Last month Americans awoke to a country no longer at war in Iraq. In the eight years of occupation, the war divided a country, stretched an economy and challenged Americans’ perception of the role of their country abroad.
For most, the cost of the war was 4482 Americans lives. For others, a trillion dollars. Whichever tarif they prefer, very few have any understanding why the US entered the war, or why they remained engaged so long after any notion of victory was possible.
To some it will always be a vendetta passed from father to son - the Bush’s war in two parts.
There are those who were prepared to believe in the declared grounds, the existence of weapons of mass destruction that posed a serious threat to neighboring countries (Israel basically). And even now, neither the failure to deliver the hard evidence of this threat, nor the revelations that evidence of its extent was deliberately exaggerated, necessarily mean the threat was never there.
To a great many people, particularly those involved in the popular, but spectacularly impotent British Stop the War Coalition, everything after the original lie was irrelevant. The war began on a lie, was illegal by the thin parameters of international law that exist, and was indefensible. End of discussion.
For most, the cost of the war was 4482 Americans lives. For others, a trillion dollars. Whichever tarif they prefer, very few have any understanding why the US entered the war, or why they remained engaged so long after any notion of victory was possible.
To some it will always be a vendetta passed from father to son - the Bush’s war in two parts.
There are those who were prepared to believe in the declared grounds, the existence of weapons of mass destruction that posed a serious threat to neighboring countries (Israel basically). And even now, neither the failure to deliver the hard evidence of this threat, nor the revelations that evidence of its extent was deliberately exaggerated, necessarily mean the threat was never there.
To a great many people, particularly those involved in the popular, but spectacularly impotent British Stop the War Coalition, everything after the original lie was irrelevant. The war began on a lie, was illegal by the thin parameters of international law that exist, and was indefensible. End of discussion.
There are some for whom the war was ultimately successful. Regime change was achieved, deposing an unelected dictator with a substantial record of violence against his own people, and those of surrounding nations. A democratic process is now in place for the first time in Iraq and elections have been held. These facts are subject to many interpretations, but they are facts all the same.
Less optimistic fingers will point to a country in chaos, with a fragile and vulnerable government, now left alone by the foreign armed forces that were surely fulfilling a substantial role in the immediate security of the country's civilians.
Whatever your view on the motivations for, and results of, the eight year war in Iraq, one thing stands out above any other. Neither the British nor American public affected the direction of the war in any way.
Their only contribution was to deliver clear election victories to the leaders of both countries, despite both men having been the focus of almost all the protesters vitriol.
Protest, so potent a force in the quest for democracy, holds no impact after the fact.
The Stop the War Coalition achieved nothing. Even the most loyal of those still involved in the movement could not claim that the recent withdrawal of troops owes anything to their movement, despite its popular support.
Occupy Wall Street, wherever it's disappeared to, will surely achieve nothing other than to capture the imagination of the middle class minority who revel in the process of protest.
Ultimately, protest is a weapon for those who have no access to a democratic process. What Democracies do is to open the door to real representation. The ballot box may not be as visible for individuals, it may not be as much fun; at times it must seem to belong to a status quo beyond reach, but it does not. It is the currency that those in functioning democracies must accept as theirs.
If they are sincere in their indignation, and their thirst for change, they will stay the course to real contribution. If they choose to see the process of protest as a contribution in itself, they will remain an irrelevance.
Protest, so potent a force in the quest for democracy, holds no impact after the fact.
 |
The Stop the War Coalition was hugely popular and completely ineffective. |
Occupy Wall Street, wherever it's disappeared to, will surely achieve nothing other than to capture the imagination of the middle class minority who revel in the process of protest.
Ultimately, protest is a weapon for those who have no access to a democratic process. What Democracies do is to open the door to real representation. The ballot box may not be as visible for individuals, it may not be as much fun; at times it must seem to belong to a status quo beyond reach, but it does not. It is the currency that those in functioning democracies must accept as theirs.
If they are sincere in their indignation, and their thirst for change, they will stay the course to real contribution. If they choose to see the process of protest as a contribution in itself, they will remain an irrelevance.
No comments:
Post a Comment