'Waiving the bloody shirt'
Posted on Tuesday, March 04 @ 09:53:16 EST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Peter Lee
With the case for the Iraq war bereft of any conventional casus belli, war advocates are reduced to waiving the bloody shirt of 9/11.
The emotional appeal "September 11 changed everything" is intended to transport debate about the Iraq war to a magical realm in which history, logic, and common sense do not apply.
A world in which invading a socialist, secular dictatorship with putative WMD capabilities is the suitable riposte to an attack by stateless fundamentalist Islamic terrorists armed with boxcutters.
A wonderland where unprovoked aggression is a worthy first option, even if its costs are enormous, its efficacy questionable, and the risks incalculable.
A domain from which deterrence, consultation, mulilateralism, gradualism, civil rights, and human decency have been banished as shibboleths, exiled by the panic fear of terrorist attack.
An empire that promises George W. Bush and his cronies unchecked power and unlimited opportunity.
A place where the lunatics run the asylum.
In February, headlines advised that Bush was "undeterred" by the peace marchers. Yesterday, Bush was "undeterred" by the unraveling of his botched effort to dragoon the Turks into the war. Next time, the headlines will probably read "Bush undeterred by reality".
The Iraq adventure is now an exercise in fascist metaphysics, a quest for security through violence and peace through war. The Bush administration seeks refuge from doubters in its irrational implacability, almost flaunting its disregard for the facts unearthed by the inspectors, the advice of its allies, and the determined opposition of world opinion.
The war is Bush's triumph of the will, or more appropriately the triumph of the gut, that mysterious, sullen, and stubborn organ that handles Bush's decisionmaking now that his brain is pickled in alcohol, arrogance, and born-again religion and his shrunken stealth heart is invisible to moral radar.
The war party likes to say September 11 changed everything.
Here's what happened
3000 people died horribly before our eyes in New York and Washington. As a result, 3000 more died anonymously and miserably in distant Afghanistan.
The red river of suffering and fear that waters most of the world's unhappy nations broke through our barriers of money, arms, distance, and indifference to deposit its crimson stain upon us.
The terrorists got lucky.
So did George W. Bush. He got 18 months to pretend to be the leader of the world.
But he blew it, thinking that all he needed to do was squint resolutely at the Teleprompter and spout recycled Caesarisms and the nations of the world would fall into line.
But for better or worse, the world is pretty much the same place it was pre-9/11. We're just more aware of it.
The world is filled with people that abhor violence, cherish peace and justice, and yearn, however hopelessly, for a better life. Beset by war and calamity, they repudiate leaders that sacrifice lives, prosperity, and community on the altar of a leader's whim disguised as moral certainty.
The world hates Saddam Hussein. But it offers no hospitable refuge for the obscene imperial fantasies of George Bush.
That's why Bush wants to destroy it. And because of September 11, maybe he'll get the chance.
That's how things have changed.
Copyright 2003 Peter Lee |
