There lies a thin line between loftiness and outright madness. Sometimes the best ideas blossom from the most dysfunctional of minds. In the case of Iraq, we are clearly getting the short end of the stick. Mark Danner, in The New York Review of Books, has written, in my opinion, the definitive essay on the disastrous thinking that brought us the Iraq war. It’s about a month old, but I highly recommend it nonetheless.

While he thoroughly documents the horrible decisions that landed us where we are today, what caught my eye was the utterly flawed and self-serving thought process that was the driving force behind them (via War and Piece).

If the sober consideration of history and facts stood in the way of bold action then it would be the history and the facts that would be discarded. The risk of doing nothing, the risk, that is, of the status quo, justified acting. Given the grim facts on the ground—the likelihood of a future terrorist attack from the “malignant” Middle East, the impossibility of entirely protecting the country from it—better to embrace the unknown. Better, that is, to act in the cause of “constructive instability”

Now back up for a second. Take this concept out of the context of the Iraq war and look at it on its own. This, in a nutshell, is George Bush’s year 2000 admonition of the Baby Boomer generation turned on its head. Apply it to any of the of the conscious-shocking events that have been carried out in the name of national security over the last six years. False arrest, torture, indefinite detention, humiliation, lies, murder, defamation, bigotry.

Many of the people that have proposed, exalted and defended these bad acts have claimed that they do so for the good of the country. But as the quote above clearly illustrates, the real desire driving these policies is a personal one. A need to do something, right or wrong, in order to reclaim some sense of stolen pride. They’ve flipped over the Monopoly board and now tell us they did it for our own good.

As 2006 comes to a close, we find ourselves at a crossroads. The country is clearly dissatisfied with the results of this new “If it feels good, do it” approach to national security, but have we fully absorbed the perniciousness of the childish thinking that has brought us to this point? Will we recognize it, and reject it as its proponents find themselves increasingly boxed in by reality?

2006 may well be remembered as judgment day for Bush and his administration. Will 2007 be our own? And are we ready to face it?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 10:09 am and is filed under Iraq, The Bad Guys, Torture Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.