A War Without a Sales Pitch
No time for public debate
I remember when wars came with a sales pitch. I recall months of public debate about Weapons of Mass Destruction during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. When I was in high school, George H. W. Bush drew “a line in the sand” after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and by the time Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw interrupted our dinner with news that the air campaign had begun, public opinion in support of the war had been building for months.
Long before my time, it took the attack on Pearl Harbor to get the majority of Americans to support sending U.S. troops to fight World War II. As far back as 1898, it took the explosion of a U.S. battleship in Cuba to spark the Spanish-American War. “Remember the Maine” became a popular rallying cry to win public support.
This morning, I awoke to news that our president has initiated military action against Iran. He announced it with a video on his own social media platform. He referred to the campaign against Iran as a “war,” a term presidents have tended not to use when they don’t have a specific declaration from Congress. Trump seems not to care about the opinion of Congress. I’ve read that Marco Rubio consulted with members of The Gang of Eight only just before the attack commenced.
I first heard about the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East just a couple of weeks ago when The Wall Street Journal started reporting on it. Apparently, Trump was itching to attack Iran at the end of January when Iranians were protesting in the streets. His military commanders, it seems, convinced him to wait a month so we could mobilize a proper force.
The mobilization has been building up relatively quietly, with very little public debate. I read this morning that Trump has no immediate plans to address the American people. Just as Trump doesn’t care about the opinion of Congress, he doesn’t seem to care about the opinion of the American people.
History will decide if the U.S. attack is just, necessary, or beneficial to the world. I’m very skeptical that anything good will come of it. But we’re in it now. The time for debate is over. The fact that there wasn’t really any time for debate is an ominous omen. Trump is acting as though he’s completely unconcerned about what voters think.
As if he’s completely unconcerned about November’s midterms.
Since it’s the weekend, I’ll leave you with the recipe for a cocktail called Remember the Maine, first described by a travel writer who, in 1933, recalled encountering the cocktail as a “a hazy memory of a night in Havana during the unpleasantness of 1933, when each swallow was punctuated with bombs going off on the Prado, or the sound of three-inch shells being fired at the Hotel NACIONAL.” It’s rye, sweet vermouth, cherry liqueur, and a whisper of absinthe.
Corridor Rabbit is meant to serve as a casual guide for how to start and grow an informal resistance (persistence) group. It is not authoritative; it is a live journal documenting our efforts. It is a call to action. It’s an invitation to connect and share what you are doing to resist authoritarianism. Read more about the goals of Corridor Rabbit.
Sounds tasty.