licentious radio

Wednesday, January 15, 2003
[5:28:12 PM]

licentious radio repeats its call for US generals and admirals to avoid war in Iraq.

We all know every White House justification is phony at best, with the build-up to war being the truly grave danger we face in Iraq. You cannot legally invade a sovereign state. You cannot be sure to conquer Iraq without inflicting war-crime-like casualties on civilians. You cannot hope to occupy Iraq safely without true nation-building. You can look to Afghanistan for an indicator of the outcome in Iraq.

It is true that in a democracy, the military should take direction from elected civilian leadership.

It is also true that the current civilian regime lost the popular vote, and -- if the votes had been counted in Florida -- the electoral vote, as well. It is unique in the history of the United States to have a leader selected by a clearly partisan and personally-interested Supreme Court majority -- overruling the clear intent of the voters. Never forget that tens of thousands of votes were disqualified or cast inaccurately due to confusion, and a hundred thousand mostly-democratic voters were illegally denied their right to vote.

The military's hands are dirty in the election theft, too. There was post-election voter fraud using the military as a way to add absentee ballots by leaving off the postmark, and some precincts even succumbed to Republican pressure to count military votes that were postmarked after the election date.

The election theft is unprecedented, as is the lack of true justification for invading a sovereign country that happens to have huge oil reserves. The potential harm from the invasion is vastly greater than the potential harm of continued deterrence and inspections. The people of the world are clearly against the war. Even the people of the United States -- subjected to relentless propaganda -- are opposed to unilateral action.

The military should prevent this war. There is an obligation on all professionals to distinguish between orders that are acceptable, and orders that are unacceptable. The war on Iraq is unacceptable. True professionals must find a way to prevent it. It is likely to require great creativity. But it is required.