The Times continues the Iraq revision fun
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I recently wrote about Thomas Friedman’s cute interpretation of the Iraq war. Basically, Dubya was right, and even though Saddam didn’t have any weapons, Iraqis got to vote in an election, so everything evens out. And even if one argues it doesn’t really “even out,” per se, that’s a matter for historians to settle, and anyone who says otherwise is a shrill, extremist liberal hippie.
Now, Ross Douthat is joining the revisionist action. Specifically, the new Matt Damon film, “Green Zone,” has given him a case of the vapors because the film casts the administrative actions of misusing and disregarding intelligence, which led the US into war, in a negative light.
Things are just more complex than all that. “The narrative of the Iraq invasion, properly told, resembles a story out of Shakespeare,” writes Douthat. But here, he appears to be conflating the complexity of the war’s players with the initial Grand Lie itself.
There are no shades of gray when it comes to the Bush administration’s lie that Saddam had WMDs. Douthat tries his damnedest to “complex-up” the ether: Nothing was the same after 9/11, Dubya didn’t know what he was doing, George H.W. let things “fester” in the Middle East too long, Saddam was a real bad guy!
That doesn’t change the fact that the lie is a lie, and a bad thing. Trying to rationalize the Saddam-Al Qaeda link postmortem is called revisionism. And it’s not — as Douthat writes — “reductionism” or “glib scapegoating” to hold public officials accountable for their actions, particularly when they are the illegal actions of the Bush administration. “Bush lied, people died” isn’t just a catchy slogan. It’s the truth.
Douthat confuses this non-complexity with the real complexity of human participants in wars. Soldiers themselves are not monoliths, and he uses the characters in “The Hurt Locker” to portray his point. (It’s weird he’s using two fictional films to make his point as opposed to interviewing real-life people, but for the sake of sticking with the film theme, I’m playing along).
“The Hurt Locker” was praised for showing soldiers as complex human beings simultaneously capable of great weakness and strength. I agree with Douthat that this portrayal is a good thing — a realistic thing.
But the “micro” of the soldier’s experience is not the same as the “macro” of the war itself. The bad and good emotions of individual soldiers don’t exist on the same plain as the facts that there were no WMDs, the Nigerian uranium documents are forgeries, there is no link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, but Rummy just liked the Iraq targets better than the Afghanistan ones, and Chalabi was (and forever will be) full of shit.
It’s important to stress that Iraq is not simply a “tragedy” as Douthat claims. There are very specific people to blame. These people are not hapless players in some Shakespearean play. They lied about very specific things in order to serve their own agenda. As a result, thousands of US soldiers have died, and a million Iraqis have been maimed, killed, or displaced. These liars are criminals. They should be put on trial, but that probably won’t happen.
Douthat depicts the belief that bad people should be punished for illegal actions as some kind of primitive belief in the Devil and pure evil. The opposite is actually true. Those that believe in the law and the justice system are the ultimate rationalists. Douthatites are the ones living in a world of chaos where there is no good or evil — just complexities that are too dense to understand or accurately condemn.
Apparently, depicting these Grand Lies as a bad thing, robs art of its humanity, or some bullshit Douthat desperately tries to cram between the margins.
Hollywood’s inability to handle political complexity plays only a small part in our ongoing polarization.
Thanks a lot, Hollywood. Thanks for the Forever Wars, and the stalled health care, and the social spending cuts, and the crumbling infrastructure, too.
I have no idea why we elected a bunch of yuppy film people to run this country. What the hell were we thinking?
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On a separate note, this article about how a DoD official set up a network of private contractors to help track and kill suspected militants again illustrates my point that some state operations just shouldn’t be outsourced to the private sector. I was going to write about this, but then — ya’ know — I saw Douthat’s shitty article.
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Excellent piece.
“…If properly told.”?
Will the people ever tire of pasty trolls like Rove and this pudgy bastard? What’s really great is that the W apologists like Doubthat never seem to realize that they’re giving themselves away when they talk about fictional treatments of our misguided invasions and occupations.
Folks like Doubthat, BoBoBrooks and Mall of America heir Freed-Man have cultural ownership the fantasies that have brought displacement, death and destruction to millions. They really believe Ronald Reagan was a great man.
It only stands to reason that they would be far more concerned about the fictional treatment of their fantasy-world in Hollywood than they would any real-world fallout from the application of their ideology.
Thank God for Frank Rich.
The thing is, of course, that over the past few decades, the theatre of politics has aggressively moved towards becoming what it is today – just plain ol’ theatre, no real politics required. Think the PR and showmanship in politics ends when the ballot boxes close? If you’re reading this site, then no, that’s unlikely.
But it still pays to remember that the story of the Iraq war (it has had two ‘Acts’, you might say, but not really two separate wars, since we never stopped bombing the shit out Iraq after we ‘left’ the first time) has been orchestrated from day one by top-level politicians following a pre-written script which has allowed them to drum up enthusiasm and bloodlust in the public slowly and deliberately, foreshadowing the coming war so cleverly that the illusion of debate was allowed for, but the end result guaranteed from day one. Forged documents and other sleight-of-hand is all just part of the show.
And then, when we invaded Iraq again this most recent time, boy did it ever turn out to be a show! “Embedded reporters” following a strict military-dictated routine regarding when and where they would report, and regarding what ‘facts’. Ooooh, the drama! The suspense! The lovingly-lingering shots of drones picking off their targets! And we didn’t even need to go to the cinema and pay for a 3D, Surround Sound experience – this show was free to watch, live, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the comfort of your living room! Talk about getting a bang for your taxpayer buck!
And don’t expect things to change too much in this “post-Obama” age – all these little psychological trickeries, these revisions, are just our little “last year in Iraq” catchup before the new episode starts. Thanks to our cast of shit-eating newstainment broadcasters and publishers, we have a fine array of shrill voices eager to pander to your political convictions about whatever is happening right now, from Glenn Beck right through to Jon Stewart, and these clowns writing for the Times can proudly take their small place among the motley crew. The main thing is that whatever your sense of justice and morality might be, there will be a devillish jester happy to play into that, giving you the illusion that you as an individual can sit back and nod along as they spout their wise opinions, and play no other active part in the process, except maybe to buy the car being advertised after every second or third back-slapping rant.
Because we’re happy little consumers, aren’t we? Are you a liberal? Then stay off Obama’s back, he’s got enough to deal with, those crazy teabaggers and birthers et al. Conservative? Join the 9.12 project! Think you really truly love your country? LOVE HARDER!!
Just for goodness sake, don’t step out of line, call bullshit, and actually, y’know, try to achieve something. That is SOOO not in the script.
Well written piece!! I am just amazed that these criminals are still walking free! It’s bad enough that they lied to us, ignored our constitution, and needlessly sent troops into combat but they also broke international law. If Eric Holder and company don’t have the courage to prosecute these crimes I hope somebody outside of the US will. They/we were wrong and criminal and somebody needs to make that fact official.
I liked your piece a lot. I think it illustrates how conservatism got mutated under the neoconservative banner and the Bush doctrine. When the did the ends ever justify the means? And how could one honestly accept them as a rational for our behavior after the fact? It’s repulsive. So while there are many battles here, not the least of which is the battle for history. What interests me is the battle for conservative thought, I hope to read more from you in that regard.
Ms. Kilkenny,
I really like Mr. Douthat Shakespearean Tragedy motif. What does not tell us is which of Mr. Shakespeare’s tragedies this story resembles. My first thought was McBeth. A noble man is mislead by the lies (or should I say misinterpreted intelligence) of three witches (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condaleeza Rice). Following their intelligence he embarks on a foolish and bloody campaign resulting in death and destruction leading to tragedy for all. But it all evens out because Scotland gets a new and better King (Malcolm (or Obama?)).
Thinking some more, I suppose it is possible that he meant Richard III. here a the son of king dreams of coming to power himself despite the fact he is in fact unworthy of rank and his brother was groomed for the job. He then builds a chain of lies to bring himself to power but this results in reign of terror where the rights and lives of everyone who stands in his path are trampled upon and war and chaos ensue resulting tragedy for all. On the bright side England gets a better king (Henry VII).
There other possibilities is of course Lear, the story of a foolish ruler whose poor decisions cast his kingdom into tragedy and turmoil. Othello is another possibility, a “War President” who is deceived by his advisers and commits foolish and tragic decisions resulting in death and sadness. All of these could easy encompass the tale of the War of the Iraqs, if “properly told”.
The Iraq War is indeed a tale “properly told” by Mr. Douthat, full of sound and fury, tragedy but signifying a happy ending with new and better rulers sitting upon the thrown.
One day a bird flew over and crapped on my shoulder. That’s what worries me. If Friedman, Douthat and their moral relativist flock ever get wings this kind of crap will be raining down everywhere.
the neo-CONS fought democracy every step of the way. See Greg Palasts armed madhouse for more on this.