Red flags raised long before war

Baltimore Sun Letter to the Editor February 2, 2006.

In his State of the Union speech, President Bush said, “There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Second-guessing is not a strategy” (“President focuses on health, energy,” Feb. 1).

But no second-guessing was involved when critics argued before the war that Saddam Hussein didn’t have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction or operational ties to al-Qaida, or that the U.S. invasion force would not be treated as liberators in Iraq and that worldwide terrorism would increase if the U.S. invaded that prostrate Muslim nation.

And it is not defeatism to argue now that there is not and cannot be a “war on terrorism” any more than there was a “war on kamikazes” during World War II.

Suicide bombing and kamikaze attacks are tactics, not enemies.

Using violence in the name of political gain is, sadly, as old as history itself.

It will never end until the great powers eschew the tactic of waging war (which amounts to state-sponsored “terrorism”) as an instrument of foreign policy.

Dave Goldsmith
Baltimore
The writer is the coordinator of the Baltimore County Green Party.