development. Instead, a handful of African nations are devoting large sums of money to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis rather than improving infrastructure, housing, or schools.
And HIV/AIDS is not just a problem in Africa. Consider that worldwide there were 33.4 million persons estimated to be living with the disease as of the end of 1998. Ninety-five percent of those infected reside in developing countries. In Asia, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe, in Africa, and elsewhere in the world, HIV/AIDS lurks and is diverting resources away from education, housing initiatives, economic development, and other worthwhile endeavors with long-term benefits.
In 2003, AIDS caused the death of an estimated three million people worldwide according to the Centers for Disease Control. The economic impact of the lives lost to this pandemic is real and significant. Destabilizing societies where war is only a touch away is dangerous not only to that country but to the rest of the world, as the conditions are ripe for tyrants, warlords and dictators to rise to power.
George W. Bush promised $15 billion over five years to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. While laudable, that amount of money pales in comparison to the close to (if not more than) $100 billion spent in 2003 alone in Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. I would love any conservative to prove to me that Saddam Hussein is a greater threat to the world than HIV/AIDS and that American tax dollars are being spent wisely. Hell, I would love for any Republican to prove to me that "terrorism" as defined by the Bush Administration is a greater threat to the world than HIV/AIDS. I do not believe that they can.
Putting the war in this type of perspective over and over again would be a much more effective argument than claiming that the war was a bad idea solely on the merits. Though I agree with the position that launching a preemptive strike against Iraq was a bad policy choice, a good section of the public buys the President's story. If Democrats continue to push the same argument, when most of the nation sees it as old news, I fear that the Republicans will be seen as proactive and the party with a vision for the country. More importantly, the party of Bill Clinton will continue to cede to Republicans the ability to set the agenda.
Now, I used HIV/AIDS as the foil to Iraq because I believe it is this century’s Bubonic Plague. Left unchecked, the disease will have serious national security implications in as much as it destabilizes parts of the world that are already unstable.
If the Democratic party doesn’t feel up to the task of articulating why the thousands dying from and orphaed by HIV/AIDS and the economic and social ramifications which result is a threat to the global economy and America’s national security, then so be it. The party can choose another issue to pit against terrorism and the War in Iraq. But Democrats must do something. Only the White House, the make-up of the federal judiciary, and the future of this country are at stake.
Posted by at December 23, 2003 05:32 PMVincent, well said. My beef since the 1980’s has been a complete lack of vision and long term committment to the most devastating and costliest of problems facing the people of this nation. And since this nation decided after the Pearl Harbor attack, that isolation from the rest of the world was not in America’s best interests, we must include the rest of the world in our assessments and priorities. Especially now that globalization of economies negates national boundaries.
But long term solutions don’t return short term gains for election cycles. Hence, the problem is systemic. In other words, the system is broke and needs to be changed, radically.
Posted by: David R. Remer at December 23, 2003 08:35 PMThis post is very similar to another one —- “There is no terrorist threat”.
I’m gonna essentially repeat the comment I made then —- comparing Iraq/Saddam with AIDS is like comparing apples and oranges. To put it plainly, its logically absurd to compare a natural, non-sentient phenomena with a living, breathing, malicious ideology with real, plotting people and physical force behind it.
Terrorism may kill fewer people than AIDS (or highway accidents), but its the underlying ideology that must be met head on. The ideology behind the terrorism we see today (a friend calls it Khilafism) is one that if not challenged now threatens to destroy the free, democratic way of life. The potential damage and loss of life is so great that it must assume priority.
AIDS is a deadly disease, but modern medicine has made much progress in dealing with it.
David —
Consider this — if a problem is understood by the public to be sufficiently important to merit long term (greater than one election cycle) attention, then they can keep electing people who run on that platform. What in the present system precludes that?
What you’re advocating is essentially rule by the elite, who decide by themselves (by shortcutting the reality check of elections) which issues should get long-term attention and resources. A short/medium election cycle prevents exactly that.
Posted by: Vivek at December 24, 2003 06:02 AMWe are told to accept that a person’s successful acquisition of wealth marks them as wiser, more upstanding, more keyed into the dreams and desires of the people than others.
In other words, we are taught to see them as our betters, as our deserved rulers.
In the meantime, we are told to look out for intellectuals, for politicians, for anybody who dares to suggest we change our behavior, regulate our desires, curb our appetites.
We are taught that if a person chooses to spend their life pursuing knowledge in selected field, that they lack for a real understanding of the world, and that they must not only be torn down from their self proclaimed elitism, but brought lower than that, for what they have sacrificed in terms of being just folks like the rest of us.
But we are also encouraged to try and be upwardly mobile. To grab for the brass ring. We are taught to be ambitious, and to be competitive.
But the nature of the world is that we make our choices as to what we learn. We cannot learn everything- that was as true fifty thousand years ago as it is now. So by our nature, we seek out our best possible niche.
Add it together- economic elitism, discouragement of intellectual pursuits, and pressure to attain status, and what do you get?
You get a society where abstract over-competitiveness and greed are favored over virtue and expertise. You get a society where aristocratic ideas are denied, but are very much in force, supported, ironically enough, by those who would swear up and down that they are populists, and who would bristle at any overt imposition of authority.
To echo Jesus’s famous quotation, the Elite you will always have with you. The question though, is whether or not the Elite serve us, and we accept their service, or we serve the elite, and they demand ours.
Lets face it: our lifestyles are killing us long before our times, if not in body, then in spirit and in the quality of our lives. Let’s face something else: a health crisis like that of the African AIDS crisis can have devastating historical aftereffects.
Without Smallpox, North and South America would be very different places, because European invaders would have had to face tens of millions rather than mere millions in their conquest of the Americas. The Black Death reshaped European society. I could go on, but the point is that we ignore medical and scientific issues at our own peril, even while we’re having to deal with the political and international tiffs of our day.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at December 25, 2003 09:14 PMThe war against Iraq was about George W. finishing the job his father did not get done, about oil money, and about giving huge contracts to Bush’s and Cheney’s corporate friends. It was about nothing else.
Bush and Cheney don’t care about average americans never mind our most needy.
Posted by: Toronto Tenants at January 17, 2004 11:02 AM
