Remembering The Color Red (repost from 2005)

[Today is Memorial Day, and there is much to remember, and much for which to be grateful. Today is a Thanksgiving Day of sorts, a day of gratitude for heroism, strategic genius, strength, and even death. Not senseless death, not ruthless genius, not heroism based on lies; but the noblest acts of the human spirit, which always manifest themselves in risk and sacrifice.]

You've seen the American flag, thousands of times, or perhaps too many times to count. It's arguably a gaudy piece of fabric, like so many strips of cloth pasted together, with staid geometry. It's the sort of thing a child might make, and hardly the kind of thing one would expect of an artist. Picasso would not come up with such a design, nor would Pollack or Warhol or Wyeth. It's a child's creation, it seems, deliberate and direct. A stick figure of simple ideas.

What are those ideas? Thirteen stripes for thirteen colonies; fifty stars of fifty states floating in a blue field of vigilance, perseverance and justice; white for purity and innocence, red for hardiness and courage.

It's all pretty simple.

But the dominating color of the flag is not justice blue or innocent white; it is the hardy, courageous red, the red of bloodshed, of bloody knuckles, barked shins, and bulleted bodies. It is the red of bellicosity, of fighting heartily and hardily, with courage and pride, for what is blue and white, for the pure and innocent; the vigilant and the just.

It is only sensible that red dominates, as this country is built on the blood of others -- countless, mostly faceless and nameless others -- who fought and died for ideals we are free to mock and rebuke in legal and social safety, if we choose. We are free to live because others freely died; their loss being our gain, and therefore their gain as well.

Any living thing on this planet stands in and is rooted in death, in the bloodshed and battles of life. The giant pines outside my windows grip the earth in their sinewy, rooty grasp, rooted in the life-giving death and decay which is soil. There is no escaping the fact that everything alive is alive because of countless deaths, countless invisible battles for survival. America's ideals stand tall quietly sipping the blood of the buried ages past.

So the flag is red, blood red, and there is no white purity or blue vigilance without that bold, primary color.

Currently, blood, American military blood, is dripping in desert sand in a far-away land. It is being bound and mopped up in pure white gauze with blue vigilance, but it is dripping nonetheless. What comfort is there to the dead and wounded if we, as many Americans do, tell them that we support them as heroes yet the reason for their heroism is stupid or a lie or illegal? What meaning does it give an amputee or quadriplegic or blind soldier, to tell him (or her) that, though honored for losing some part of his life, he did so for deception? What sense is there in such paradox - that a man is a hero for doing the immoral or false thing?

"Oh, I support the troops, I just don't support the war."

It's not unlike telling your child you support his interest in playing baseball, but you just don't support the game. You find the game stupid, immoral, illegal, dishonest -- but -- you support his participation. Yes, you just love your daughter's interest in the cello, you just think the cello and Beethoven and Bach are all lies and abuses of power.

One wonders how such parents can cheer at baseball games, or applaud at the end of cello recitals. Most parenting experts would consider such duplicity bad parenting, sending out the double-binds of mixed messages. It would be considered, undoubtedly, by astute therapists, to even be a form of child abuse.

Consider, though, this possibility to frame an allegedly unjust war. Consider that our soldiers were sent in to battle as antibodies are sent into fight infection; or that they are sent in as scalpels to remove a malignancy. And what if they discover there is no infection or malignancy? Would the doctors who sent them in be considered fools, primarily when all the evidence, and even the patient, point to a considerable problem? Would it all be for naught if the reasons were empty and vain?

No, for the precise reason that when the scalpels opened the patient's body, and the antibodies coursed through her veins, other tumors were discovered and removed, and other infections subdued. Doctors could then be heard telling their patient afterwards, "Well, the scans showed a tumor on your liver and an abscess on your bladder, but when we opened you up, we discovered our mistake: You had a malignancy on your stomach and an abscess on your spleen."

For sure countless folks might be tempted to yell out, "Liars! Cheats! Surgery-mongers! You went in on false pretenses. You fudged the MRI data, you fixed the diagnostics around preconceived ideas!" But they'd be fools.

Today remember what it is that makes protest possible, and what it is that makes Thanksgiving necessary. It's Memorial Day. Remember.

Remember that it is a red day for a reason. And, lest we forget, let us remember too that all the states were red in the very beginning.

Peace.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Barack Obama Faces Fox News' Tough Guy, Part 1

Two nights ago I mentioned that Barack Obama was going to meet face-to-face with Fox News bad guy, Bill O'Reilly; I watched the interview, at least part 1 of it, and this is what I think: I think Barack Obama is eminently likable; as I have said before, I find him delightful in many ways. I don't agree with him on many issues, and I think he has hurt his campaign by his soaring grandiosity and by aiming too high. But I like him, at least the "him" he presents in public. I also think that Bill O'Reilly is truly far more bark than bite; I imagine that he, too, is a very decent fellow. But these thoughts do not matter, really. What matters is what I thought of the interview.

Bill O'Reilly was tough, not pulling punches. In fact, he may have been too tough; I often squirm when I watch him do his thing. And by "too tough" I am not necessarily referring to the actual questions; it's his interruptions, sighs, sneers (though slight) and turnings of the head, and his little incredulous, impatient, skeptical snickers and gestures that come across as too belligerent. But O'Reilly put forward legitimately challenging questions on this segment's theme of national security, and while I loathe his manner (at times) and his presumptuous interruptions in his "I-got-it!" anticipation of his guest's explications, he did his job better than I expected.

And Barack Obama did far better than I expected, too. Perhaps this is success for both men via my low expectations, but I don't think so. I was struck by Sen. Obama's confidence, decency and command. He seemed more amused than flustered. He sounded convinced and convincing.

Yet, he also had his share of unnecessary hand gestures, reaching toward Mr. O'Reilly like a supplicant reaching for alms. But Sen. Obama need not reach out in "listen-to-me-Bill" supplication. And Sen. Obama is a powerfully interesting figure without playing a challenged Bill Clinton to another skeptical Fox journalist, Chris Wallace; those of us familiar with that infamous "Wipe that smirk off your face" interview remember Mr. Clinton's finger wagging and leg-poking as he denied culpability for playing politics with Osama bin Laden, politics that proved fatal. Mr. Obama might not want even to get into Bill O'Reilly's habit† of leaning too far forward, invading people's space in a show of conviction and machismo.

But really it was a great show, and Sen. Obama was very much the star, in a good way. Yes, he did seem to squirm a bit about the effects of the so-called Iraq "surge;" I don't think he'd hurt himself if he would sincerely admit his fallibility about that issue. In fact, I think a direct admission that he was wrong would actually help him. Nevertheless, he was a compelling and composed figure.

I wish, maybe, that Mr. O'Reilly had not done two things. First, I wish he had not backed off so easily on one or two points; he abbreviated a conversation that I thought could have been more fully developed had he edited his own opinions a bit. Second, I believe he was foolish to preface a question about Iraq with the insanity that he thinks -- who cares, Bill? -- that "history" will show the military action of the last 5 years was taken against the "wrong country." This effort to find "common ground" with his guest came across as sycophancy. The preface was also a bit leading, giving Sen. Obama some room to wiggle more comfortably into his "Factor" hot seat. There is no need here to explore Mr. O'Reilly's confidence in history's benevolent verdict on both men's prescience. Suffice it to say the preface seemed gratuitous, precious and very self-adoring.

All in all, both men did very well. I think this episode (the rest of the interview will air over three nights starting Monday) showed that Barack Obama remains a formidable threat to Republican aspirations this fall. I am eager to see how both men fare in subsequent installments.

†Readers familiar with Mr. O'Reilly's show know that he often brings in a "body-language" specialist to help analyze various celebrities' and politicans' postures and gestures. If you click on the image above, you'll see Sen. Obama raising his right hand, which is not necessarily interesting; what IS interesting is Mr. O'Reilly's posture and countenance. Does he look like someone who believes the senator is interesting, or does he look like he believes the senator is full of crap? I think the latter; it was this that made me uncomfortable. And if it makes me, a viewer, uncomfortable, what does it do to a guest? I admit I am no body-language expert, but O'Reilly's posture clearly evokes in me the sense he thinks Sen. Obama is a lightweight. Moreover, we all know that Sen. Obama was prepped by his handlers before appearing with O'Reilly. Surely they knew Mr. O'Reilly loves to analyze body language. Is it reasonable to assume then that Sen. Obama's body movements are not at all native to him; is he leaning forward in a coached manner solely to do well under the body language microscope? "What say you?"

Peace.

©Contratimes/2008. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics: When The Man Deceives: A Video For Destruction (Part 1)

A couple of weeks ago, during a conversation I was having with someone I love, I completely caved in: I crumbled under peer pressure. It is not the sort of thing I confess lightly; there is an element of shame to it all. But confess it I must, because I was lying, not only to my interlocutor, but to myself. 

The topic was Mr. Al Gore. I had made the point that Mr. Gore has built something of a mythology around his life's work: he has pointed out dangers that threaten us all, and yet he, blithely and blindly, is part of those very dangers. If Al Gore warns us of global warming, he does so from the Cannes Film Festival, the yacht-littered theater orgy of the world's richest and most indulgent polluters. If he warns us of corporate control of information, he does so without telling us that he sits† on the boards of Google and CurrentTV, both of which "control" more information in an hour than Rupert Murdoch "controls" in a month or perhaps even in a decade. And if he warns us of the great threat that unreason has on our culture, he does so in a manner that can only be described as fallacious. 

In short, Mr. Gore is a dangerous man. 

But it was exactly that assertion which I denied. I had made a fairly decent case about Mr. Gore's hypocrisy without once referring to his negative and harmful influence on the culture at large; but those listening to me construed that I was averring that Mr. Gore was a man capable of doing much harm. Alas, as quickly as a cocksure disciple slinking past an accuser in a Jerusalem street, I denounced my own convictions. 

Surely, there is no pride in such cowardice. 

Mr. Gore, 1992, Waxing Eloquent About Saddam Hussein

Contratimes readers will know that I have spent much time pointing out that the current war in Iraq is not four-and-a-half years old. It is at least 16 years old. There has not been one second since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait that the United States has not been in political and military strife with Iraq. Moreover, easily forgotten is that it was the Clinton administration that ramped up sanctions and military operations against Saddam Hussein from 1992 through January 2001 (when Messrs. Clinton and Gore left Washington). Lastly, it was during the Clinton administration, and due to Mr. Clinton's perceived abuses of Iraq, that Osama bin Laden issued his infamous 1998 fatwa, the one that led to the 9/11 atrocities. And the media, by and large, are silent about these issues: the media, nearly all of whom are, to some degree, Clinton fans and Gore idolizers, will not permit themselves to see what they helped create.

Now comes an incredible video from YouTube (originally broadcast on C-Span). The time is September 1992. Mr. Gore is the Democratic nominee for vice president; he's on the campaign trail. The video captures him at his pedantic, professorial, condescending best. But what is the topic? That's right: George H. W. Bush, Bush the First, was NOT TAKING SADDAM HUSSEIN SERIOUSLY ENOUGH. Bush the First was capitulating; Bush was weak and duplicitous; Bush was trying to appease a terrorist.

Of course, Al Gore and Bill Clinton would be tough and bold; they would sanction and subdue Saddam Hussein; they would finish the job that should have been completed in the First Gulf War.

In other words, Bill Clinton and Al Gore would stir up a hornet's nest.

I beg you: Watch the video yourself, and then write to me of my cowardly denials. And then write to the world, and tell them that you do not know Al Gore. 

Peace.

†Google is not merely a search engine: Google is also GMAIL, Google News, Blogger and YouTube. Mr. Gore also serves the board of Apple Inc.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

On Politics: The Voice Of Scott Ritter, The Iraq War, And Culpability

Scott Ritter, the former Marine and UN weapons inspector, was in town the other day, and I missed him. But I did not miss his interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio personality and host of "The Exchange." And it was good that I did not miss it, for Mr. Ritter stated something so rarely heard that it is nearly heroic in its startling frankness.

Some readers here know that I have long held that the Iraq War is really -- at the very least -- now 17 years old. The Iraq conflict has roots in the first Bush administration; that administration led a large coalition of military forces into Kuwait and southern Iraq in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Recall that part of the first George Bush's military stategy was to enlist world support by promising that the US and its allies would not enter Baghdad to depose Saddam Hussein. Of course, George Bush the First was defeated by a little known governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, in 1992; that popular Democrat would oversee the bombing of Iraq and enforce the near-draconian economic sanctions against that poor country for 8 years. Besides at least two military operations led against Iraq by President Clinton -- Operation Desert Strike (1996) and Operation Desert Fox (1998) -- President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act (1998), which called for "regime change" in Iraq, and he was the commander in chief when Osama bin Laden issued his death to "all Americans" fatwa, the very fatwa that led to the horrific and devastating attacks of September 11, 2001.

Excuse the history lesson, but it is imperative I repeat all this again -- and again. This morning, for the 1000th time, I read another letter to the editor in which it was stated, with all the pompous certainty of a sage on a cliff-top, that there was no connection at all between Iraq and 9/11. Of course, readers of this blog know that in fact there was a causal connection between those two things - a nation and a fateful day: Osama bin Laden attacked the US on 9/11 for its continued oppression of Iraq. He said so himself.

But that is not what is so enlightening in the refreshing (though incomplete) words of staunch Bush AND Clinton critic Scott Ritter. Unfortunately Ritter fails to make this simple connection between Iraq and 9/11; he is perhaps blinded to it by all the absurd rhetoric proffered by nearly everyone calling themselves liberal or Democrat. Even a couple of days ago, US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), said from the Senate floor -- with all the finality of a renegade scientologist -- that America "in truth, [is] fighting a war with no cause." Cheered as a hero by her fans, Ms. Murray can only receive from me a sighing jeer, for she knows not what she is saying at all. (A war with "no cause?" Perhaps Ms. Murray can enlighten us all to the nuances of her ontological theory on causeless actions as a keynote speaker at the next DNC convention.) Perhaps the blindness of Ms. Murray has blinded more folks than Scott Ritter, but that is beside the point. The point is that Mr. Ritter debunks with one fell swoop the idea that the current Iraq conflict is "Bush's War."

Here is what Mr. Ritter said on Wednesday during a live interview on NH Public Radio. I have transcribed it directly from the NHPR website's podcast feature found at this link. Note that the context is Mr. Ritter's conviction that the United States is poised to begin aerial assaults on key Iranian targets; Mr. Ritter was in New Hampshire promoting his forthcoming book, Target Iran.

[minute 14:16]

Laura Knoy (LK): You said that your concern started under the Clinton Administration. Just briefly, Scott, what were your concerns back then about US Middle East policy?

Scott Ritter (SR): Well, in particular about Iraq, the main concern was that we had a policy of regime change disguised as a policy of disarmament that --

LK: So regime change has been on the books for a while, it’s not just President Bush?

SR: Absolutel-- it’s been, it’s been ingrained in American policy objectives in the Middle East for decades now.

LK: And with Clinton, you said that it was a policy of regime change disguised as inspections. Can you just briefly explain what you mean there, because, again, I don’t think some people would know what the connection is.

SR: After the First Gulf War, the United Nations at the behest of the United States imposed economic sanctions on Iraq that were linked to Iraq’s disarmament obligation. The deal was if Iraq disarmed, the sanctions would be lifted. From an American policy perspective, the sanctions were about the containment and destabilization of Saddam Hussein until which time he could be removed from power. Inspections work if they help push that policy along by showing that Iraq is not in compliance. The danger comes when inspections start to show that Iraq is complying, and that’s what we were starting to do as inspectors; showing that Iraq was disarmed: We [the inspectors] became the threat to US policy. So the US interfered with the inspection process to denigrate what we were doing in order to continue the policy of sanctions-based containment leading to regime change. The Clinton Administration always talked about supporting the inspectors, supporting disarmament, but that wasn’t their policy. Their policy was regime change. The inspections actually became the enemy. We saw this with Bush in Iraq leading up to the war, where we had inspectors on the ground contradicting every piece of information the CIA put out about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. If we were truly concerned about disarmament, we would have let the inspectors do their job. The policy was regime change.

LK: And now make the connection with Iran, again: inspections as a cover for the real goal which was regime change.

SR: It’s the exact same pattern played over again. The case for military intervention is being made based on a weapons of mass destruction-type threat being brought out from Iran, in this case nuclear weapons. We have inspectors on the ground; their reports are published at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s website accessible by everybody. Read the technical reports; the IAEA clearly states that there is no evidence whatsoever coming from their work that sustains the allegations that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program --

[emphasis added, as was link to IAEA]

While Mr. Ritter fails to make the Iraq/bin Laden/9-11 connection I have repeatedly made here, he nevertheless jars the New Hampshire audience with his blunt words: Bill Clinton was NOT trying to appease and contain Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The Clinton theoria was inspections; but its praxis was always regime change. And THAT is why Osama bin Laden issued his death decree to all Americans during Bill Clinton's presidency: Clinton was unduly oppressing the Iraqis not because he wanted them to disarm, but because he wanted something more.

And that is why I believe the revisionists who deny this real and indisputable connection are treasonous. They may love their country -- whatever national ideal it is they adore -- but they are undeniably traitors of the truth.

By the way. When did Scott Ritter resign as a weapons inspector? That's right. In 1998, the year the proverbial crap hit the Clinton fan. And this Wikipedia entry (we are all aware that Wikipedia is not infallible) is great reading, especially in light of current political posturing and campaigning:

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq."

During Ritter's Senate testimony about the inspection process, Senator Joseph Biden [D-MD] stated "The decision of whether or not the country should go to war is slightly above your pay grade." Senator John McCain [R-AZ] later rebutted by stating that he "wished that the administration had consulted with somebody of Ritter's pay grade during the Vietnam War."

The adage is true. You can't make this stuff up at all.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

¶ Of The Day

A new Contratimes feature? Maybe. But today I submit the first ever Paragraph, or ¶, of the Day.

Check this out from today's Washington Post editorial, "Congress's Iraq Quagmire":

ON TUESDAY nearly every member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warmly endorsed Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, and a number wished him success or "Godspeed" in his mission. Yesterday some of the same senators voted for a resolution that opposes the increase of troops for Gen. Petraeus's command -- even though the general testified that he could not accomplish his mission without the additional forces and hinted that such a resolution could encourage the enemy. Such is the muddle of Congress on Iraq: A majority may soon go on record opposing the new offensive in Baghdad even while encouraging the commander who leads it. [Emphasis added solely to incite incredulity everywhere]

Such fun!

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

American Moral Imperialism, And Its Western Allies

Only a fool would try to impose democracy on a backward nation. Only a dunce would attempt to impose Western democratic values on a country steeped in tribal strife. Only idiots would think a place like Iraq could ever be Westernized, even civilized.

But apparently it is sagacious to expect that an Iraqi criminal justice system executes its convicts humanely; it is couth and cool to demand that Iraq accepts that even the death penalty is barbarism.

Oh, the tedium of it all. America is grotesque for attempting to Westernize Iraq; while America's many critics laud themselves for attempting to Westernize Iraq. Once again, I am dulled by paradox. But something an Army major told me only days ago gives me some bearing in the whirling, conflicting rhetoric tossing so many of us to and fro. I will speak of that in a moment.

It is clear that the videotape of Saddam Hussein's hanging makes many of us squirm. The cold and impersonal gallows (the very ones Hussein used to execute prisoners); the chatty guards; the informality and undignified quality of it all; all of these combined to make Western observers faint. "Death with dignity" was not merely tossed aside, it appeared to many observers that Iraqis lack such a moral category.

Ever quick with voice and pen, Western human rights groups swiftly charged that Hussein's hanging was a "war crime." Italy, no doubt influenced by the enclave of the Holy See within its borders, called such violence barbaric, a charge that might be entirely true. But what is striking is that such rhetoric comes from people dripping with Western, even Christian values. These are critics quick to proclaim Iraq a lost cause spiralling into civil, tribal war; a place where Western values cannot be imposed; a place where such values might not ever even simply evolve. And yet Iraq should be more squeamish, less violent; in short, Iraqis should behave like Parisians, Londoners, and San Franciscans.

But lost on too many is the glaring fact that Iraq elected a government, forged a constitution, constructed a judiciary, and held a lengthy trial against Mr. Hussein. True barbarism would not have tolerated this for one second; barbarians would have lopped Mr. Hussein's head -- and perhaps other extremities -- from his body within hours of his capture. Instead, Iraq showed a restraint not often seen in that country for decades; and for this they are rebuked by the morally superior consciences of Europe, Washington, Manhattan.

While enjoying a bonfire at a party two nights before Christmas, I had a conversation with an Army major who had fought in Baghdad during its liberation in 2003. When US military personnel were working security in that city, the major revealed, Iraqis would be caught attempting to steal gas.

"We would take their gas cans and punch holes all through them," the major told me. "We'd tell them that they'd all get gas and there was no need to steal, and then we'd send them on their way. The Iraqis saw us as weak for doing this; but Americans would see this as a sign of strength. But it wasn't strong to the Iraqis at all. They would respect us if we had beaten them for stealing; but then, if we did that, we'd have their respect but not the respect of the people here in the United States. So we were constantly battling between whether we wanted the Iraqis to respect us, or the Americans."

Telling stuff, indeed. What is moral to American and Western sensibilities may be seen as immoral in Iraq; our strength is to them nothing but moral weakness. Moral authority that is couched in grace is not one whit authoritative to many in the Muslim world, or so suggests my friend the major.

But what astonishes me most in all of this is how aggressively the critics of "American imperialism" attempt to export American morality. It is its own form of imperialism. Curiously, either they do not see it as such, or they do not care to see it as such.

I guess it all matters on doing whatever is opposite of George W. Bush and his minions, dunces that they are.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Come Unto Me, All Ye Who Are Heavy Laden (with explosives), And I Will Give You Rest

They are neighbors. They pass each other on the street; they breath the same dusty air. And yet … and yet.

This morning, a large crowd -- men and boys searching for work -- gathers together to fight despair, anxieties subsiding a bit in such company. There is strength in numbers, target strength.

Suddenly, a wave of optimism, some cheering, some shouts of incredulity. Hope. "Follow me, I'll hire you!" The group moves this way, then that. Men press forward to get a chance at something. They gather round a minivan, a truck. Some get in.

"Yes! Yes! I have work for you! I will hire you. Come, come closer."

In a sadistic suicide flash, 60 people are dead. Over 200 are wounded. Shiites, the poorest, lay bleeding in a Baghdad street, their ears deafened by the sound of more bad news. All in a day's work.

These are the people we all hope to help in a very different way than the man with the van full of lies. Sadly, near yet another crater in the ground, day laborers will indeed gather for work, their compensation coming in bits of flesh. They pray for peace with their neighbor and yet only find a piece of their neighbor.

It is, really, a job that cannot possibly be done in a day.

(Today, prayers for lost sons, husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, daughters, and hope.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Baghdad, Suicide bomber, Peace, Day laborers, Iraq

Weapons Of Miss Direction

New Orleans, Biloxi, the coast of Alabama. We think of you today. Blessings.

Miss Cindy Sheehan, whose personal life spins toward the soap opera-esque, has begged our attention, suggesting that people who support the fight in Iraq are "brainwashed." It is hardly an original observation she has offered. The "brainwashed" are everywhere: in churches, synagogues and mosques; on blogrolls and FoxNews; at NASCAR races and Toby Keith concerts; at symposiums on Intelligent Design.

But Miss Sheehan's observation is also reminiscent of something I would often urge my friends (and some students) to do when in the heat of a debate: Always be the first one to say "Well, I prefer to keep an open mind," thus securing for yourself a swift victory in the art of polemics. No one loses ANY argument if one secures the "high ground" of intellectual openness. Similarly, Miss Sheehan's observation is actually not so much an insult as it is a compliment–to herself. For she tacitly declares herself a member of the cognoscenti, the enlightened and clear-minded, the illuminati. The rest of us, well, we're just doltish cadavers with White-Housewashed brains, plodding like zombies toward the abyss. In contrast, if she is not all-knowing, she is at least complete and total in her understanding of foreign policy, war, and the clash of civilizations. All this with a round of applause from the prophet of perspicacity himself, Al Sharpton!

Of course, Miss Sheehan really wants us to lose our focus: she does not want us to look at the causes of the war; she wants us to look at the causes of her grief. And the causes of her grief are what she dismisses as the "false causes" of the war (see, she knows THE truth) which led to her son's death (who reenlisted for a return to Iraq, by the way, brainwashed as he was). That is why her question to President Bush–What "noble cause" did my son die for?– is so painful for her: Her mental advantage over the rest of us has determined that there is nothing for which her son died that could be considered noble. Her question to the president, in fact, is not really a question, as she has already found her answer. It is a rebuke, a declarative statement oozing with contempt and hostility: President Bush is a maker of zombies.

You of course already know the "causes" that are "false": weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's threat, Iraq's connection to 9/11, etc. Of course, each of these is viewed as false in the most logically fallacious way: If there is WMD, we will find them. We did not find them, THEREFORE there never were any WMD. It's like saying if there is a moon, I will see it when I look at the sky. I do not see the moon at this moment, therefore someone is lying about the moon. You see, the deficiency is not necessarily with the president and his minions. The deficiency may very well be with his critics. Their deficiency is due to a certain lack of humility; they lack healthy uncertainty.

So, in light of all this, I've spent some time just looking at the history of WMD inventories from Iraq. During my perusal, I discovered this interesting tidbit: in the mid-90s it was learned that prisoners were taken from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison (have you heard of that place?) and taken to facilities where chemical and biological weapons were tested on those prisoners. (Hillary Clinton referred to the US's prisoner abuses at the that facility as "atrocities". I wonder what word she'd use to describe the use of humans as lab rats?) [see entry for June-August 1995]

Anyhow, that tidbit is worth mentioning, considering how sensitive the left is about such bad things. But I also found interesting the inventory reports submitted throughout the 1990's (I believe there were five) provided by the Iraqi government which listed chemical and biological weapons, and agents for mixing such weapons, in quantities measured in thousands of metric tons. The Iraqis themselves (these are not the reports of "failed intelligence agencies" but Iraq officials, for you sceptics out there) declared that they had manufactured VX nerve gas (some reports say liters, others 4 to 400 tons), mustard gas, and other such pleasantries. (See the list near bottom of this link.)

And then of course there are the UNSCOM reports of inspectors personally destroying or witnessing the destroying of vast parts of Iraq's inventories; and that much of the inventories' whereabouts or alleged destruction could not be verified. From the same reports, one comment (among many) stands out:

"...Iraq's basic declarations of its holdings and capabilities in prohibited weapons areas have never been "full, final or complete", as required by the Council. Further, Iraq's failure to provide all of the materials and evidence required to fill in the gaps left by those declarations and its acts of unilateral destruction have significantly obfuscated the situation.

... If the Commission is to enter such reports credibly, where prohibited weapons have existed, it must be able to verify positively that they have been destroyed, removed or rendered harmless. Where items and facilities for the potential manufacture or constitution of such weapons existed or exist, it must be able to verify negatively that prohibited weapons are not being created. This is the standard that was envisaged by the Security Council and is the standard routinely applied in all comparable disarmament and arms control regimes." UNSCOM REPORT, APRIL 1998

Add to this the blatantly bizarre behavior of Saddam Hussein–welcoming inspectors promising full access, then shutting them out, and then his expulsion of just the American inspectors–and an objective observer must rationally conclude that WMDs were part of the Hussein arsenal. How else to explain to an outsider a leader who would permit the devastation of his regime and much of his country by an adversary who has given him 13 years to come clean and avoid conflict? Mere political posturing, mere bravado?

What I am saying is this: The outrage at the lack of WMD repeatedly voiced by critics of the war is demonstrably fallacious, and intentionally disregards history. When Iraq admits to WMD, when it submits inventories to the UN and those inventories are largely confirmed by inspectors (not always), then a logical person concludes that Iraq possesses WMD. That they no longer do possess them is irrelevant.

Of course, the other "false pretext" on which the war is allegedly based was that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. But, curiously, he demonstrably was a threat. Even on the most superficial level he was a threat to world peace. For when a regime gives the middle finger to international law (all the while promising compliance), ignoring 17 UN resolutions and corrupting a nobly-intentioned Oil-For-Food program, then the world is threatened. Why? Because it spits on international law, treating it like so much toothless nonsense. Moreover, Hussein's caprice destabilized the region: Does anyone believe Israel felt comfortable with Iraq being "governed" by such a double-minded man? And does anyone believe that Israel would be pulling out of the Gaza Strip with Hussein still in power in Iraq? Well, I don't believe it for a second.

Lastly, regarding the connection of Iraq and 9/11, I've already addressed that in Mr. President, What About This Draft?

It is evident that opposing the war is no longer a moral duty. It's become a sort of brand loyalty, even a commodity traded for commercial gain. People are circling around Miss Sheehan for financial gain and political notoriety; swirling in the maelstrom of book deals, magazine interviews, movie rights, radio and TV ratings. Soon, the tide will turn for or against the war depending on which viewpoint generates the most cash for vendors, publishers and ad agencies, though, as it stands, I am sure plenty of economic energy is generated in the heat-engine that is the Sheehan sideshow, with opposing sides entrenched against one another. But like Hurricane Katrina, this story will begin to break apart, finally drizzling out over New England. News crews will travel home, publishers will reconvene, and the next great moment will be awaited, signs and microphones and computer graphics in hand.

But right now, a huge portion of the media and its audience are being directed by a mother whose grief and anger are pointing in all the wrong directions; by a mother who wants to direct the president, and the country, on how to conduct a war on terrorism. Grief is horrible to observe; even harder to endure. But grief is not entitled to tyrannize either the news or the government. It is entitled to speak, to mourn, to wail and even scream. But it is not an oracle offering advice out of a morass (particularly an alleged one). Yes, praise the democracy where such voices are heard, respected, even highlighted. But woe to that country that succumbs to the manipulations of grief, elevating it beyond its proper place. For there are other, equally viable emotions, full of force and inspiration. For instance, what of a father's pride in his son's death while in valiant battle? Where are the TV crews and magazine reporters camped out with Miss Sheehan's soon-to-be ex-husband? Are not his emotions worth noting, worth bringing to the President's attention, worth reporting in order to inform the public about war?

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.