As Stupid Does

There's a rationale making the rounds among Junior supporters these days for the war in Iraq, perhaps benefiting from right wing talk radio innuendo, that is so preposterous, such an nauseating affront to reason, that the Administration itself doesn't dare speak a word of it (which doesn't mean it won't find its way into one of those laughable Heritage Foundation memos soon, of course).

As the famous Milgram Experiment demonstrated, the human mind has a fascinating, almost gymnastic capacity to rationalize and justify past behavior, even in the face of compelling evidence that this behavior was cruel or inhuman. And so, in the face of vanishing reasons for waging a bully's war with a hobbled power, chickenhawks have collectively embraced this doozie:

Junior and his advisors invaded Iraq not to seize weapons of mass destruction and eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, but to draw terrorists from all over the Middle East into one place so we could finish them off, and in so doing win the Woron Terra. As one member of my immediate family argued recently, "How else could you get Islamic terrorists to congregate in one place like Fallujah or Mosel (sic) so that they can be neatly massacred? When you have been taught to believe that dying is good and honorable, you can't resist jumping on the pile."

As jingoism, the idea drips with Machiavellian brilliance. Of course the Administration can't cop to it -- it's jess plain maverick!

When you scratch the surface, though, the stench of shit overpowers.

Among other assinine assumptions, this theory presumes that terrorists do not multiply, or are not made, in occupied territories and war zones -- or, for that matter, in an Arab world where televisions now function reliably. We know that's false. Evidence that Zarqawi may have spent time in Baghdad prior to 9/11 hardly constitutes proof of significant pre-war al Qaeda presence in Iraq; we have unearthed more al Qaeda operatives in Rochester, NY. In wartime Iraq, in contrast, there is no doubt that anti-American violence is significant and increasing. We push into Fallujah and insurgencies erupt in Mosul, in Najaf. Progress eludes. Public opinion of the American occupying forces deteriorates. And no evidence is produced -- none whatsoever -- to indicate that we are killing al Qaeda in significant numbers.

And assuming we are, so what? When a car bomb takes out 15 post-adolescent Marines, or when a hapless civilian contractor is beheaded, what's the difference whether the perpetrator was an Iraqi native, a Sunni, a Baathist, an al Qaeda operative from Jordan, or a Canadian hockey fan with a plate in his skull? Our enemies are multiplying, and their nationalities and ideologies make them no more or less lethal.

If you haven't read what America's most respected military retirees have to say about Iraq, about the folly we've undertaken, about the strategic blunders, about the cities we're turning into perpetual meat grinders, then you're doing yourself a disservice. These leaders -- these men and women of experience, courage, reason and truth -- speak plainly and sadly. They agree that this war is doomed to failure by any measure. They stand against the dilettantes and the chickenhawks, but somehow the dilettantes and chickenhawks caw on, emboldened by a nation of people all too willing to distort the facts to excuse their crimes.