Brent Budowsky: Iraq War Longer Than U.S. Involvement In WWII. Time for Regionwide Middle East Peace Initiative.

The tragic milestone has arrived, the Iraq War has lasted longer than American involvement in the Second World War. The President tells us that that many more days of bloodshed remain in what believes is a permanent war.

As the Iraq Study Group prepares its alternative one thing is clear: the United States should lead a regionwide peace initiative for the Middle East beginning with Iraq but including the full range of issues throughout the region. High level American leadership and full mobilization of the world community are needed.

It will be hard but the road to hope begins with the first step. Every Presidident since 1948 has offered a comprehennsive policy seeking Middle East peace, with American leadership. George Bush is the first President who has not.

This must change; the status quo is a one way road to the chaos, danger and instability that threatens our interests and violates our values. We must offer a vision and a plan that lifts the hopes and aspirations of a generation of young people and begins with a complete break from the mindset and mistakes of the last six years.

In 1957 Senator John F. Kennedy gave a major address opposing European colonial policies and the French colonial dominance of Algeria. JFK warned that these policies and practices gave aid, comfort and strength to Soviet communists who prayed on misery, exploitation and corruption.

Sound familiar?

One can reread JFK's speeches between 1957 and Algerian independence after he became President, and substitute "terrorists" for "Soviet communists." It is eerie. It is true. It is a hard lesson for President Bush and the country he so wrongly and disasterously pushed to war, through the politics of fear, and the obsession of ideology.

In a just world, President Bush will take this moment apologize to the people of America and the people of Iraq, accept his responsiblity, discuss what lessons he has learned, and move to set things right.

That is what JFK did after the Bay of Pigs; he accepted responsiblity, grew from his mistakes, and saved the world from nuclear war when he removed the Soviet missiles from Cuba. That is what the President should do.

He will not. George W. Bush is no JFK.

I have written here and elsewhere recently of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and would simply state again that what America needs, what the world needs, is the kind of aspirational leadership that Jack and Bobby provided.

It is a time, on this sad occasion, to revisit Jack Kennedy's criticism of European colonialism in the Third World during the 1950's. George W. Bush speaks of democracy but his war policy is the lineal descendant of the colonial practices that John Kennedy so wisely spoke against.

It was not democracy to seek to install Mr. Chalabi as leader of Iraq after an American invasion. Mr. Chalabi's relationship to freedom and democracy in Iraq was zero. He would have been a leader in Iraq with no support within Iraq, installed by Americans, with the result that would only help the Iranian mullahs.

It was not democracy to raise false fears to drive America to war and spy on Americans who opposed those policies.

It was not democracy to establish an Iraq Reconstruction Authority that was run by an American with the attitude of a Roman Proconsul.

It was not democracy to install political hacks in key reconstruction positions, then allow some of the greatest greed, corruption and incompetence in the history of capitalism.

It was not democracy to steal and waste money that was meant to build hospitals and schools, so some made fortunes, while troops gave their lives and Iraqis suffered unendurable misery.

It was not democracy to peddle lies to promote fear to push for war that corrupted even the front page of the New York Times. It was not democracy to promote propaganda to peddle war that corrupted the intolerant editorial pages of the Washington Post. Nor was it democracy to accuse newspapers of treason when they belatedly printed truth.

It was not democracy to have a Vice President almost universally seen as the free world's leading advocate for torture. It was not democracy to try to keep this torture secret.

It was not democracy force out the Chief of Staff of the Army for daring to speak the truth and it was not democracy to force out the Navy lawyer who won a historic case for justice before the United States Supreme Court.

It was not democracy to hold secret White House meetings with oil company lobbyists where insiders passed around maps of Iraqi oil fields.

This whole project of an invasion, to install an American-imposed shill who only helped Iranians,to install a Proconsul-like American over the people of Iraq, to surround him with corrupt henchmen and cronies who misused money intended for schools and hospitals to help the children and suffering of Iraq was not democracy.

It was rooted in the colonial abuses and executed with the same catastrophic results.

JFK warned about this in the 1950's; saying correctly such practices only helped communist enemies. George Bush was warned: his policies would only help our enemies in Iraq, Iran. Al Qaeda and elsewhere. And they have.

Lets be clear: the status quo policy is not only wrong, deadly and catastrophic. It has given a windfall to terrorists, insurgents and enemies of every kind who prey on anger, misery, death, poverty, corruption and futility. It has divided our country, and divided our country from the world.

It is time to bring back the American foreign and security policies of John and Robert Kennedy rooted in American purpose and aspirational ideals that offer the hope of a better life, not endless war.

It is time for the United States to once again offer comprehensive plans for peace in the Middle East, while we rebuild our military from the damage that these catastrophic policies caused, not look for new wars to unnecessarily fight.

It is time to recognize that the Project for the New American Century was deadly wrong, catastrophically wrong, historically wrong. The world does not want endless preemptive wars, occupations, proconsuls, and shills surrounded by crony corruption.

Now we know: at this sad time the war in Iraq is longer than American involvement in the Second World War, so:

When it comes to the current policy and the catastrophic mindset that created it, we should throw out the baby, throw out the bathwater, and throw out the whole thing.

We should say with finality: George W. Bush was wrong, and John F. Kennedy was right.

It is time to lead again, it is time to lift hopes again, it is time to start again, and make our country the leading voice for a better world and begin again the long search for a broader peace.

Brent Budowsky

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Brent Budowsky served as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, responsible for commerce and intelligence matters, including one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law. Served as Legislative Director to Congressman Bill Alexander, then Chief Deputy Whip, House of Representatives. Currently a member of the International Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit. Left goverment in 1990 for marketing and public affairs business including major corporate entertainment and talent management. He can be reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.

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