Sam Hurst, 6-19: American troops are the problem in Iraq
By Sam Hurst, Journal columnist
In 1965, when Americans still believed that Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" could end poverty in America's racially segregated cities, a dozen idealistic, white, middle-class community organizers moved into Newark, N.J., to organize the poor. Among them was a young journalist named Tom Hayden. This was before Hayden became a notorious anti-war agitator, three years before he was prosecuted for organizing demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Chicago and eight years before he became "Mr. Jane Fonda."
Like many of the urban riots of the late 1960s, the rebellion in Newark in 1967 began when police beat up a black taxi driver arrested for a traffic violation. The city exploded when gossip spread that the man had died in jail. The governor was forced to call out the National Guard. After a week, 23 people were dead, 725 injured, 1,500 had been arrested, and inner city Newark had been torched.
Here's what is most interesting to me: The violence actually increased after the National Guard was called in to calm the riot.
Unable to find a political solution, unable to even find community leaders to negotiate with, the governor arranged a secret, late-night meeting with, you guessed it, Tom Hayden. This was a meeting that no governor would want anyone to know about.
Hayden's advice was calm and confident: "Withdraw the National Guard." His logic challenged every instinct that the governor had to keep the troops in place to stabilize the streets. After all, if he just pulled the troops out, the whole damn city would be burned. No serious political leader could turn the streets over to lawless thugs, especially on the advice of a twentysomething radical. But Hayden was relentless.
The troops themselves had become the fuel that fanned the fire, he argued. All the issues of police abuse, poverty, unemployment, had been pushed off stage by the single, rage-inspiring fact that the black community was now occupied.
Insurgents who had nothing in common with each other in day-to-day life found common ground against the National Guard. Genuine political activists with real grievances, petty criminals, all found a common enemy in the very troops sent to save their city. After hours of heated discussion, the governor relented. He pulled the troops out. The riot ended within 24 hours.
Here we sit in Iraq, our third year of war. The body count of American soldiers grinds upward each day, along with the death of unknown thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. The electricity doesn't work. Clean water is scarce. Unemployment is high. The Iraqi government is factionalized and inept. The war bleeds red ink, and no one knows how to talk about the end game. We are trapped in quaint aphorisms like "Support the Troops" and shrill challenges to the patriotism of anyone who dares to question the voice behind the curtain.
Democrats are so lost that all they can do is argue that the origins of the war were a fraud, as if we haven't long since moved past the debate about weapons of mass destruction. History has already judged George Bush on that.
Republicans and Democrats alike are trapped in the logic that U.S. troops are bringing "stability" to Iraq while democracy sets its roots. Those Republicans who criticize the president - and the number is growing - actually argue that we need to send more troops to create more stability.
Writing in the New York Times this week, columnist Thomas Friedman suggests that: "Ever since Iraq's remarkable election, the country has been descending deeper and deeper into violence. But no one in Washington wants to talk about it ... Maybe it's too late, but before we give up on Iraq, why not actually try to do it right? Double the American boots on the ground."
Ah, the echoes of Vietnam. I think he's dead wrong.
American troops aren't the solution to the problem. They are the problem.
Like the Mexican finger trap that pulls tighter and tighter the more we pull against it, American troops are the incendiary fuel that sustains the insurgency, turning fascists into patriots, crackpot extremists into defenders of religion, all the while making allies out of mortal enemies. Our occupation creates the insurgency and compromises the ability of Iraq's newly elected government to claim any legitimacy on its own.
George Bush is not a man of nuance. He lives in a black and white world. Our troops are good and noble (notwithstanding a few maniac prison guards). Those who oppose us are savages. His arrogance makes him blind to the most basic, universal truth of community.
I am a liberal anti-war advocate. I have almost nothing in common with conservative Christians, or fat cat corporate executives. I despise their political ideologies, as they despise mine. But if my nation is invaded by foreign troops, no matter how they explain their occupation to themselves, I will fight the invaders shoulder-to-shoulder with other Americans.
Democracy is neither built nor defended at the end of an occupier's assault rifle. If we can understand this simple truth about ourselves, why can't we understand it about other cultures?
Iraq is burning. It is time for the late night voice of Tom Hayden.
Give Iraq a chance. Bring the troops home.
Sam Hurst is a Rapid City filmmaker. Write to samhurst@aol.com.
