Letters to the Editor
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The Rules of Man
Very well written and logically presented article which reinforces what we already know. But sleepwalking into this war was not at all what happened. Rather Congress failed miserably in assuming its Consititutional role, as it did earlier in 1964. There were Senators and Congressmen and women who posed the right questions and demanded that Congress decide, not the "decider". Foremost of those was Robert Byrd in the Senate. Bob Graham warned his fellow senators to read the NIE report. But Byrd was more prescient. Older people almost always are since theyve seen more of human nature. It doesnt take a titan of history or reason though to read and follow the US Constitution. Its fairly clear and direct enough even to pass muster with Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alioto as untarnished by human embellishment since. ONLY Congress has the authority to declare war. It can not 'cede" that authority to the executive. The Federalist Papers illuminate this to the Nth degree and ad nauseum. The role of commander in chief means nothing unless and until Congress says it does. But, Congress has given away or ignored its role for a very long time. And it is not of late filled with scholars of its creating document, rather of blowhards, demagogues, religious hypocrites, and panderers for the presidency who want to look strong and presidential. Yes, thats Hillary.
Secondly, the argument about faith's role is a good one, but I tend to believe that just as fundamental to this debacle is the role of Cheney in filling up a largely empty vessel in about every sphere of foreign policy or government. Bush, being a Republican dilettante most of life, had formed no strong opinions about anything except brands of Scotch and how to repeat the rote mantra of the Republicans mindlessly. Cheney saw the possiblities, took them, and filled the cup with his agenda of silly Wyoming tough talk and Communist central planning. He's much more than a Rasputin or a Machiavelli. He hasnt so much advised as controlled, as Mondale points out in his recent article.
Finally, none of this need have occurred. Human history and wars are made well, by humans. Nobody has to do anything except for an immediate danger and even that if it interferes with reality TV. Nobody had to go to Darfur or the Balkans to end genocide or to Ruanda. In two of those three nobody did or has. Certainly the European governments didnt care about the nastiness on their doorstep until Chirac goaded Clinton. The world did nothing about Ruanda, or Cambodia, or East Timor or a 1000 other places. The Germans were content to make cuckoo clocks and Mercedes, the French Roquefort and Chateauneuf du Pape, the Americans more money from 30 cent an hour Chinese labor. War is humanity at its worst and at its best simultaneously depending on the reasons for going. Elective war with no moral basis is the most evil. War is the manifestation of the duality of the flawed little rodent who crawled out of the muck eons ago. Its in the DNA. If we can overcome it, we can change it. And we had a document to do just that had we followed it, to at least provide a public debate, had we had the will and the courage to demand that rule of man made by the best of men in those few pages back in the 1780's be followed. And had the people who made this war simply turned to those scriptures they so fervently believe they believe in, they would have found the gentlest of men, or of God if you so choose to so believe, decrying this war and any war without a moral basis. Put quite simply, the first consideration must be people, not a geopolitical Kissingerian chess game, not an insane idea to put Macy's in Sadr City, but the effects of whatever is done on people. None of this means a damn to a 19 year old dying face down in the much in the Mekong delta or the sands of Iraq. Its just more unknown men making decisions that end their lives for nothing.
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Sigh
I began reading Gary Kamiya's opinioned essay as I always do, by seeking to agree with his general premises, but then conducting some sort of internal argument with one or more of his assertions. This is how I read all opinion in the liberal and/or progressive journals I consume: there is no question that the authors of these essays are preaching to the converted, yet for the sake of preserving some sense of independent thought, it is important to find minor errors, just to demonstrate one's autonomy.
This time, though, something snapped. I realized, finally, that I am becoming extremely bored by all this pseudo-analysis of Bush's "manichaeanism" -- an incorrectly used term that I took issue with when Glenn Greenwald used it over and over to characterize Bush's base, politicized fundamentalism. If Bush's religious fervor is behind all this nonsense, then that must shift the conversation into the domain of religion. Once we are in that territory, philosophical and theological assertions must become much more nuanced than Kamiya or Greenwald seem to have the capacity for.
In particular, I am bored by this constant blaming of America's dullness and paralyzed torpor on Bush or his gang. Why it is that no one sees these clowns as symptoms rather than etiologies is beyond me. If we are creeping toward Armageddon or slouching toward Bethlehem, indeed America itself is the rough beast, and Bush is just the foremost phallic appendage. Power is conferred, not acquired. Bush has no power but that which we give him. If his loony ideas are persuasive, it is because they resonate with the loony ideas of a generally unconcerned and ill-read populace.
The forces of destruction that are starting to become manifest are certainly not the responsibility of either Bush or the Neocons. To claim that they are is to assign to the Mayberry Machiavellis far more power (in the spiritual sense) than they could possibly possess. Perhaps it does no political good to assume that there are such things as transpersonal or historical forces, yet it certainly does damage to our ability to work our way out of this mess by reifying the president's sense of his own power and continually talking about the adverse effects of his decisions as if they were really his alone.