Kunstler's Speech in Providence December 5 05

. . . .Is it grandiose to think that we can impose democratic government in foreign lands? Perhaps. But the other choice, now that we are there, would be to just set someone up in power picked by us - which would surely offend world opinion. Maybe we should just quit bragging about it and crowing about "freedom." That would help.

Now, I really want to get down and be frank with you about this war. I think we have to be honest with ourselves and not get lost in fugues of paranoia or blaming or scapegoating. I'm a registered Democrat and I did not vote for Bush, but my view of this war is not a standard party line view.

Why did we go to Iraq? As a strategic matter - and this is terribly important because in the real world strategic interests really do matter - we occupied Iraq in order to influence and moderate the behavior of Iraq's immediate neighbors on both sides - Iran and Saudi Arabia, two of the most important oil producers in the world - as well as to gain direct control over the oil resources of Iraq, also a major oil producer. In short, to gain a major foothold in the region where two thirds of world's remaining oil is so as to excercise some say over its allocation.

We invaded Iraq for another reason. Because after the attacks of 9/11 we had to kick some Islamic ass. In a showy way. And the right kind. Now you might not like that idea, but that's what happened. You can't have foreign people knocking down skyscrapers and blowing up your ministry of defense. Those are acts of war. And, unfortunately, they were carried out by people not officially acting on behalf of a particular state. So it was hard to assign responsibility. And we picked this poor raggedy-ass country, Afghanistan, the poorest nation on earth, because the group that bragged on these acts, al Qaeda, maintained bases there. So we waited a month and then kicked their ass. But after 9/11, Afghanistan wasn't enough. Kicking the Taliban's ass was not enough (and we didn't even do a very good job of that). For one thing, whatever else they were, the Afghans weren't Arabic people. Saddam Hussein's Sunni Baathists were the next best thing. And Saddam Hussein was the best candidate for another major ass-kicking because he had already caused a lot of trouble in the region twelve years earlier by invading Kuwait. Saddam Hussein was a freelance maniac who might do anything. There seemed to be every advantage, from a strategic point-of-view, in making a show of kicking his ass, and getting rid of him, and putting on a big scary show-of-force for the edification of other Islamic maniacs of what American military power could do if they pushed us too far. And so that's what we did. And Iraq was the best candidate because, once occupied, it strategically afforded the best geographical location for influencing all the nations of the region. And that is the strategic reason that we invaded Iraq.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction argument has been a major talking point for opponents of this war. I regard it as a foolish argument. Did Bush and his deputies distort or lie about their information. No doubt they did. Generally, leaders do in war, for an array of reasons. But even if that is true, the fact is that nobody really knew for sure what Saddam Hussein possessed or didn't possess. Nobody knew for sure. The only thing we knew was that we didn't know for sure.

So, happens now? My guess is that we will withdraw from the population centers of Iraq before much longer and maintain garrisons in the desert in order to continue our desperate project of moderating and influencing the behavior of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Anything can happen. The Saudi royal family might be overthrown. Do we then try to occupy Arabia? Based on our previous experience, that would not be a project we could feel confident about?

What happens if China decides that it has to exercise its influence in the oil-rich regions close to its borders: the former Soviet republics. The Chinese have very little oil of their own. They will have to do something. They can walk into Kazakhstan. Do we oppose them? Do we engage the Chinese army in the landlocked mountains of Central Asia? That's another project we can't feel confident about.

What about Europe? We often discount them as a bunch of sclerotic old nations of café layabouts. They are, in fact, still a major world economic force and they are capable of mobilizing powerful forces. They have benefited hugely from America's exertions in Iraq the past five years because, apart from anything else, they have continued to enjoy shipments of imported Middle East oil through the Suez Canal. What would happen if Europe felt it necessary to fight for its own energy survival? Don't count them out.

There is Japan, a nation which now imports more than 90 percent of its oil and gas, but a nation that could put together nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks if it felt it had to.

We don't know what is going to happen. It may be that a titanic struggle over the world's remaining oil supplies will commence and go on as far ahead as anyone can see.

But my reason for talking to you today is to give you a slightly different way of thinking what it means to oppose this terrible prospect of war.

I don't think you can be against the war as passionately as you are, and not also be against the way we live in this country. After all, we have more control over how we behave here than how other people behave in their nations.

It's not enough to just be against the war. There's the lady - now famous lady - in my town who drives the Ford Explorer with the bumper sticker that says "War is Not the Answer." I keep telling her that war is the answer for her. If we want to keep living the easy motoring life, with the economy based on building evermore suburban sprawl, then war will be the answer - and we all ought to stop complaining about it.

We have to put more energy into opposing the suburban sprawl, car-dependent, oil-addicted life that makes these wars inevitable. And not just intellectually, but politically.

How did we let John Kerry off the hook last year for not even mentioning the restoration of the American railroad system?

Al Gore was briefed incessantly during the 1990s by the founding leaders of the new Urbanist movement about the necessity to reform land-use in America - to allow us to become less car-dependent and oil addicted - and to reform our laws to promote walkable communities and reinvestment in cities. And when Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he abandoned those ideas, to pander to the suburban homebuilders association, and hew pandered to the masses of voters who identified themselves as suburbanites. Al Gore stepped away from leadership on these crucial issues. And progressive Democrats allowed him to do it.

This is not good enough for Progressives.
Progressives have got to step up to leadership on these issues, because if we don't start making other arrangements for daily life - a different program than Dick Cheney's non-negotiable easy motoring utopia of hamburgers - then reality is going negotiate it for us. We'll be dragged into more war, and we'll mount a foolish and futile defense of a way of life that has no future.

Leading sometimes means taking public opinion into territory it hasn't been to before.

Where we have to get to in America is the re-localization of life and the restoration of economic communities on a scale different from the cheap oil age. It is a tremendous set of tasks, and just being against war is not enough. We have to put our shoulders to the wheel of rebuilding local community and local economy. We have to put our minds to the task, and our hearts into the effort. And if we can manage that, then we may come out of this as a land full of places worth caring about and a way of life that is worth defending.