Defeat at any cost

By Zeke Calhoun / guest columnist

April 27, 2008 12:17 am

— Those of us who are committed to American defeat in our unjust war in Iraq are slowly but surely gaining the upper hand. Both Hillary Rodham and Barak Hussein have promised that if elected they will rapidly order a retreat from the battle regardless of what field commanders like General Petraeus warn may happen as a result.
Even though American casualties are way down from a year ago, the Democratic Party must continue its moral war against war by demanding a complete withdrawal of American forces overseas. It doesn’t matter what’s happening on the ground. Vietnam taught us that even if our troops win every single engagement, those of us back home can still pressure our politicians into losing the war. And lose we must.
Only by forcing our Army into an ignominious retreat will the rest of the world believe that George Bush’s cowboy diplomacy is over and welcome us back into the global village. Defeat in Iraq will signal the end of America’s arrogant superpower status and the beginning of a peaceful century in which the UN will replace the US as the world’s most powerful entity. By discrediting our military/industrial complex, the nations of Iran and North Korea will surely see that they have nothing to fear from the United States and will commence their own disarmament.
This November, we have a chance to turn this country around and follow the enlightened lead of Spain. In an amazing display of good will toward the rest of the world, their new President appointed a woman who is a self-described pacifist with no military experience and seven months pregnant to be their Secretary of Defense. (Rumor has it her first official duty will be to take Spain’s mandatory four-month maternity leave from her job.) That’s the kind of leadership we should emulate.
With Hillary or Barak as Commander-in-Chief (boy, it’s hard to even think of them with a military title—and that’s why I love them), our military will be transformed from war fighters to UN peacekeepers. Bill Clinton tried to get our military to wear UN blue helmets but there was too much resistance. He was just far ahead of his time. But soon the American public will evolve to our way of thinking and finally see the wisdom of subjecting our military to United Nations command and control.
For the time being, it will be necessary for those of us who loathe the military to keep up the charade of “supporting the troops” while we secretly hope that they lose the war. Otherwise, America’s latent patriotism is likely to rear its ugly head and voters may do something crazy like elect war hero John McCain. This must not happen.
We’ve invested far too much to quit now. If we lose this election, all the peace marches and Democratic anti-war resolutions would have been in vain. These are the times that try men’s souls. We must remember the sacrifices of brave peace protestors like Jane Fonda and Sean Penn and press forward to defeat at any cost.

Zeke Calhoun is Craig Ziemba’s extremely liberal cousin. A chapter of his satire appears in Give War a Chance, available at Meridian area Bible Bookstores.