March 23, 2006 Issue

I told you so.

More than three years ago…before Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council about weapons of mass destruction; before 98 senators voted to give George Bush the power to invade Iraq; before Abu Gharaib and Gitmo; before “Shock and Awe,” before “Mission Accomplished,” before General Shinseki was removed from command for requesting more troops; before the United States suffered 20,000 casualties and before Iraq suffered many more; before we were spending $30 billion a month (money that we don’t have) on a war that we don’t need; before Bush’s approval rating dropped from more than 70 percent to 33 percent; before the Valerie Plame affair; before we suffered through the almost surreal yellow, orange, and red terror alerts; before Iraq had ever had a suicide bomber, a car bomb, or an IED.; and before a wonderful young man named Adam Cann, a local kid who worked at Harbor Docks, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery; I put two words on the marquee below our 24-year-old sign at Harbor Docks. The sign read very simply: “No War.”

I sensed then what the Dalai Lama recently told a gathering of followers: “War is outdated.”

I have never been reluctant to speak my mind. Many people might question the sanity of a businessman revealing opinions seemingly unrelated to the operation of his business—particularly when the opinions are unpopular. The only reluctance I have ever had in expressing my opinion on any subject is that my opinion would be misconstrued to be representative of the beliefs of the people I work with. However, I own Harbor Docks, and most people know my views on political and social issues are my own, and I have many opinions that are unpopular, particularly in the conservative enclave in which I live.

I’m not much of a businessman anyway. But I do think that I’ve learned enough over the years to know that our country, if only in a business sense, is traveling in uncharted, dangerous waters.

We have become a nation that produces next to nothing. We still mine coal, albeit in archaic conditions, but now that coal is exported along with iron ore to faraway places where steel is produced, to then be exported back to us. The blue jeans we wear are made in the Dominican Republic or Colombia. Our running shoes are made in Bangladesh. The baseballs used for our national pastime are made in Haiti. Call for technical support for your lap top or cell phone or credit card and you will find yourself in the bewildering situation of talking to someone in New Delhi, India; someone who knows more about our everyday products than we do. In the new world order of economics, we have already lost the battle for modernization of production to China, a country once ridiculed for the items it produced.

We do export some uniquely American products. Religion is one of our prime exports. Almost 20 years ago Jim Jones took more than 800 followers to a remote region of a remote country, Guyana, where they drank poisoned Kool-Aid and committed mass suicide. That was impressive.

Can you imagine what primitive, indigenous people around the world think when missionaries spreading the word of their religion first approach them? The Church of Latter Day Saints and Seventh Day Adventists are two of the fastest growing religions in the world. They have been successful and tenacious in spreading their religious views.

There is no doubt many of the radical Muslim sects are willing to use violence to achieve their goals. But they don’t have a monopoly on religious sponsored mayhem. From the beginning this war has been characterized by our leaders as a battle of the righteous versus the “evil doers.” If you’ve forgotten, we are supposed to be the ones on the side of the righteous.

Our least successful export continues to be democracy. The best way to export democracy would be to practice it a bit more efficiently at home. As the chasm grows between rich and poor, between those who are marginally educated and those who are illiterate, and between those who have access to world-class healthcare and those who have no health care whatsoever, our country no longer functions as a shining beacon.

Emerging foreign economies face many of the same struggles we face. Their decision to embrace democracy will depend more on how our society deals with our problems than it will on our ill-fated crusades to export an ideal that we all too often fail to realize ourselves.

This war has been a horrible mistake from its inception. The devastation and destruction it has caused our country, both here and abroad, will be difficult to repair. Things will not get better in Iraq; they will get worse. There will be no chance of recovery until we bring our soldiers home. I have a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq. The withdrawal should begin immediately.

The withdrawal timetable that politicians in Washington talk about won’t matter much to the family of Adam Cann. His mother, Betsy Beebe worked with us before Adam did. Three years ago he was a kid with all the promise in the world. He always had a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. He entered the Marine Corps to try to make a difference. And he did. Adam had already been to Afghanistan and was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was working at a police-recruiting site and was among 1,000 Iraqi recruits when he was killed. He worked with a bomb-sniffing dog and when the dog went on alert Adam lunged at the suicide bomber that had infiltrated his group. In doing so, he shoved aside two fellow soldiers and his dog, Bruno. His two friends and his dog survived. Adam was just weeks shy of his 24th birthday.

The Harbor Docks sign that I used to voice my opinion more than three years ago is gone now. Hurricane Ivan destroyed it. If we still had that old marquee it would read the same today, on the third anniversary of this war, that it read then:
No War.

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