The Naked Emperor: Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan

Wars don't have causes, people have causes and turn them into wars. As those causes change, so do the ways in which people engage in war to bring those causes into actuality. At one point in this apparently magical process, because almost everyone goes along as if under a spell, the cause is called peace by war leaders themselves, even as war continues. At that moment, a powerful opportunity to cast off the spell presents itself, and a choice for those no longer enchanted. That moment happened last night, during President Obama's declaration about the Iraq War and his foretelling of what is in store for Afghanistan.

In "The Emperor's New Clothes," the famous children's (and adult) story by the beloved Hans Christian Anderson, two tailors make a suit for their master, who cares only for his clothes. They promise to make it invisible to everyone not fit for their position or simply "hopelessly stupid." The Emperor, wanting to appear neither unfit nor stupid, pretends he doesn't notice that, in fact, there are no clothes.  His ministers and everyone else at court follows suit for the same reasons. As the Emperor parades his new suit in public, a single child stands up and decries his nakedness. Despite others also taking up the cry, the Emperor cringes in doubt but nonetheless continues the procession.

Anyone who watched Obama's speech last night could easily tell that he too was cringing, perhaps with the Nobel Peace Prize he shares with Americans Martin Luther King Jr. and Jane Addams in the back of his mind. Unfortunately, the closest comparison in this regard is another laureate, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was also a military leader in the Spanish-American War, generally glossed over in school history books. As a result, the U.S. became a world-feared, 20th-century colonial power by again throwing off the yoke of another, gaining control of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines in the process. The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are the two longest and costliest in American history and their processions continue, as do their parallels with the Spanish-American War.

The choice facing Americans and U.S. residents today is not only one between being for or against two ongoing wars with ever-changing people and their causes. Thousands have died and will, millions have been suffering and will, and billions of dollars have been and will be spent if they go on. The choice is also, and even more consequentially, between accepting the transformation of our country from a 20th-century colonial power into a 21st-century imperial one, or standing up against this change. Last night, Obama cringingly paraded in public with no clothes on. You can call me a child for decrying our Naked Emperor, unpatriotic even, but I will be so in the same way Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were with King George of England, the then world-feared imperial superpower. However, unlike them I will not turn my causes into war, preferring the diplomacy and wordsmithing of Benjamin Franklin instead.

I believe President Obama, unlike the Naked Emperor of Anderson's story, has the wisdom to stop the imperial war processions, but we need to remind him of our will, if it exists outside cults of personality around election time.

Photo credit: Beth Rankin