A woman named Regan held a sign: "Let the World Court Decide." I told her the world court--the UN, in this instance--had in November passed Resolution 1441, which said military force was an option against Saddam Hussein. Why was Regan, 21, blindly protesting war in Iraq before--according to her own sign's advice--letting the world court decide? "It's not my sign," she said. "I'm not really sure about this."
But this "journalistic" exercise--exposing ill-informed protesters--is intellectually dishonest. After all, there are smart arguments against war. I interviewed folks who capably laid out an antiwar POV--especially when they zoomed in on oil. Additionally, the antiwar crowd doesn't have the monopoly on fatuous arguments. Take the president's weak attempts to link Hussein and al Qaeda, and the pro-war boobs who think Iraqis commandeered the Boeing 767s into the twin towers.
So, here's what I decided to do on Saturday: Rather than pluck out a few morons, I'd listen to the rally's keynote speaker, writer Sherman Alexie--the person organizers themselves put forward as the march's headliner.
Sadly for antiwar folks like me, Alexie's speech was moronic. Voicing the kind of cute dissent--based on clichéd antiwar sound bites--that makes the antiwar movement look ridiculous, Alexie turned out to be the biggest boob there.
Alexie opened by saying that America has lurched toward racism post-9/11. "And then the second plane hit... and we were sure of what it was, but everybody was sure of what Oklahoma was, as well," he said. I am so tired of this supposedly instructive anecdote. Alexie, check out newspapers from April 20, 1995, the day after the Oklahoma City bombing. USA Today and the Washington Post floated two theories: It was the work of homegrown white-supremacist terrorists or radical Islamists. I don't deny that Muslims have had it rough in the U.S. post-9/11 (check my James Ujaama coverage), but George Bush and the press have gone out of their way to condemn anti-Muslim bigotry. And, hello, there was no irrational rush to judgment on al Qaeda. Islamic radicals were behind 9/11; even al-Jazeera flummoxed its audience by corroborating this point last year.
Alexie's second point was that America embraces diversity: "The amazing diversity in this place. Buddhist and Jewish. Christian, Catholic, Protestant. Somali, Native American, Irish, English, this amazing place that we have become.... This is now a country that celebrates our existence." Not only did this directly contradict Alexie's first point (that America is racist), but I couldn't help thinking Iraqi Kurds would be psyched about tolerant America arriving at Hussein's doorstep.
Before moving to his next point, Alexie tossed off a one-liner: "As a Native American, I think it's so ironic that this administration wants to go to war with Iraq, because it keeps breaking treaties with us." I get the joke--but, clever sound bites aside, if Alexie is sensitive about honoring agreements, he should be outraged at the way Iraq flouted UN resolutions for 10 years.
Alexie's next point: America should "ignore borders. We need to embrace all countries and all people." His starry-eyed NPR liberalism only reminded me that Hussein's repression was antithetical to all Alexie claimed to stand for. Alexie simply made me want to ignore Iraq's borders and arrest Hussein. Evidently, the slew of Iraqi men the February 16 New York Times found bribing Iraqi guards and crossing the border into Jordan with tales of repression, rape, torture, and murder also want the U.S. to remove Hussein quickly.
However, Alexie's next starry-eyed moment showed that he wasn't serious about standing up for human rights: "I'm not anti-soldier. I support soldiers... I want them to defend us and never have to pick up a weapon in doing so." How does that work? Should the U.S. have sent troops to Kosovo bearing valentine candies for Milosovic?
Alexie's final point about the coming war was absurd. "All of this is the result of illiteracy," he said. "We have a one-book president... wanting to go to war against a one-book dictator because of one-book terrorists.... We need to send bookmobiles to Baghdad, bookmobiles to the White House. So, everybody pick out your favorite book of poems and send it to George W. Bush. Peace!"
Let's take this statement from the top. I'm assuming Alexie is referring to the Bible and the Koran. Look, no matter how much President Bush panders to religious conservatives, he's not a "one-book president" in the sense that bin Laden is a "one-book terrorist." Bin Laden espouses sharia--governance dictated by the Koran--which, according to bin Laden, means marginalizing women, stoning homosexuals, and killing infidels. While Bush may push pro-life legislation and weird stuff like the "faith-based initiative," likening W. to bin Laden is an exaggeration that makes the peace movement look unreasonable and alarmist. Bush, the leader of perhaps the world's most secular nation, appointed openly gay Scott Evertz to head the White House Office of National AIDS Policy while upping AIDS-prevention funds nearly 10 percent in 2004; has women like Condoleezza Rice, Elaine Chao, and Christie Todd Whitman in top positions; tapped a pro-choice liberal Republican, Lewis Eisenberg, to be finance director of the Republican National Committee; and, in 2001, signed a bill allowing the city of D.C. to support domestic-partnership benefits. Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai (the leader Bush installed in Afghanistan) is a Muslim--hardly an acolyte of a crusading Christian. (And by the way, what "one book" does Alexie have in mind when referencing Hussein? Hussein doesn't rule by sharia; he's a secular neo-Stalinist.)
As for sending books and poems to the White House--gag. But if you must, how about the 1992 issue of Nuseri Kurd (The Kurdish Writer)? It contains poems like "Fear," by Iraqi poet Dilshad Abdullah, whose work scorns Hussein's despotism.
By putting people like Alexie--with his banal rhetoric, contradictory statements, and jokes--front and center, organizers fail to change the minds of pro-war Americans or rope in antiwar voters like myself.
I'm against the war--although not because America has broken treaties with the Indians, or because George Bush is "illiterate." It's because invading Iraq is irrelevant to short-circuiting al Qaeda ["Say 'No' to War on Iraq!", Josh Feit, Oct 17, 2002]. I urge the U.S. to use its clout (and withhold dollars) to demand democratic reform in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, aid reformists in Iran, and find a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians. Attacking an isolated goon like Hussein (without clear-cut evidence that he's aligned with al Qaeda, or even armed and ready) to set up a puppet government under General Tommy Franks? Give me a break.
Those are the kind of points Alexie should be making--not tripe about bookmobiles and embracing diversity. Antiwar keynote speakers, now backed up by millions of marchers worldwide, have the public's ear. If activists keep offering up folks like Alexie, they're blowing a real opportunity.
