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To raise one’s voice against the war in Iraq—what is the point? As I write early in April, U.S. tanks have entered Baghdad, and by the time this sees print Saddam Hussein’s Baathite party will likely have been driven from power. Iraqis will cheer the fall of that repressive government—as they cheered the fall of others before it—and I will share their relief to see Saddam removed after so many brutal years. The U.S. media will seize on this expression of relief, and everyone will share a moment of good feeling.

Often it seems there is too much chatter in our lives, too little silence, too little reflection—why add to that noise now, when victory is at hand?

My happiness at the removal of Saddam is balanced by my sorrow at the consequences of our unabashedly embracing the rule of force and ignoring the rule of law. The immediate consequences are death and mutilation, mostly of Iraqi civilians but also of American, British, and Iraqi soldiers, along with some reporters and observers.

The long-tern consequences are less certain. We have gained a foothold in the Middle East, which seems to be what the Bush administration has been seeking. But why should we not suffer the drawn-out agonies of other colonial powers that have stubbornly sought to impose their will on an alien population, whose culture and values they disregard or imperfectly understand? British troops at present are struggling to control an anarchic situation in Basra—perhaps the grandparents of these soldiers experienced something similar. In 1941, Britain, angry at Iraq’s noncompliance with a twenty-five-year treaty it had been forced to sign at the end of the colonial period, moved into Basra. Initially there was stiff resistance, but it within weeks it faded away in the face of overwhelming superior force. Britain sentenced most of the opposition leaders to death; others it imprisoned. One of these was the uncle of Saddam Hussein, a man named Khairallah Talfah, with whom Saddam lived during his secondary school years, when he formed a bitter hatred of foreign influence. Now the Brits are back in Basra, and nothing seems to have been gained in the intervening seventy-two years. Are a new teenage tyrant-to-be’s attitudes being shaped by the present invasion?

“Victory” is an interesting word. It comes from a Latin root meaning “to conquer.” A victor, then, is someone who suppresses an opponent by force. But “victors,” John Dryden said, “are by victory undone.” Recall arrogant Goliath, felled by young David, and David as king in turn brought down by his own arrogance. I hope that we will not end up being undone by our victory in Iraq. The sage Laozi understood the danger two and a half millennia ago, when he wrote in the Daode jing:

So why speak up? Better ask, why be silent? One of the lessons of the twentieth century was that silence can become complicity. Again and again in that troubled century the interests of power sought to control the very language we speak. So now “attack” is recast as “liberation,” “assassination” is called “regime change” and uncritical compliance is equated with patriotism, as a silent majority is posited and pointed to for validation. But “amnesia,” Edward R. Murrow observed, “is not a requirement for patriotism…. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” Only by calling things by their true names can we overcome the humpty-dumpty logomachy of power and allow language to spread its magic circle around the world and reveal it as it really is.

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