07/08/14 – Debra Sweet – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, I'm Scott Horton here.
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Guess what?
We got Debra Sweet on the phone, our old friend from World Can't Wait.
Hi, Debra.
How are you?
Hey, Scott.
It's been a while.
Yeah, it has.
Very happy to have you back on the show.
I got a big question for you.
With the background being, of course, the escalation back into Iraq, what are we doing about it?
Well, you know, not enough.
That's a very simple answer.
And part of it starts with, what do people think is going on?
I can't tell you how many people are stuck on this thing of, oh, it was Bush's war.
Obama tried to get us out, but it was Bush's war.
It was a big mistake.
There's a lot of strange thinking going on around, if you look back at what was actually happening in 2003.
And I think we've got to come to grips with that.
And in the meantime, yes, we really need visible mass resistance.
World Can't Wait has called for responses when the U.S. starts bombing.
And, of course, that's a little bit tricky because they've got those drones and helicopters and a lot of special forces in Iraq right now.
So we don't exactly have the situation in 2003 where there was one moment of shock and awe when everything in January of March of 2003 kicked off and the U.S. was in there.
Nevertheless, it's really important for people to be following the situation.
And open U.S. involvement in Iraq has absolutely got to be protested.
And now here's the thing of it, too.
We saw last summer that the American people, when the Pentagon agrees with them, can stop a war.
And it seems like there's at least, in the case of Syria, of course, it seems like there's at least part of the military that is resisting this.
Somebody is agreeing, you know, there are more than one person in the Oval Office meetings is saying, hey, let's go slow here a little bit.
And you're right.
I mean, when they do start bombing, it'll be secret and it'll be a slow escalation.
It won't be a shock and awe.
It'll be harder to really galvanize people around in that sense.
But it seems like there's a reason they're going slow.
And it's because, imagine this, even American foreign policy makers are up against the reality that all that they can do is make matters worse and get America in worse and worse trouble over there.
So whoever it is, even if there's just two people on the National Security Council or something somewhere, anyone inside the government who's making that kind of case that, jeez, boss, I think maybe we ought to stay out.
Those people need people on the outside supporting them and reinforcing that because it's got you know, that was what stopped the war in Syria last time was dissent on the inside.
And along with boy, and look at the polls, guys, and not just the polls, but people were adamant about it.
People were like, hell no, don't bomb Syria last summer.
If we can recreate that even partially, we might could stop this before that first day of bombing.
Well, we need people feeling, as they did last August and September, that it's completely illegitimate and wrong for the U.S. to go in and bomb another country.
And we have some things to overcome in Iraq.
I think you're pointing out a basic difference, not strategically, but tactically between the Obama administration and the Bush regime.
Looking back about 2001 and 2002, you had Donald Rumsfeld salivating over the idea of invading Iraq, Cheney and Wolfowitz, all these guys, you know, they delude maybe a lot of people, but they also may have deluded themselves about how easy it was going to be to go through Iraq and then after their real target, which at that point and maybe still is, was Iran.
And it didn't work out very well for them.
Really they got deeply bogged down taking a country that was a sectarian, i.e. not religious country, with a, you know, a vicious tyrant at the top and turning it into a secular religious country with a vicious tyrant at the top who happened to be beholden to the U.S. instead of beholden to Russia and the former Soviet Union.
And that's a big difference.
So now, yeah, I think the Obama administration is saying, whoa, who's the friends and allies here?
We have a really big mess that this administration has created.
Remember, Obama wanted to leave, excuse me, he wanted to withdraw from Iraq in a certain way, but he wanted to leave at least 10,000, maybe more troops in Iraq, and Maliki wouldn't let him do it.
Why?
Because Obama would not sign an agreement that U.S. troops would be subject to Iraqi law.
In other words, when they went around shooting and killing civilians, they were going to have to go into an Iraqi court.
Obama wouldn't agree to that, and he withdrew everybody.
And I think most people looking at the situation knew it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.
Of course, we couldn't have predicted the Arab Spring in 2011, or even the major economic worldwide recession in 2008, and the drought that went across that region.
There was a lot of unpredictable factors.
The only predictable factor is the U.S. is going to do what a majority of people at the top of the ruling class decide is in their interest, and it's never, ever going to be in our interest, nor certainly in the interest of the people of Iraq or Syria, which is kind of the point we try to bring out.
It was funny, Deborah, it was last summer, you know, it's Obama in power, so the way the right wing looks at him is, you know, sure, we're all for killing people, but we don't trust this SOB to be the commander in chief.
So that's good.
We can work with that.
And then also, there's such cynical, racist, bigot, pro-war murderer types that they detest the Syrians.
And so when the spin for the war is, we have to go help the Syrians, the conservatives' answer is, we don't want to help the Syrians.
Let them burn.
Let's withhold our fire, because we don't care what happens to them.
Even though, of course, the war would make everything much more horrible, but that's their attitude.
But okay, fine.
Right?
If that's the attitude that we have to harness, that the Iraqis aren't worth helping anymore because of how ungrateful they are, or whatever, fine.
If that's what conservatives have to hear, then, you know, let's go ahead and harness that.
And we'll get that realignment for, you know, leave those poor people alone, and leave those sorry bastards alone, caucus, you know, and put a stop to the war before it's too late.
Because of course, what it means in real life is, once the drones start firing, then that means Obama's putting all 300 million of us up on the target list for the next al-Qaeda kooks who want to come back to the United States here.
Well, you know, I think what we have to go to the people in this country and everywhere with is the actual truth.
What happened the last 23 years of U.S. involvement in Iraq, 1991?
They went in, and they, you know, they thought they had cleaned up a problem with Saddam Hussein.
Well, they didn't.
And then there was 12 to 15 years of sanctions under the Clinton administration, which ended up killing a lot of civilians, really weakening the country.
But the people who paid the price were the children and the women, and that's true in all of these imperialist wars.
Then along comes the opportunity of 9-11, the Bush regime saying, let's go massive.
This was the quote from Donald Rumsfeld, go massive, sweep it all up.
I'm sorry, you know, we're so short on time.
Let me just ask you real quick, what about picking a Saturday real soon here, getting with as many groups as you can and holding as big a protest as you can put together?
Maybe in a week from now, instead of waiting until the first bombs fall, see if it's possible to try to recreate that March 15, 2003 effect here and try to head it off.
Is it just impossible, Debra?
Well, you know, we have had a series of protests already in June, and I never say anything's impossible, and I like your spirit.
And as soon as we feel that it's a potential to get a critical mass, we have to keep looking at what's going on over there.
And also in Israel right now, there are going to be major protests today and tomorrow against Israel around the country, but people can find out about whatever's happening at worldcantwait.net.
Great.
All right.
Well, listen, I sure appreciate your efforts, and I encourage you to do as much outside as you can, especially knowing, you know, you're there in the capital, way out here in the hinterland.
I wish I could go outside with a sign where anybody could see it, not that it makes that much difference, but when there's a lot of them, it can make a difference.
It does make a difference.
We saw that with Syria last summer.
It can be done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got to get to the people.
Challenge them.
All right.
Thank you so much for your time, Debra.
I appreciate it.
Think about what their government's doing.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, everybody.
That's Debra Sweet from worldcantwait.
They're on Twitter at worldcantwait, and they're online at worldcantwait.net.
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