Wrong by Association: The Unfortunate Consequence of the Anti-War Strategy

by Dyske Suematsu  •  April 20, 2003

Before and during the war, I questioned the legitimacy of unity, of uniting under the banner of “anti-war” when the various drives, beliefs, and reasons behind the effort had very little in common with one another. There were those who were against unilateralism (not particularly anti-war), pacifists who denounced any form of violence, those who were more specifically against Bush and his administration (for whatever they did), the anti-Semites, the supporters of Saddam Hussein, the communists who feared further spread and domination of capitalism, those who opposed American imperialism and colonialism, as well as those who did not oppose the war in itself, but opposed the fact that the Bush administration did not have any coherent plan for post-war Iraq. The list can go on. For the sake of the maximum impact, these disparate groups of people joined the forces together and united their voices against the war. I argued that this is nothing but a PR stunt. As with anything that takes advantage of the superficial effect of mass psychology, there is an offsetting disadvantage.

The war in Iraq is over. During the first few weeks of the war, the US appeared to have bit more than it could chew. A barrage of criticism was fired at the Bush administration, especially at Donald Rumsfeld, for underestimating the amount of resistance. The points were awarded to the anti-war camp. However, once the US troops reached Baghdad, the rest was unexpectedly easy. The dreaded urban warfare never happened. The next thing we knew, the statues of Saddam were falling down like the Berlin Wall. Despite the efforts by the anti-war camp to prevent these images from Baghdad to be seen as symbols of the good prevailing, the majority of the world was convinced that the war after all was the right thing. It didn’t matter that the number of people who came out on to the street to cheer the US troops and the falling of Saddam’s statues were significantly smaller than that of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It didn’t matter that many Iraqis were just as angry with the US as they were with Saddam. Before and even during the war, many people around the world were unable to imagine the world without Saddam. They could not imagine how it would feel to actually face the reality of Iraq without Saddam. Our own feelings are often unpredictable until reality actually hits us. To some degree, we were surprised by our own feelings when we saw the images of the fall of Saddam.

Now those of us who were in the anti-war camp must pay the price for exploiting the power of unity. Now the majority is against us. The pro-war is deemed right and the anti-war is deemed wrong, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of us who opposed the war haven’t yet been proven wrong. The only argument that has been proven wrong is the one that claimed that the war’s cost of human life would be too great to justify any prevention of loss of life by the hands of Saddam Hussein. It appears that the loss of civilian life was kept small enough for the world to accept it as reasonable, especially compared to how many lives Saddam could have taken if his regime had been allowed to live on. Unfortunately the world opinion did not care for these subtle differences in the reasoning behind the anti-war stance. To the majority, the anti-war camp was simply wrong. Anyone who tries to offer any explanation is now seen as a sore loser. French President Jacques Chirac is now depicted as a weasel who is trying to save whatever amount of diplomacy left for his country.

Now we scramble to disassociate ourselves from the rest of the anti-war camp. We wanted unity for its impact, but now the same impact is working against us. My stance on the war was against unilateralism. I did not particularly oppose the war itself. If the majority of the world wanted to bomb Japan (my native country), I would not have any issues with it. The result of this war has no relevance to my argument. I still believe the Bush administration has done the wrong thing, and my stance still stays relevant for the post-war handling of Iraq (whether it will be handled unilaterally or multilaterally). For those who opposed the war for the lack of a coherent plan for the post-war Iraq, their argument has only just started to come into play. They are yet to be proven right or wrong.

Because of the nature of our language, we have a natural tendency to reduce a wide spectrum of opinions into a small number of categories. How these categories are formed is quite arbitrary and can be manipulated. The larger the category is, the more impact it has, but this impact is a double-edged sword. It would be hypocritical to use the power of unity created by artificial categorization only when it suits your needs. Any inconsistency in your argument or strategy would in turn be ineffective in convincing others.

As powerless as it may seem, forming more specific groups of people, albeit small, would be more relevant in the long run, even if it means that you may be the only person. The question is, what is more important: to be relevant to your reasoning thereby sending the right message, or to get the result no matter what it takes even if the perceived message may be wrong or misleading. The latter, as we see now, can backfire. I believe that there is no shortcut in doing the right thing.