It seems as though President Bush has been reading my blog lately. You see, dear reader, in two posts earlier this week I compared the actions of the President and his administration to that of Oceania’s government in George Orwell’s ‘1984′.
Unfortunately, he must have taken my posts as a challenge. What’s even more unfortunate is that he’s really outdone himself this time:
President Bush today marked the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with the message: “The world is better, and the US is safer.”
In a bullish speech at the Pentagon, in which he repeatedly linked the conflict in Iraq with the worldwide war against Islamist terror, Mr Bush said any rapid drawing down of troops would risk emboldened terrorists launching a “repeat” of the September 11 attacks.
Let’s try to follow the logic here.
Before the Iraq War, there were several reasons used by President Bush’s administration to explain why America was UNSAFE with Saddam Hussein in power:
1) Mr. Hussein was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction
2) Mr. Hussein was in collaboration with al-Qaeda
3) Iraq was harboring terrorists
4) Iraq and Mr. Hussein played some role in the 9/11 attacks
Now, this next part is pretty important.. so pay attention.
ALL OF THOSE REASONS HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO BE FALSE. PERIOD.
Still with me? Okay. Next point.
Let’s work backwards. IF all the reasons that were given in 2003 for our LACK of safety were actually false, what are the implications? It means that we were perfectly safe from Iraq in 2003 and there was absolutely no threat posed by Mr. Hussein or his government at any point.
And yet, the President stands up today to mark the anniversary of a war that has now lasted longer than the Civil War and BOTH World Wars and says that we are now SAFER than we were in 2003 BECAUSE of the Iraq War.
How is it possible to rationalize this without some sort of specially-produced super-strength cognitive dissonance pill?!
Let’s look at a few options for this logic.
1) We caught Osama bin Laden too!.. Oh, wait. Nevermind.
So, the person who ACTUALLY hired, trained, funded and deployed the 9/11 terrorists is still out there plotting his next attack.. the person who is ACTUALLY the reason why we were/are unsafe on some level is brazenly sending his audio messages to the press.. And the President has the temerity to actually get up and tell us that we are safer because of a war that has/had/will have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with our safety?!
Oh, I probably should leave ‘will have’ open for possibilities.. which leads me to option number 2..
2) There are actually al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq as a result of our invasion and we are now, after a few years, experiencing something of a victory in controlling the violence. These terrorists were not there before the war and have been created out of angry Iraqi citizens and from movement in surrounding areas.
This, my dear friends, is the thread holding the entire argument together. Let’s give it a good tug.
A: The United States is safe from Iraq
B: al-Qaeda is not in Iraq
C: The United States invades Iraq to protect itself
D: al-Qaeda enters Iraq because the war has destabilized the country
E: The United States is not safe from Iraq
F: The United States begins to win against al-Qaeda in Iraq
G: The United States is safe from Iraq
So, our President and his administration have both created and solved a problem which did not exist and they are now attempting to gain favor from us for their heroism in keeping us safe when the only thing that made us unsafe in Iraq was a danger that they created.
And, we still haven’t caught the actual people making us unsafe.
Doublethink, anyone?
“… the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” … “To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”
We have always been unsafe from Iraq.
And,.. Just to complete the doublethink, here’s Vice President Cheney:
“This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 . That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home,” said Cheney, who was accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.
“So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace,” Cheney said. “Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans.”
Again, there is a disconnect between the REALITY that this administration both created and is now attempting to solve a problem in Iraq that never existed.
Oh, and in case you thought Mr. Cheney might want to hear our opinion, there’s this:
‘Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: “So?”
“So you don’t care what the American people think?” ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked.
He added: “I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That’s a huge accomplishment.”‘
Someone should probably inform Mr. Cheney that public opinion polls are what’s known as ‘democracy’.
So, doublethink AND throwing democracy under the bus.
*Sigh*
It would be a shame to let something like democracy blow us off course.
By: themostbrianever on March 20, 2008
at 10:28 am
(source material for those quotes)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080318/wl_mcclatchy/2883358
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Asked_about_US_opposition_to_war_0319.html
By: themostbrianever on March 20, 2008
at 10:29 am
Dude,
Nice ranting. Unfortunately, your blog (specifically, this post) cannot accurately be described as something more than that. Passion does not equal righteousness. Straw man arguments cannot be substituted for logic.
Personally, I do not support the war. Ideologically, I cannot support the war. However, I am not so arrogant as to think that my ideological viewpoint is perfect. Furthermore, I do not believe that the US government has been as disingenuous in regards to the war as your post suggests.
However, with all of that said, I want to focus on one of the last sentences you wrote in your addendum regarding VP Cheney.
You wrote, “Someone should probably inform Mr. Cheney that public opinion polls are what’s known as ‘democracy[.]‘” (For the record, punctuation goes inside quotation marks).
At least in regard to the point you were attempting to make, this is blatantly false. True, the most distinguishing feature of democracy is majority rule; however, your argument falls short on two fronts.
First, public opinion polls cannot be used to accurately described majority opinion. That is why we vote in this country.
Second, and possibly even more important, the US is not a democracy. The US is a representative democracy. We elect representatives to act on our behalf. While some politicians, and political theorists believe that these representatives should be continually acting upon the information gathered by opinion polls, holding a different view of representatives does not disregard democracy, and certainly not representative democracy. VP Cheney clearly does not believe that his job, nor the President’s job for that matter, should be predominately shaped by “public opinion.” However, it does not follow that he is disregarding democracy. Instead, VP Cheney’s evident opinions about the nature of those in political power are well-regarded as credible and are a staple of representative democracy. Many politicians and political theorists (if you want names, I can provide them) believe that representatives should act, not upon “popular opinion,” but upon their own beliefs, information, and intelligence. If anyone disagrees with those actions, that objector can and maybe should vote for someone else. That’s the beauty of democracy. The majority view is respected. Even in the words of VP Cheney. After all, it was by a majority of votes of the Electoral College that VP Cheney was elected.
Maybe VP Cheney’s answer was short or condescending, or even arrogant, but that does not make his viewpoint incorrect, and it certainly does not – as you suggest – “[throw] democracy under the bus.”
By: Smartest Guy I know on March 20, 2008
at 5:03 pm
8
By: johnmccollum on March 20, 2008
at 5:31 pm
Great. Punctuation corrections for blog posts.
By: johnmccollum on March 20, 2008
at 5:32 pm
Smartest Guy:
Thanks for your comment.
I concede the fact that I spoke in generalities when using the term ‘democracy.’ My comments were intended to highlight the Bush Administration’s distaste with most types of democratic (read: majority rule) behavior that are politically inconvenient for them.
I appreciate the lesson on the essence of America’s democracy, but it was unnecessary. Of course I agree that our Congressional Representatives should act of their own volition, but there is certainly something which compels them to look back at their constituency for direction in certain situations. This ’something’ is, in effect a primitive opinion poll of sorts. It is why we have such things as pork barrel bills loaded up with goodies for a Congressperson’s home state/district. My point is that properly-scientific opinion poll data matters in a far more concrete way than Mr. Cheney suggested in his interview.
So, in this sense, Mr. Cheney IS throwing under the bus a primitive form of democracy borne out through scientifically polled data. Regardless of whether it is actionable or compulsory data, it is nevertheless democratic data that should not be discarded in such a careless manner.
I hope that you will reconsider the larger arguments that my blog post stands for rather than settle for simply parsing definitions and generalities with me.
Also, in the beginning of your comment you refer to an unidentified part of my argument as a ’straw man’ that has forgone ‘logic’ in some way. Was this a specific reference to the Cheney/democracy points you raised or do you have further criticisms of this post?
By: themostbrianever on March 20, 2008
at 6:05 pm
My reference to straw man arguments was in regard to the manner in which you made your arguments regarding the validity of the war.
The arguments you made were not illogical, nor necessarily incorrect. I would argue many of the same viewpoints. However, from a historical standpoint, President Bush is correct that the US is safer now. And by that, I am referring to “democratic peace.” Democracies do not war with each other. So, Bush’s comment was not as absurd as you made it sound.
Plus, and while I agree with you and applaud your writing and interest on these subjects, please be careful in your bulleted statements of the Bush administration’s rationale for going to war. Their rationale is certainly more complex than that, and warrants significantly more merit than you give it.
I agree with you that the war may not have (or even was not) the best decision. However, the US presence in Iraq has not been the diseaster that many politicians and political pundits make it out to be. Simply look at the public opinion polls of Iraqis that clearly show the great preference Iraqis have for the current state of their country when compared to the Saddam regime.
In response to your response to me, I do not believe I was parsing words. One’s theoretical understanding of representative government greatly affects the judgment of VP Cheney’s reaction to the opinion poll. Personally, I am thankful that military decisions (at least on their face… and I want to be in their entirety) are not made with the consideration of domestic political acceptance.
Oh, and my punctuation correction was just an attempt at being an ass.
Otherwise, nice work, Brian. I’m impressed with your writing. Keep it up, bro.
By: Smartest Guy I know on March 20, 2008
at 9:55 pm
Smartest Guy:
Clearly, blogs are a woefully inadequate platform for a thorough exposition of these intricate issues.
I’ll grant you that point.
I don’t actually believe that President Bush and his administration are unnuanced or simplistic in their decision-making, but I do believe that the theory of preemption and their neoconservative ideology harbor systemic tendencies that trend toward ‘Empire’ rather than ‘Republic.’
This is a dangerous position for a democracy, representative or otherwise.
I understand the political theory behind ‘democracies don’t go to war with other democracies’, but I think this feeds directly toward a proclivity for preemptive war against non-Democratic countries. This theory also trends away from diplomacy and high-level integration between nations through international norms, laws and organizations like the UN.
So, though we may be ’safer’ in some theoretical way, we were not in any sort of salient danger from Iraq in 2003. Without salient danger, there is no just war. I can’t justify the war just because we are safer based on IR theory.
By: themostbrianever on March 20, 2008
at 11:53 pm
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30750
at least we will be on the medal podium when this crazy war is over.
By: Matt Thomas on March 22, 2008
at 7:24 am
Where was I when this post was “active”? (is that the correct punctuation placement?)
if anyone’s still reading, let’s keep talking
i agree with the unfortunately monikered SGIK that brian’s original post was taking swings at a stationary target. not sure that target was made of straw, however. but that’s almost beside the point.
sgik said: “Many politicians and political theorists (if you want names, I can provide them) believe that representatives should act, not upon ‘popular opinion,’ but upon their own beliefs, information, and intelligence. If anyone disagrees with those actions, that objector can and maybe should vote for someone else. That’s the beauty of democracy. The majority view is respected. Even in the words of VP Cheney. After all, it was by a majority of votes of the Electoral College that VP Cheney was elected.”
sgik was absolutely partially completely correct based on the information he received from various unnamed (but nameable! promise!) sources of highly regarded (by someone!) degrees of intelligence, rationality, and moral compassion/compassity have declared The Government sane, mandated, in fact, to act as if (in good faith, so help us Gord!) the information handed (confidentially! toppest of secret! national security, etc.!) over before going on our best (estimated, within the neo-Kantian structured a priori, apodictic as it is) course of action making decisions (proclivities, as it were) sending in the boys (and gyrlz! Gord knows we need them skirts, er, ladies of first order!) to ice those sand n…iraqi…terrorists…extremist…insurrectionists.
In either case. How can you argue with Logic. Popular Vote, rhetorically lauded as it has been over Lo These Many Years, UnPossible as it is to Fudge via these Certified, Excellent, Most Beneficial Diabold Licensed Voting Machines Distributed “Equitably” through your Populace! clearly gave Sir George W. Bush, FRS, NAS, DDS, Ph.D a Freaking Mandate to Govern. To do whatever he damn well pleases. That guard dog of a Vice President as well. Whatever. Enron?!? Shit, son, we make more than that every April 15th. And we spend it by April 1st in Provisional, Bridge, Emergency, Fuckingneedthisbomberrightthefucknow Bills Passed by Both Houses of Congress!
And then there’s the issue of the Executive Signing Orders.
See, Brian. You made the mistake of logicizing. You can’t logicize with this kind of logic.
By: e on March 31, 2008
at 6:35 am
Haha.
Wow. That was the MOST rant in one comment EVER.
I take your central point to be that it is dangerous when elected officials with a “mandate” in “representative democracies” are able to act with no consideration whatsoever for the opinions of the populace.
Assuming this is a correct breakdown, I completely agree. The American public does not show up to voting booths once every 2 year as their sole act of democracy, but instead works out democracy every day in a million different ways that cannot simply be written off as “fluctuations in opinion polls.” Especially when this particular “fluctuation” has lasted about 4 years now.
To assume such a definitionally insignificant view of the populace is akin to suggesting that working out one’s faith only happens on Sunday mornings in some church pew.
It’s asinine.
By: themostbrianever on March 31, 2008
at 7:27 am
I should give at least something of a bone to sgik. It comes from the pen of the mighty (and mighty Right) Steve Covey, master of realms like 7 Habits of People Who Would Like More Money.
“We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.”
Kant said it waaaaaay earlier, Steve. And Locke. And your boy Adam Smith. Oh, yeah, it’s in the Bible too: if we believe something in our deepest selves (heart, will, gut, whatever), we can make it seem pretty real—real enough to make us think it’s real, anyway. But, Steve, your point is well taken: if we want there to be a reason to use our military to establish “representative democracy” in an oil-rich, Iran bordering country in the MidEast that isn’t Saudi Arabia (since it’s Arabian, not Persian like Iran), we will find a way of doing so. It doesn’t matter if “facts” contradict us. Facts are a matter of perception.
And this is what conservative Americans are blind to: American conservatives associate moral relativism, or the belief that truth has no real foundation, with liberals or philosophers or English majors working at Starbucks. Or Foucault (if they’ve heard of him). But it’s not the bald, gay Frenchman’s fault. Machiavelli said it best centuries ago: politics is about power, not truth. And the best way to maintain power is to clothe self-interest in the rhetoric of national or collective interest while at the same time positioning your opponents, especially those opponents interested in the greater good, as self-interested.
When Cheney’s interests are not being served, it’s because the Left (whoever they are) are being self-interested instead of thinking of the National Good. When his self interests *are* being served, it’s only because he’s so self-less that he’s putting the National Good first, since he is a public official—scratch that, appointee—and all.
This useful employment of truth in service of broader (read: narrower) goals is completely in line with a doctrine of moral absolutes (i.e., the only absolute is that there’s no absolute).
So what’s your problem, Brian? Are you a fundy or something? You think there’s truth, dude? And you think somehow regular people have access to ultimate truth?!?
By: e on March 31, 2008
at 10:26 am
Along these lines, you should check out this essay.
By: e on March 31, 2008
at 10:35 am
Oh, and lest I make it seem like I’m in favor of the libertarian values expressed by the site on which the above essay occurs, I’m not. I think Calvin, rather than Machiavelli, was right about human nature (we’re not animals in need of controlling, we’re sinners in need of redemption).
By: e on March 31, 2008
at 10:38 am
Good stuff, e.
I’ll definitely give that essay a read at some point.
Meanwhile, you should check out my latest post.. I’d love to hear from you.
By: themostbrianever on March 31, 2008
at 9:26 pm
Bin Laden is Emmanuel Goldstein
Of course they don’t want to catch him, then there’d be no boogyman hiding in the mountains.
By: Dr. Alabaster on July 17, 2008
at 10:43 am
[...] http://themostbrian.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/we-have-always-been-at-war-with-eurasia-we-have-never-b... [...]
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at 7:24 pm