The mysterious case of the missing WMDs has left the war hawks and their supporters in a real bind. For the first time since late March -- when U.S. forces hit that unexpected speed bump on their way to Baghdad -- the hawks are on the defensive, and they know it.
Which is why conservatives have harnessed the power of their collective intellect to construct a plausible, thoughtful response -- consisting, roughly, of:
"LIBERAL SADDAM LOVERS!"
And if they can find another AAA battery in the back of the mental kitchen drawer, they may give us a round of:
"DIDN'T YOU SEE THE IRAQIS CHEERING AND DANCING?"
Actually, I didn't see it. I think I must have blinked.
The Hollow Man
The purest example of this type of "thought" that I've seen so far comes from Rep. J.D. Hayworth, (R-Howling Wasteland). Writing in the National Review last month, Hayworth had a little competition with himself to see how many times he could cram the words "liberal" and "liberation" into a 15-paragraph article:
Having been proven so spectacularly wrong about the war in Iraq, anti-liberation liberals have shifted to lower rhetorical ground. Now they argue that if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq then the entire enterprise was illegitimate.
One would think that the smiling faces of the newly liberated Iraqi people, the emptying of a jail for child political prisoners, the mass graves, the thousands of earless men, and the gruesome discoveries of numerous torture chambers would be all the justification anyone would need.
Hayworth clearly remembers the old lawyers' adage: When you have the law on your side, pound the law; when you have the facts on your side, pound the facts -- if you don't have the law or the facts on your side, pound the table!
I could spend many paragraphs demolishing the "liberation" rational for invading Iraq. I could note the stench of hypocrisy that clings to men who turned blind eyes to the slaughter of the innocents in Central America, but who now weep crocodile tears for Saddam's victims. I could question the moral logic of killing at least 3,000 (and probably more) Iraqi civilians to replace a fading dictator with deadly chaos.
I could also ask why the quality of conservative mercy is so restrained when it comes to so many other brutal Third World dictatorships -- particularly those willing to play host to U.S. military bases.
But that's a subject for another post -- or book, which somebody else will have to write.
No Way Out
The problem facing the hawks is how to tiptoe through the logical trap created by their failure (so far) to find WMDs in Iraq. Because unless and until they are found, and in sizable quantities, one of three things must be true:
- The Bush Administration manufactured the Iraq WMD threat out of whole cloth, to justify a war of aggression that now threatens to turn into a prolonged, expensive war of occupation.
- The Bush Administration (and the major U.S. spy agencies) were misled into believing Iraq possessed a massive WMD capability that it did not in fact have -- making this the worst intelligence failure since 9/11, if not since Pearl Harbor. As a result, over 170 U.S. soldiers are dead and America has been sucked into a quagmire that may take years to escape.
- The Bush Administration told the truth (well, close enough anyway) about Iraq's WMDs, which have now vanished, either hidden away so well that the Pentagon and the CIA can't find them -- even though most of Saddam's weapons scientists are in custody and the U.S. military has unrestricted access to all of Iraq -- or vanished into the custody of persons unknown.
Time to Kill
Chanting "liberal, liberal, liberal" or "Saddam, Saddam, Saddam" may buy the conservatives some time, but if the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate and the body bags start coming home in wholesale lots, rather than retail, the American people may begin to wonder how we got into this mess -- and why.
The "liberation" argument also will probably have a short shelf life. I don't get the sense the average American is brimming over with the milk of human kindness towards the Iraqi people -- who are, after all, both Arabs and Muslims. So how will the voters feel about our little brown brothers after a few more months of sniper attacks and suicide bombings?
Even bleeding heart conservatives may start to wonder what's going on after they've seen a few hundred more pictures like this one:
Do those guys look like liberators? Stories like this won't help, either:
Riot Chases Troops Out of Iraqi Town
HIT, Iraq — In the third straight day of Iraqi violence against the U.S. military occupation of the country, residents enraged over house-to-house searches in this western town ransacked the police station, stoned U.S. armored military vehicles and set police cars on fire Wednesday.
With a large, uncontrolled mob still roaming the streets as dusk fell, it was impossible to determine exactly what triggered the riot, but in a series of chaotic interviews laced with anti-American rage and threats of vengeance, residents said the problems began when police assisted the U.S. troops in searching local homes for weapons.
Keeping this kind of stuff off the boob tube obviously is going to be critical task for the Pentagon and the White House. But again, this will only buy time.
Enough to get past next year's election? Maybe. But unless they can figure out a way to force feed the entire Iraqi population Valium and Prozac -- or completely rebuild an entire country in less than a year -- they face the risk a full-blown, Lebanon-style nightmare will break out just about the time the election campaign starts to heat up.
Now imagine the impact if between now and then there is a major terrorist attack on the United States, involving WMD materials which the Bush Administration said were in Iraq's arsenal.
False Front
As always, the real problem for hawks is that they went to war under false pretenses, because they couldn't admit their real agenda. They still can't. That's fine as long as the costs of the war are minimal -- or concealable. Not so much because the American people don't care about lies, but because they are willing to give their president extraordinary leeway when it comes to fighting what they believe is a battle in the war against terrorism.
But the hawks put themselves deep in hock (politically and financially) by making the WMD story the centerpiece of their war propaganda. If (when) the situation in Iraq goes south in a big way, their credit with the American public may finally run out -- unless in the meantime they can put their hands on some real, verifiable and highly photogenic weapons of mass destruction.
Until then, expect to hear a lot of table pounding.
Update 5/31: Here's another reason to suspect the "liberation" argument isn't going to take the hawks very far. raporter posted this on the "Tangled Web" thread:
A colleague wears a support our troops button. I say we should support them by bringing them home. He says we should bring them all home so we can nuke Iraq. I say nuke Iraq? What about all the people over there that we're presumably trying to save. He says there on no Iraqis worth saving.
Let's just hope the gang doesn't decide to give the man his wish . . .
most Americans don't give a damn about weaponsofmassdestruction and only care about the way this country can kick ass!
We'll see. I'm not quite that cynical -- yet. I think it's a matter of how many body bags are required to "kick ass"
But that's a subject for a different post.
Quote off of tv news re the dropping the alert color to Yellow: "the government says there is a drop in intelligence leading to an attack."
What can you say when you hear pearls of wisdom like that?
I'd say it's been dropping for quite awhile now . . .
A public education system that actively disables intellectual activity and empathy, reinforced by media violence, poor nutrition, and drug/alcohol use, is the major factor that has allowed George W. Bush & co. to seize control of the U.S. government and lead the nation into war on Afghanistan & Iraq, environmental destruction, nuclear proliferation, tax breaks for the extraordinarily privileged, etc. Our so-called "education system" has created a population comprising terminally depressed individuals who are unable to concentrate, unable to think, and unwilling to lead or act independently, and who certainly do not possess a strong regard for the sanctity of human life in the abstract.
This "education system" has made it wearying for Americans to think; actively implemented atrophy has affected our brain-muscles from before age five. Furthermore, a child consuming massive amounts of Kool Aid / Coke / Fruit Loops + Ritalin will be the perfect "dittohead" eighteen years after his/her birth. Such a blueprint for society was conceived quite a long time ago, and neo-Cons are reaping the fruits of those fields. We should all really be both severly apprehensive and sincerely appalled!
M has a valid point. Lord Alfred North Whitehead some years warned us about the lack of classes on thinking(especially dielectical thinking) and logic for our kids. He said it would be disasterous for us. And it has.
Of course the mind rotting effects of TV are well known and need no further explanation.
Anybody remember a book called "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"?
I read a big chunk of it years ago. What I remember most was the author's (Jerry Mander) claim that TV nukes the critical faculty -- like a beam of radiation directed at a cancer tumor.
According to Mander, the chief culprit, of all things, is color. He says that at some subliminal level, the brain can't tell the difference between color video and reality -- so our inner cave man/woman stops trying to decode what it is seeing and just accepts it all as "reality."
I never thought much about the political implications of this before, but if you think about it -- color TV arrived in a big way in mid-60s. Figure another 10 years or so for people's synapses to adjust to the new "reality," and you're into the mid-'70s -- about the time the modern conservative movement began its drive to powr.
That's probably too pat, but I think there has been a noticable change in popular conciousness since about that time -- people have become more passive, less willing to challenge, or even question, authority.
It would be facinating to conduct some surveys to see if there is a correlation between hours spent watching TV and political attitudes. Maybe somebody has already done it, but I haven't seen anything.
Color TV causes conservatives?
Wow, Billmon, warn a body when you're going to lay something like that on us -- I'd just taken a sip of my Black Russian.
Come to think about it, I stopped watching television altogether a while ago. Don't even own a set now. And here I thought it was just because I got bored with it. Who knew it was causing brain damage?
Color TV causes conservatives?
No, the hypothesis is that color TV causes zombie like voters who believe whatever they are told -- until they are told something else to believe.
Oy
Our so-called "education system" has created a population comprising terminally depressed individuals who are unable to concentrate, unable to think, and unwilling to lead or act independently, and who certainly do not possess a strong regard for the sanctity of human life in the abstract.
and
so our inner cave man/woman stops trying to decode what it is seeing and just accepts it all as "reality."
people have become more passive, less willing to challenge, or even question, authority
How was American decency and fairness crushed and selfishness made the new religon? How was the American government taken over by greedheads? How was Christianity perverted for political gains? The education system and TV. You got it.
They Live.
We Sleep.
Wake up! The Matrix has you.
Excellent writing--thanks. BTW, have you thought about shortening "whiskeybar.org.v.sabren.com" to "whiskeybar.org" in your blog config? Both names resolve to the same IP address.
Finally took care of that, I think.
Nice place you got here. And no sawdust on the floor. Do you serve any of those sissy micro-brews?
I was just about to post on your "open thread" regarding this same subject. Good thing I read this or I'd be the thoughtless idiot here.
The education point you made is excellent, if not remarkable. I pound my head against the wall repeatedly (figuratively speaking ofcourse) at how dense and gullable the majority of the population seems to be. I'm an admitted news junkie, so I could be biased. But, every day I read the news and see a dozen "indicators" of how our country is being led to the slaughterhouse and can't for the life of me figure out why no one is standing atop the mountain screaming bloody murder. I've come up with two reasons. One being that we have indeed become a nation of mindless followers. (See Soprano's episode "Happy Wanderer.") The second is that the ones who do speak out are publicly chastized across the board. The government goes to great McCarthyistic lengths to discredit anyone who remotely speaks out against the Conservative regime. I, in fact, am one of those who fall in the second group. I wrote a letter back in March that was published as an Editorial in my hometown newspaper. The area I come from is mostly conservative in nature, so it stirred up quite a mess. My being in the military made matters MUCH worse. (the letter can be read at www.donferrioli.com) Through some spiteful conservatives and their narrowmindedness, the editorial made it half-way across the world to the Commander of my unit. I was subsequently charged with making "disloyal statements" and lost my job and my security clearance all in one sweeping blow. I have served my country for eight years, but at the first sign of showing an opinion against that of GW, I was branded a traitor.
I think someone posted earlier, "Canada is always an option." Keep up the good work, the Whiskey Bar had made it to the top of my daily reads.
I have to take exception to the blaming of our current situation on "the education system", TV, drugs, etc. First, because it's a defeatist attitude -- the time for "fixing" any of those things and having it take effect would be a generation at least, and I don't think we need to wait for that to get out of this mess. Second because all those things are part of the conservative mantra and if you give them an inch, they'll take us straight to hell. And third because I don't think it's true.
Yes, our education system could be made a lot better with more emphasis on critical thinking and less on memorization. But I don't believe it's significantly worse than it ever has been, certainly not enough to turn the populace into mindless sheep.
Contrary to the blaring of the "war on drugs", drug use is down over the last ten years. (Don't know about alcohol.) Similarly with the TV-driven "epidemic of school violence" (there isn't one, that's also down, even counting Columbine.) And you may notice that the rants about a "huge" increase in the number of children being treated with ritalin, they always talk about how it's "up X% in the past X years." This is because the actual numbers are relatively small; if you start with a small number, it doesn't have to go up much to get a 50% increase.
So then what is it?
I think there are two complementary factors:
1. Most people are pretty trusting, and inclined to believe that they're being told the truth, and especially inclined to trust people who are in authority, or who sound like experts.
2. We have a portion of the political spectrum with access to mass media, and now an administration, who have no compunction about lying endlessly to achieve their goals, and who try to shut out any opposing point of view.
The question then is how do we combat this, given that we are not willing to engage in similar deceit? I don't know; my best hope at present is to question their pounded version of events in places like this and let the mainstream media and my elected representatives know that I am unhappy if they don't do the same, and the knowledge that economic issues are important to voters, and no amount of spinning will make people believe they have money when they don't.
I'm constantly reminded of a piece of an interview with a reporter who had written a book about Bosnia:
"I asked [an elderly woman], 'Why did you believe the radio when they told you that your Muslim neighbors, who you had lived with peacefully for years, were going to kill you and force your daughters into harems?'
and she answered, 'Why would the radio lie?'"
Another pretty significant factor in the decline of political awareness has got to be the information revolution.
Ironic that I'm saying this on the internet, but the sheer fact that there is so much information out there about anything can lead either to overload or tunnel-vision. There simply are not enough hours in the day to go and find for yourself a well-rounded set of reliable viewpoints about any given topic UNTIL one has spent many hours laying the groundwork by building a dossier of reliable sources which can be checked often and whose biases are noted.
Unlike in the 60s and 70s, activism and political discussion are now more discussed "virtually" - via op-eds, blogs, talkback radio and irc than they are in person. The net effect of this breakdown of interpersonal, intra-family, etc, connection means that the reliable sources mentioned above aren't shared so widely and the information doesn't stick as long, unless you write it down, like people such as Billmon do, with fervour.
I'm not saying it's worse, just saying that becaue we no longer have to go to parties and argue over the music,or to smoky cafes and stay up all night drinking coffee to have a decent political discussion, we're less likely to enter the real world and be active. The anonymity of the internet works against people, here - it means that when it comes to talking in public, or being active, you can't be sure who you can trust because you don't have a sea of familiar faces and like minds around you.
L
The anonymity of the internet works against people, here - it means that when it comes to talking in public, or being active, you can't be sure who you can trust because you don't have a sea of familiar faces and like minds around you.
Definitely something to think about, Louis. Sometimes it does seem like we're all "bowling alone."
On the other hand, while it may be anonymous, the Internet does allow people who are stuck behind enemy lines, so to speak -- living deep in a red state, or working in some corporate twilight zone (like me) or even serving in the military -- to feel they are still connected to a larger community of people who oppose the neocon vision of an Imperial America.
I mean, I'm just one small blogger, and I haven't been doing this very long, but I've already gotten many comments from people saying, in essence, "I'm glad to know there are other people out there who feel like I do. Thank God I'm not alone."
It may not be much, but it's something.
Keep up the good work! People need to hear the other side once in a while.
The warhawk cons still have one ace up their collective sleeve: the fact that most Americans don't give a damn about weaponsofmassdestruction and only care about the way this country can kick ass!