BY KEVIN SUMMERS
Military triumphalism is all about: in letters to the editors, opinion pieces, commentaries and indeed in the smug countenances of numerous politicians. "The war is won", they proclaim. "Saddam is gone and the anti-war protesters should hang their heads in shame."
Like hell we will.
The cheerleaders for war must not be allowed to take an initiative based on the inevitable crushing of a Third World defence force by US military might. Instead, they should be met with a measured but continuing anger at the sheer recklessness of engaging in this attack (it can scarcely be termed a war).
We must remain angry that we have been painted as fuzzy-thinking weaklings — "peacenik" conjures up duffel coats, pipes and flowers in the hair — turning a blind eye to, or worse, supporting Saddam's excesses. None of the anti-war masses are apologists for tyranny. Few among the present peace movement are pacifists. We support a nation's right to take up arms in self-defence but see the immorality of a pre-emptive strike. Being told by foreign minister Alexander Downer that we are "appeasers" does little for our collective temper.
We must remain angry that while we were given some knowledge of US and British military movements, the actions of our SAS troops in the western desert area were shrouded in mystery. We have learnt only that they have killed Iraqis in various engagements.
Well, not in my name, brothers and sisters. To be informed that we must support our troops because they were deployed defies logic. So we offer support because they are Australian? My country, right or wrong?
We must remain angry about the amount of misinformation — more often than not peddled by the American television networks — that has accompanied the attack. Saddam and al Qaeda were brothers in international terror — then they weren't. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had been located — then they hadn't. The bodies of Saddam's victims had been found in a morgue near Basra — then they were revealed to be the bodies of Iranian soldiers awaiting repatriation.
We must remain angry at the chaos this attack is causing throughout Iraq — it is one thing to bring down a dictator; another to impose a coherent civil society — and the Middle East in general. We should share the Arab dismay at the cultural arrogance of the US invaders, be it a hoisting of the "Stars and Stripes" or the defacing of symbols of Saddam, an act which rightfully belonged to the Iraqis.
Above all, however, those who protested against this attack must ensure that their anger and frustration are tempered by a determination to ensure that Iraq must in some way emerge as a better place for its citizens. If we wanted peace before the attack, we must continue to pursue it in the coming months. We can best do that by keeping pressure on those government heads whose failure of imagination has led to carnage and confusion. They cannot be allowed to walk away from the consequences of their actions.
If women are denied their rights, if religious and ethnic pluralism is curtailed, if food aid is secondary to the extraction of mineral resources, if free markets are regarded as more vital than free men and women, then we must be prepared to hit the streets again. We cannot skulk off as our opponents wish. To do so would be both weak and hypocritical.
[Kevin Summers is an actor, playwright and writer resident in Victoria.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 14, 2003.
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