Like Some Vortex
I seem irresistably drawn to the blog of neo-neocon. She and I started jotting our thoughts at roughly the same time (post 9/11) and for many of the same reasons. I was irritated by an article by leftist Norm Geras, whose thesis was essentially that the attack "changed everything". Neo-neocon was of the same opinion ( she experienced a "conversion" from pathetic liberal to even more pathetic conservative) and Norms mention of her blog in his well- read blog in effect "launched" her into a fairly popular venue. (Sure Im jealous, but I deal with it) On the other hand , Norms response to my critique was to banish me , to refuse to engage (I was perhaps a trifle personal) and so it goes.
With the war going to shit, Bush's popularity free falling and all the general corruption and incompetency of her new found ideological soul mates, she has lately taken to talking about the weather, old literature, flowers, anything but how wrong about EVERYTHING she has been for two years. When she does go back to the issues, such as apologia about Iraq, it is with inanities like : "we had to try to see whether we could get something decent going in the region." This really condenses and summarizes so much of this banal, yet monstrous way of thinking. First do you get the "we"? Do you see how the " had to try" just drips with blood and sorrow and crushed bone? Does the "something decent" make you want to shake her, to force her to read some real history rather than the pablum she sucks up like a kitten on a teat?
Without her support and the support of fools like her , this insane bloodletting might have been averted, or at least minimized. The intellectualizing , the abstract theorizing and arm chair quarterbacking is not harmless .The blood, the red ,sticky kind, is on her hands. When she prays at night she needs to ask forgiveness for enabling, condoning , and actively supporting the very real violence and bloodshed and mutilation and chaos which is it's result. Of course when I express my feelings on her site she and her acolytes and syncophants react with self-righteous indignation. They are immune. Safe within their shells.
posted by troutsky @ 6:48 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
It will be interesting to see what happens when people start admitting exactly how wrong we were in Iraq.
I think people are slowly beginning to figure it out, but there's always that aura of defense that lingers. "But it was a noble goal." Yes, and it was also a foolish one, that fit within no standard of justice. The Communists in Russia and China also had a noble goal; I don't think we should let them off the hook either.
Let the neo-cons hang--metaphorically speaking of course. If I ever hear the name of the most deluded idealogy in the world again it will be too soon.
I don't personally hang with any Stalinists or Maoists, and couldn't really characterize their apologetics for the monstrous violence and injustice committed during those regimes.I suppose they have the usual excuses.They are of little interest to me. But the history of rapid economic advancement, from fuedalism to industrial made possible by strict authoritarianism and in such a quick spasm was bound to have negative effects.
When will we reach a national consensus on the senseless slaughter of Viet Nam? Will conservatives ever admit the "dominoe theory" was as intellectually impoverished as the rest of their ideology? I remember one of the saddest things I ever saw was an interview of a Viet Nam vet talking about his disgust at realizing he had been chumped, fighting a war even the ruling class knew was a debacle.
Unfortunately the "decent left," provided more intellectual justification for Iraq's war, than the administration.
When people like Norm, Hitchens etc talk of the war, they are never describing the war on the ground. For example in their world, Kurdish statehood matters to the US.
Certainly many fell victim to the " humanitarian internationalism" rational, despite the overwhelming evidence that disaster was the much more likely outcome of intervention.They permit human rights discourse to short circuit their reasoned distrust of the state. We should always keep in mind this quote from Michael Ledeen, holder of the 'Freedom Chair" at the American Enterprise Institute (quoted in Harpers June 03) "Every ten years orso the US needs to pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." Business.
It's a fascinating and deeply disturbing tribe over at neo-neocon.
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