On the invasion and occupation of Iraq:
I think there’s a misperception that if we had brought in more troops, we would have won this war. We were never going to win this war. This isn’t a war that will be won on the battlefield; it’s a political war. No matter how you cut it, this was going to be an illegal war of aggression, therefore making the occupation of Iraq illegitimate, which would mean that it would eventually be rejected by the people of Iraq, whether you have 130,000 troops, 230,000 troops, 2 million troops—there’s not enough manpower in the United States to change the course of this war. There’s a perception there that this was a winnable war. This was never a winnable war. I think there’s a perception that getting rid of Saddam Hussein made America safer. What an absurd notion. Saddam didn’t threaten us.
On the illegality of the invasion:
Well, I always refer to the Constitution, given that I took an oath to uphold and defend it. Article 6 of the Constitution clearly states that when we have entered into an international treaty or agreement that has been ratified by the Senate, that is the law of the land. We are signatories to the United Nations charter. The charter provides two conditions under which nations may go to war: Article 51, self-defense [when] we have been attacked, and a Chapter 7 resolution specifically authorizing military force—none of which exists regarding our current interaction in Iraq, therefore making the American-led invasion an illegal war of aggression. Using the standard set forth by the 1946 Nuremberg tribunal… the Supreme Court justice Judge Jackson condemned the Germans for basically doing the same thing we did in Iraq.
On American global dominance:
[The 2002 national security strategy seeks to] divide the world up into spheres of national security interests. It’s the ultimate expression of national hubris, where 300 million people get to dictate the terms of global coexistence with billions of others. The United States has no inherent right to divide the world into spheres of national security interests that we alone get to dictate our level of intervention. What else do you call that except global domination? The United States seeks to leverage its current position it enjoys in history to its own advantage, in total disregard to the rest of the world.
On the Clinton administration's Iraq strategy:
I’m not going to defend the Clinton administration. I fully believe that the Bush administration should be investigated for lying, and lying in the course of official duty constitutes a felony, and I believe that there are many members of the Bush administration who could be brought up on felony charges for misleading Congress, misleading the American people—but don’t stop at the Bush administration! This goes back to the Clinton administration. Sandy Berger is a liar every bit as much as Condoleezza Rice is. Madeleine Albright’s a liar every bit as much as Donald Rumsfeld is. I mean, they’ve all lied about the same thing, which is that Iraq represented a threat in the form of weapons of weapons of mass destruction that warranted military action.
On Iran and the narrative for war there:
The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change. It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.
On America's nature:
What I said was that America, as a country, is addicted to war and violence. We have a national addiction to war and violence. I’ve also said we’ve devolved… into a nation—and as proud as I am of [spending] 12 years in the Marine Corps, and I love my military service, and I’m very proud of our armed forces—but they do not define us. They serve us, and they serve a larger cause. That’s why we take an oath when we join the military to uphold and defend the Constitution.
But today, pretty much the symbol of America is the military. That’s what many Americans use to define who we are and what we are. If you look at how the State Department has seen its position erode vis-à-vis its interface with the rest of the world, and how the Pentagon has become the preeminent ambassadorial representative around the world. It’s the military that’s taking the lead. M-1 tanks, F-15s, B-2s—these are the symbols of national pride. What an absurd situation to be in! I would have thought that the statue of liberty, the flag—so many other symbols out there that stand for the basic precepts of what this nation is—would be the symbols we would rally around, but it’s the military. And why? Because it’s reflective of the sad reality that America today is a society that has been militarized in so many ways, shapes and forms, staring from our economy, which has fallen into the military-industrial-complex trap that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about, all the way to our entertainment, where we glorify war on television and in the movie theater.
On Cindy Sheehan:
You have Cindy Sheehan running around, a symbol of the peace movement. A symbol of what? Who is she? Who nominated her to be the spokesperson? She did one brave thing. I’m all for what Cindy Sheehan did last August. But people say, “She sacrificed so much.” She didn’t sacrifice anything. Her son sacrificed his life...Cindy Sheehan, in her own response to my [recent] article [criticizing the anti-war movement], spoke of defending a woman’s reproductive rights. You know what, Cindy? Go do that. But don’t call yourself the peace movement when you do that. Because when you do that, all you do is basically take the energy that’s necessary to have a genuine peace movement, to have a true impact, and you allow that to basically just be spread and wasted. It’s wasted energy.
On the peace movement:
I don’t know. I am not volunteering myself to be the visionary of the peace movement. All I’m saying is that having attended these meetings and reflecting on what I’ve seen, the peace movement’s getting its butt kicked. Who knows what it should look like. The peace movement needs to decide what it wants to look like. But, you know, they need to come together. There needs to a meeting of the minds, a unified vision statement: What do we agree on? What is our focus of effort? And then once you get this mission statement, let’s put a little bit of fire into this. Who’s going to be the person that makes sure everyone’s staying on mission? Let’s call that person the “incident commander,” whatever you want to call them. Let’s break it down. Who’s going to do the planning? That’s our “operations officer.” Let’s insert some structure.
But as soon as you mention “structure” to the peace movement, they get all nervous. They think it’s abut imposing military standards on them—an absurdity. The incident-command system that I referred to is something used by the firefighters in the United States. The big wildfires down in San Diego—ask your firefighter buddies down there what they did when they brought in national assets, state assets, local assets to fight the big fire. It’s called the incident-command system. It’s not a military system; it’s a control mechanism. The Red Cross uses it. A lot of civilian groups use it. It’s used to organize parades. It’s used to organize events. It’s about organizing, and making sure you don’t waste resources. That’s what the peace movement needs: organization and to stop wasting resources.
All great stuff. Go read the rest right now.
Update Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post up examining what Ritter has to say. Glenn feels that -
Ritter isn't entitled to a presumption that he's right about everything, but it seems beyond dispute that he's earned the right to be heard and listened to - certainly a lot more than the standard roster of pundits and blowhards who led us into Iraq and who, with the help of an adoring and glorifying media, are attempting to do the same with Iran.Definitely worth a read.
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