[Editor's note: For some reason, the first part of this series (which needs to be read to enjoy what follows) was posted in its rudimentary form, though I swear I posted the final draft. I am disappointed by this odd incident for two reasons. First, this series is a difficult one, and it is, I believe, one of the most important things I've worked on at Contratimes. To see it so poorly presented is disconcerting, to say the least. Second, my goal is to always give readers a finished and superlative product. I apologize for failing to meet my goal.]
It's a word I am glad I know: Disingenuous<"not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does."(Oxford American Dictionary) And it is today's perfect word. But I ask, what is the word for someone pretending to know more than he really does? A dilettante? a charlatan? a flimflammer? a contratimesean? I ask because there really needs to be a specific word–and I think there is one but it eludes me–that describes Madeleine Albright as she answers questions during Diane Rehm's interview aired Monday, January 9, on NPR. In Part II of our series, I continue with the following excerpt. As in Part I, items of note will be highlighted in bold text:
(1)Diane Rehm: Do you think that Democrats now are formulating a cohesive, coherent alternative policy to what the Bush Administration has decided to do in Iraq or do you believe they’re simply sitting back? [Editor's note: Please notice that this is a hidden fallacy of the loaded question. I believe Rehm intimates, without having shown it anywhere, that the Bush Administration does not have a policy that is cohesive and coherent. It is very subtle.]
Madeleine Albright: Well, I don’t know about all Democrats, but I don’t think people are sitting back, I think there is a great deal of examination of what the record has been and also where we should go and some genuine questions, I mean, it’s very hard, Diane, when you are not in office, not in power in the White House, and you don’t control either House, and you are dependent a great deal on intelligence that you are given and you don’t have the responsibility (falter) it’s a problem in terms of not having enough information but you also have the responsibility to explore a lot of different avenues and to ask a lot of different questions, and I think that’s what the Democrats are doing based on the fact that they are very worried that this war is not going well and that it has all kinds of collateral damage not only with civilians but collateral damage in terms of our reputation, so Democrats at least the ones I speak with are uniformly concerned. But I do think something that is so important is I don’t know any Democrat that wants us to fail.
(2)DR: Do you agree with Congressman Murtha who has said we ought to get out now [of Iraq] because we are ruining our reputation in this world?
MA: Well, my view on this is I am not somebody that is for a deadline because I saw the problems that putting a deadline created for us in Bosnia. We said we’d be out in one year and we couldn’t be out and so it made us look as though we were liars. I do think that we have to figure out a way to have some kind of strategic redeployment, because our problem is, and this is the horribly difficult paradox, our presence is both the problem and the solution, uh, because the security in Iraq of their own forces, military as well as police, are [sic] not yet up to providing an environment that the Iraqis can prosper in, and yet clearly we are also a magnet for the insurgency. So I think that the year 2006 should be a year of transition and while I might not agree with the specifics that Congressman Murtha has raised, I think that he really did change the discussion, and that was very important, to really get some focus on what was going on.
(3)DR: Do you believe that President Bush or members of his cabinet misled the Congress of the American people about the decision to go to war?
MA: I think that they used the facts that they wanted and not present [sic] a full picture and I am very worried about how information was used. Secretary Powell has now spoken about how he does not think that the material that he presented at the UN which seemed to so many people as dispositive was actually accurate, and so I am very concerned by the kinds of facts that were presented to the American people and how the decision to go to war was really made.
(4)DR: There are some calls from those on the extreme of either party and among President Bush’s most severe critics for impeachment proceedings. What’s your reaction?
MA: Well I am not somebody that [sic] would call for something like that because I think we have a very serious issue now in terms of governance generally in our country and I know how disruptive it can be, but I think that as more and more facts come out I think that President Bush and his people owe us more and more of an explanation because I think this is a very destructive war, as I said in many different ways, it also is having implications domestically, and I am very troubled but I am not in a position to make that kind of a call.
Recall with me the character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy named Grima Wormtongue. Wormtongue was a snake-like man, a whisperer and insinuator, who's corruptive speech sedated King Theoden, drumming that fairminded king into a snarling, feckless trance. Wormtongue was subtle and crafty, speaking with caprice and deceptions, deceptions disguised as reasonable possibilities.
I can't help but think Mss. Rehm and Albright have wormtongued us throughout their conversation. There is a gossipy quality, a syrupy slipperiness that oozes from their tongues. There is a feigned cautiousness, a pretense at restraint. Reservations are posited that are quickly ignored.
Here are a few problems with what Albright (with a wink and a lead from Rehm) has said. First, the pervasive fact that permeates all of Albright's words is her admissions that she is no longer in office, that what she is discussing is "so hypothetical", that she is aware of only what she has read in "various books" regarding the Bush Administration, and that she is not in a position to really inform us with much that is accurate. Nevertheless, she divines quite a lot from her admitted position of weakness. For instance, while she can't really call for the impeachment of the president, she nonetheless implies that he is, indeed, impeachable. For she avers that he has misused intelligence for his own purposes, and he owes "more and more of an explanation" how it is America found itself in such "a very destructive war."
Second, Albright leaves us with the conviction that former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell has doubts about the Iraq War, ostensibly discouraged by delivering bad counsel to the UN weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq. Let us indeed remind ourselves that not only Mr. Powell but the President himself have said that much if not all of the intelligence on which Mr. Powell's case was based was in fact wrong. But let us also remember what Albright has forgotten: knowing what he knows now, Powell still believes the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. Albright and Rehm know this, but the wormy thing to do is to pick-and-choose facts that are useful for their own personal purposes.
Third, let us all admit the fact which is as obvious as the sun. There is no doubt that at some point US troop numbers are to be reduced in Iraq in the coming months. Iraq is after all stabilizing, even if reports suggest that it is not. It has never been as unstable as the media suggest; it has never been a quagmire. Knowing this, we can expect troops to be scaled back, following an unforced timeline, within the year. And yet, because we know this, we can use that fact for political gain, which is exactly what Congressman Murtha did. By seemingly pushing the issue of "immediate redeployment" of US troops in Iraq, as Murtha did in November, Murtha and the Democrats can now suggest that their actions resulted in scaling back troop numbers in combat zones. That is why Albright says that Mr. Murtha "really has changed the discussion." But he did no such thing. He just exploited the obvious for party bragging rights.
Lastly, don't you think it is interesting that during a conversation about the President having misled us all into war, that both Mss. Rehm and Albright mislead us? Does that bother you? Should it bother you?
One last thing: It is amazing that Rehm and Albright never mention the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, signed into law by Mr. Bill Clinton (and supported by Ms. Albright) and eloquently defended by him in this cover letter. Notice that neither the law nor Mr. Clinton is fixated on weapons of mass destruction. Rather, both the law and Mr. Clinton were fixed on "regime change." In typical Wormtongue fashion, Ms. Albright suggests that President Bush has arrived at his conclusions in a vacuum, conclusions that need "explanation." She ignores that President Bush merely inherited the legal Iraq policy drafted during Ms. Albright's tenure in the State Department.
What really needs to be explained is Ms. Albright's shamelessness and her casual sedition.
Contratimes
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment