Well, and I have read the speech Our Only President gave last night, and I tried, I really did, to come up with a way to analyze the rhetoric of it. It's clearly a bad speech, a defensive speech, and his attempts to make the audience share his assumptions (or his pretended assumptions) were crude and forced. The links between those assumptions and his policy statements were even more forced, in part because YHB is aware, as everybody must be aware, that the new policy is crap on stilts. You can read about the texture of the crap, the height of the stilts, the length of time we can expect the crap to stay up on the stilts before it comes down on our heads, you can read all that elsewhere, and I really have nothing to say about all that that you, Gentle Reader, do not already know. And I find it depressing to say it all again. Even a chorus of agreement from my Gentle Readers, a show of solidarity and support and sympathy, would be overwhelmed by the tedious task of smelling Our Only President's shit, and reminding myself that he really is the only president we've got, and the only one we'll have for another two years.
Well.
I did note that the speech as it was written did not, as had been floated earlier in the week, call for sacrifice on the part of Americans. He did not look at our young people and say "I want YOU to join the military". He did not tell us that we would fight them, if we had to, on the beaches, and in the shopping malls, and on the turnpikes. He did say that "Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." He said the consequences of that failure were "clear", but then only vaguely evoked those consequences, mostly by suggesting that "Radical Islamic extremists" (unlike the moderate extremists, or the radical moderates, or the extremely radical moderate moderates) would replicate the World Trade Center attacks.
I hate to say this, but in service of being a blogger, I will say the outrageous thing that I actually believe: I would rather have another 3,000 Americans slaughtered by terrorists than have another 3,000 Americans die in combat. If I had a time machine and a preposterous debate-round choice, I would rather not have invaded Iraq even if it meant there would be another terrorist attack, even one as flukily successful as the one on September 11, 2001. Even if it killed me. You want sacrifice? There it is. I would rather fight them in the streets of San Francisco than in the streets of Baghdad, because if we fight terrorists that come to our streets, we can beat them, even while we are dying. In Iraq, we kill the wrong people and we die and we lose. It isn't me over there, and I'll never have the preposterous debate-round choice, so it's all easy for me to say, but it seems obvious that it would be better for the country and the world for us to have suffered a series of terrible bombings than to have ruined Iraq.
The one thing that I think is successful about this speech is the thing that I noted as worst about it. It doesn't ask us for anything. It doesn't ask us to pay for the war in money, or in our own blood, or even in scrap metal. It asks us to do nothing. It combines vague threats about the World with confusing details about tactics (and we are not experts in tactics), to the ultimate effect of making us shrug or spit or sigh and go about our business.. Nobody's going to think that Our Only President has at last come up with a Good Plan, but it's clear that nothing in the plan is going to change our lives (those of us who are not already in military families, that is). Then he brings up some more vague bullshit about politics, giving the impression that all this is going to be talked to death anyway, and we don't have to worry about it, and can go back to bed. It asks us for nothing, and we give him nothing, and so he gets what he wants. Victory.
Look, the President of the United States is in charge of our foreign policy, and our wars, and that's how it is. All we can do about it is get rid of him and all his advisors the next time an election comes around. Or nearly all. Sometimes, in war, a nation's citizens are called upon to actually do something, to enlist or purchase war bonds or leave their jobs to build airplanes and tanks, to grow victory gardens or hang blackout curtains or practice emergency evacuations. And then we do it, or we don't do it, and we can tell from our own reactions and our neighbors' whether we are in this war or not. It's clear from the surveys that we're not, but then, we were never asked to be. Our Only President speaks like a dictator, telling his subjects what the world is like but not asking for our participation or our approval, and because he does not ask, we do not refuse. So the President sends the soldiers (who are already in the army, mostly, and are not therefore to be asked) to maim and be maimed, and we go to the grocery store and buy something for dinner.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus:,
-Vardibidian.
King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away…
so what if i say, you can go back in time and change your vote or change a million votes, but you can’t change the course of this. 9/11 wasn’t meant to play like armageddon but like you said that’s how it came out.
this resulted from the combination of (a) an incredibly loud provocation from the guerrillas in the woods, (b) a gang of numbskulls who still believe the only solution to organized violent crime is multi-state martial law, and (c) another gang of numbskulls whose only answer to oil availability questions is “get more.”
i don’t know what we were supposed to do or what we could do to stop it. not that people who were nervous about WMDs or false info on 9/11 connections were going to be talked out. i mean, absent those factors, could these people — who base much thinking on “what went wrong” with vietnam, watergate, containment, and the oil embargoes — have been talked out of making the mideast safe for democracy.
this was exactly the group of people in congress and the white house that a provocateur would want. uninterested in doing the day-to-day security business beforehand; politically and philosophically motivated to respond with asymmetric stupidity afterward.
we’ll never know if the iraqis were screwed with or without 9/11. they certainly got the worst possible occupation out of the deal.
Interesting and powerful entry. I have a few incoherent thoughts/notes/comments:
1. A lot of people would say that the distinction between Americans dying in Iraq and Americans dying in SF is that the former are military, while the latter are civilians. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with that distinction–I would rather nobody was being killed at all–and of course it’s a problematic distinction in a guerrilla war (I just saw the Schoolhouse Rock piece about the American Revolution last night; funny how terminology and attitude changes depending on whether the guerrillas are on our side or not), and of course lots of Iraqi civilians are getting killed these days. But the military/civilian distinction does have a big place in the national discourse on this sort of topic. (And since my mind is wandering this morning, I’ll note that it’s interesting that people who kill police officers are likely to be judged more harshly than those who kill civilians, while people who kill soldiers are likely to be judged less harshly.)
2. the President of the United States is in charge of our foreign policy, and our wars, and that’s how it is–except for the power of the purse. It’s my understanding (though I could be wrong) that it is within the power of our Congress to refuse to fund the latest expansion. But the only Congressperson I’ve heard say that they should take that step is Senator Russ Feingold; the others in Congress appear to be aware that cutting funding would make them look bad politically. All we can do about it is get rid of him and all his advisors the next time an election comes around. If you want the expansion plan not to happen, why not call your senators (and representatives? I’m a little unclear on who controls the funding) and ask them to vote against funding? The President is not a dictator (whether or not he would like to be); there is a separation of powers, there are checks and balances; if you want a change, you don’t have to wait two years to start pushing for that change. One question for our elected officials is: do you care more about ending the war in Iraq and bringing our soldiers home, or do you care more about you and your party being in power after the 2008 elections?
3. I was struck by one thing in particular about the speech, which I haven’t read but which I’ve seen excerpts of: a bunch of news articles lauded Bush for finally apologizing and/or taking responsibility for problems. I was struck by the careful avoidance phrasing of even that: “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” Not “I have made mistakes”; not even “We have made mistakes, and they were my responsibility.” But “Where mistakes have been made”–passive voice, barely acknowledging that the mistakes even exist–“the responsibility rests with me”–suggesting to me (though I may be reading too much into this) that he’s shouldering responsibility even though he feels it’s not really his fault. At least he didn’t say “If mistakes have been made.” But I suppose even shouldering responsibility for mistakes is more than he’s managed in the past, so it’s a good step.
While I’m on the rhetoric, I’ll note that I’m fascinated by the “Author of Liberty” bit, which TSOR suggests was introduced (as a Bush phrase) in his second inaugural address but I missed it there. The phrase also appears in verse 4 of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (1831), a verse I’ve either never heard or never noticed. A 1946 book suggests that the phrase dates back to the Founding Fathers, but I’m not finding an 18th-century reference to the phrase–anyone know?
…I see I was rather elliptical about that staying-in-power bit. Part of the background for that is the following line of thought:
1. If the Democrats in Congress don’t manage to improve things in Iraq by the time of the 2008 election, then it’ll be harder for them to convince the American people that Democrats are more likely to improve things in Iraq than Republicans.
2. However, if things don’t improve in Iraq by the time of the 2008 election, but Democrats can convincingly say “Our hands were tied; it’s that bad Republican President who kept things bad there,” that may sound pretty compelling to the American public. (Similarly, I can imagine scenarios in which Republican Presidential candidates might say “I wanted to do x in Iraq, but those Democrats in control wouldn’t let me.”)
3. On the other side, cutting funding to soldiers sounds bad to the American public, no matter what the reasoning or ideals or goals behind it. I suspect that any Presidential candidate in 2008 who can be asked the question “Why did you cut funding for our troops in Iraq?” will have a hard time getting elected.
4. Nobody seems to have a really good plan for actually making thing better in Iraq. (I say we should carpet-bomb the country with food! And movies! And computer games! And porn! Make love, not war! Um. Okay, maybe not.)
5. Therefore, all Congresspeople (from all parties), and especially those with Presidential ambitions, have a vested interest in not appearing to have any control/power over what goes on in Iraq, so that they can use point 2’s “It wasn’t my fault” argument.
But maybe I’m being too cynical about all this. I imagine there are Congresspeople who aren’t taking this cynical an approach, who do believe that there’s still a chance that we can fix things in Iraq (for all I know, they’re right), and/or that we can at least pull most of the American troops out before the 2008 elections.
nobody has a really good plan for actually making things better in iraq because there is no way to force improvements or even posit that improvements have better odds than regression.
james fallows:
So the choice is between a terrible decision and one that is even worse. The terrible decision is just to begin leaving, knowing that even more innocent civilians will be killed and that we’ll be dealing with agitation out of Iraq for years to come. The worse decision would be to wait another year, or two, or three and then take that terrible course. If we thought a longer commitment and presence would lead to a better outcome, then the extra commitment might be sensible. But nothing occurring in Iraq in the last year has given rise to any hope that things are getting better rather than worse.
along with withdrawal what we have to offer to take some heat off is a few things.
1. we will not interfere with the country’s right to make its own oil contracts. ha.
2. we will not accept or reject fairly elected local governments based on our regional goals. if iraqis don’t want to fight “alongside” us in our little adventure, they don’t have to. double ha.
3. on top of that, we will not attempt to use any part of iraq as a launch pad for further military actions in the mideast. triple ha.
4. we will not, under any circumstances, intentionally arm one group against another. if we stay, it will be specifically to disarm all parties equally. we will not do a controlled burn, or threaten it for the purpose of offering points 1–3 in such a way that they must be refused. at this point i can’t even laugh anymore.
the bush-cheney people are about as far away from giving a crap about what happens to people in iraq as you can get. debates in congress will make not a lick of difference. to cheney and kissinger, there is no leaving. there is only the pot of rainbow gold where americans can make peace with staying there forever. some configuration of fear and acceptance that works.
one last thing, that i forgot. the reference to watergate in my first comment meant this.
the bush-cheney people are ready and willing to throw iraqis on the fire to prove that the president doesn’t have to listen to either the congress or the public with regard to foreign or domestic policy.
they are itching for this constitutional showdown and they are totally willing to hold the populations of iraq, afghanistan and iran hostage to defend nixon’s honor.
this means that the primary goals of ownership of oil and philippines/okinawa-style military command centers are not debatable. nothing about goals are debatable. say what you want about how the social aspects of the war are carried out, because to them civilian lives are a social component, not a military component. the end goals of owning and operating the country are the executive’s to set.
if they can be talked out of it, the only way they will accept changing their minds is if it guarantees that the presidency never has to compromise its goals in the future. this is undesirable.
iraqis are screwed. we have to leave.
Much to discuss. I’ll focus for a moment on Jed’s No. 2, from his first comment. It’s true that the Congress has the power of the purse, but it’s not necessarily true that they can withhold funding for one specific military endeavor. They could refuse to pass an emergency spending bill that was designed to fund a particular endeavor, but the White House has indicated that they won’t send such a bill, that they’ll essentially move money they already have budgeted to fund the escalation, and then ask for more money in the next general military budget (surprise!). The Congress would have to pass an emergency reduction of funds, which the executive could use to reduce other military spending, rather than the escalation. I think that would be bad policy, in addition to being bad politics.
It is true that our Democratic Congress could do a couple of things that would increase the pressure on Our Only President. They could repeal the initial Authorization and pass a new one that had certain explicit limits. That’s my preference. Of course, as hibiscus points out, the adminstration would almost certainly refuse those limits, which might lead to a constitutional crisis. Good. To extend hibiscus’ point, the most important thing the Congress could do at this point is to bring the issue of the unitary executive to the front, and make that a voting issue in the next set of elections, as well as establish precedents for future presidents and congresses.
The other thing they should do, simultaneously, is to agressively pursue hearings about the conduct of the war and its inception, establishing oversight and quite likely bringing the imperial executive issue to a head on another track (to mix metaphors).
Ideally, of course, this sort of thing would actually influence the President’s actions. I ain’t hopeful. I had a conversation recently that referred to the Baker-Hamilton group as a sort of embassy from America to the White House, to open diplomatic relations in order to bring them to the negotiating table and ultimately come to a reasoned compromise. He pissed on that report. I don’t think that Our Only President will listen to any kind of appeal at this point, and since the Congress cannot actually order a brigade to come home, there isn’t that much they can do.
The good thing, really, when you think about it, is that when through one chance or another, somebody like this takes over our government, he cannot stay in power for long. It’s almost like Mr. Madison expected something like this to happen.
Thanks,
-V.
The good thing, really, when you think about it, is that when through one chance or another, somebody like this takes over our government, he cannot stay in power for long. It’s almost like Mr. Madison expected something like this to happen.
Well, yes. Though I go back and forth on whether this Administration actually intends to cede power at the end of Our Only President’s second four-year term. That’s one reason (among many) why I would like to see hiim removed from office sooner, because that would more emphatically stress the President’s accountability to the American people through our duly elected representatives in Congress.
*sigh*
I started to write something. I deleted it. Instead, I ask, could the speech have been improved by iambic pentameter? Perhaps you could do a quick re-write for us-your-fans?