November 17,. 2006
 

Quantum Note
Will America Remember the Dead?
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

The great adventure is over—or so it seems. Sooner rather than later the Marines will be coming home, leaving behind a country steeped in blood bath and millions of suffering human beings whose lives have been shattered beyond all repair through tragedies no one will wish to remember. “It was just bad planning,” that’s all they will say in so many different ways, before forgetting it all. Then a new Congress, a new Senate, and a new president will take over. The dead will be wiped off the collective memory of America as if they had never exited.
We have seen all of this before. Remember Ronald Reagan, from whose White House George Bush resurrected “the most extremist, arrogant, violent and dangerous elements”, as Noam Chomsky once remarked. Reagan was a man who left the White House with 63% approval rating, the highest for any departing president since FDR. It was during Reagan’s eight years that the United States invaded the small Caribbean state of Grenada and turned the South and Central Americas into lands filled with mass graves, as the Reagan administration funneled money, weapons, and other supplies to the right-wing death squads, leading to the killings no American can now recall: 70,000 in El Salvador alone, more than 100,000 in Guatemala, and 30,000 in Nicaragua. While all of this was going on, Reagan was claiming that these blood-thirsty criminals were “our brothers”; they were “freedom fighters” to whom America owed help. More than that, to Reagan, “they [were] the moral equal of our founding fathers.”
It was also during this same period that the United States fueled one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern times through an invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein’s forces—a war in which more than a million people were killed, chemical weapons supplied by the United States were used, and two of the most ancient societies on earth were devastated. Of course, it was their fault, just as it is now the fault of Iraqis.
Like Reagan, George W. Bush will leave the White House, maybe sooner than his term ends in 2008. He will not have the same approval ratings, but he will still retain support of some 30 to 40% Americans, who have sided with him in his war of terror. He, and his supporters will then find escaped goats and the blame game for the carnage he is leaving behind will play itself out in newspaper columns, television debates, and in the comments of experts. Some heads may roll—as in the case of Donald Rumsfeld—but they will roll only to save them from the scaffolds. This is the great American way of erasing the memory of the dead.
This time, however, it may not work. The human tragedy in Iraq is too big, too cruel, and too deep to disappear with the departure of George W. Bush. Those who wish to impeach him may keep it alive for longer than any other memory in recent history of America. It may even etch itself on American conscience through the process of impeachment. Three reasons being offered for impeachment are legally and morally sound: (i) George W. Bush deceived the nation when he invaded Iraq; (ii) the collaboration between the men and women of his administration and those who have benefited materially from his misadventure in Iraq has been established beyond doubt; and (iii) many members of his administration have already been convicted by several world forums for committing crimes against humanity. These include the World Tribunal on Iraq, which passed its verdict in its culminating session held in Istanbul in June 2005, declaring the Bush Administration guilty of starting a war of aggression, of war crimes, and crimes against humanity; the War Crimes Tribunal held in New York City on August 26, 2004, which found many members of the Bush Administration guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and high crimes and misdemeanors for which they are impeachable; and the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan convened in Tokyo, 2003, which found the Bush Administration guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the invasion of Afghanistan.
But beyond these purely human considerations, there is a higher reality which will make it impossible for Bush to escape. Like all human beings, George W. Bush will someday leave this world, carrying with him all his deeds, just as his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, did when he died on June 5 after suffering for more than a decade from the mind-destroying Alzheimer’s disease. For those who believe in Divine justice it is obvious that one day this man, who has been pivotal in bringing so much misery and death to millions of human beings, will receive his due. These are obvious and basic realities.
Beyond these ultimate answers to the deeds of a few men of their nation, Americans, however, still need to ask themselves: are we going to remember the dead this time? These Iraqis, who were very real human beings like themselves, and whose lives have been destroyed by weapons developed and used with their active or tacit support and certainly with their tax dollars. Are Americans willing to remember them? Or will a new Senate, a new Congress, and a new president erase the memory of the dead from a nation’s conscience, just as the departure of Ronald Reagan erased the memory of his crimes?

 

Back to the 2006 Contents                                                           Back to the Main Page