The following entry was put in our comment section by G. Cooper in response to Natalie Solent’s post The Floodgates of Anarchy. I thought it was sufficiently interesting to warrant a post of its own (as it saves me from writing one myself as I was thinking much the same thing):
Watching the scenes of jubilation this morning and the way the liberating troops are being greeted, I find myself experiencing strangely mixed emotions. I am deeply, unashamedly, proud of the coalition’s forces and the restrained and civilised way they have behaved in all this and I am also delighted for the Iraqis. But still there’s a troubling sensation nagging away at the back of my mind. It’s that the greater fight has yet to come. Not with bin Laden, Iran or Syria – the one against a far deadlier enemy, our own corrosive, mendacious Left and its fellow travellers: the Lib-Dems, anti-globalisation clowns, pacifists, religious ‘leaders’, self-styled ecologists and the rest.
Yesterday, even as the British were securing Basra and the Americans preparing to liberate Baghdad, I heard a radio phone-in during which an Iraqi in exile was pouring scorn on the liberation, saying that the people would never welcome our forces. He was, of course, wrong but will he would admit that today? He will not. Nor will the intellectually bankrupt army of Left-liberal academics, ‘experts’, ‘analysts’, broadcasters, politicians and journalists which has done nothing but undermine our efforts to rid Iraq and the world of Saddam’s wickedness.
Nothing will make these people admit they were wrong about almost every single aspect of this war. They will simply move on to criticise something else, not even pausing to reflect on their streams of negativity, lies and hopelessly inaccurate predictions (“millions of dead” “armageddon unleashed in the Middle East”, “ecological catastrophe” “it’s all about oil”).
It wasn’t easy to defeat Saddam. How much more difficult will it be to rout those working from within to tear down the very systems which allowed us to defeat this evil?
Stop Press: Even as I write, a BBC reporter in Baghdad is “sounding a note of caution” as he opens the next phase of the war, predicting a tide of anti-US feeling from Iraqis, weeks more fighting, more civilian casualties. This relentless spew continues, even as Uday’s palace burns and the reporter’s voice-over is broadcast to pictures of Iraqis rejoicing, celebrating and proving him a fool.
– Posted by G Cooper at April 9, 2003 10:27 AM
Well Mr. G. Cooper, I suspect very few of the people who found themselves on the wrong side of history, or to be more accurate, on the wrong side of objective reality, will acknowledge that they were wrong not just publicly but even to themselves.
Some who opposed the war on grounds which had nothing to do with Iraq (but rather domestic issues of cost, encroachment on civil liberties at home, etc.) will be unmoved in their views by the success of the war, and that is entirely logical. That ‘the good guys won’ is frankly an irrelevance if the basis of their opposition was an antipathy to the growth of the state at home (a concern which I share in spite of my support for this war of liberation).
However those whose opposition was based on the ‘welfare of the Iraqi people’ or the ‘doomsayers’ (“impregable defences of Baghdad” anyone?)… these people are the willful blind and deaf, walled off from seeing anything which does not fit their distorted subjective world views.
So it falls to you, and us, and everyone else who values the truth, to keep blowing on the trumpets until the walls come crashing down… and then keep blowing a little longer anyway just to be sure!
Glory glory hallelujaaaah…glory glory hallelujaaah..glory glory hallelujaaah, the Truth is marching on….
You got that right, Johan.
GIVING GOVERNMENT A GOOD NAME
Dick Morris
April 9, 2003 — THE alienation between the government of the United States and its people has narrowed sharply in the past two weeks, as the story of the war in Iraq has unfolded on our TV screens. The conviction that the government will not tell the truth, which lay at the root of that distrust, has been laid to waste by the forthrightness and openness of the war coverage by the Bush administration.
The synapses between the government and the public have narrowed as the war has progressed. People have come to understand that the government says what it means and means what it says.
When we are assured that Washington will do all it can to avoid civilian casualties, we are impressed by the use of precision-guided munitions to make good on this promise. When we are told that American troops will be protected and prisoners of war rescued, we are heartened by the low casualty figures and the gallant mission to free Jessica Lynch. When we hear that the war will be won quickly, we watch breathlessly as American troops slice their way into Baghdad.
A public conditioned by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to hearing lies from its president now has begun to develop a trust in government that bridges the most fundamental gap in American politics over the past 30 years – the credibility gap of official Washington.
When a helicopter goes down, the Pentagon strains to tell us exactly who was killed and precisely what caused the crash. It is almost as if it hastens to give us bad news and conceals the good. We don’t hear body counts of enemy soldiers, but when an American dies, the military briefers report it instantly and breathlessly.
When something goes wrong, when friendly fire causes American or Kurdish or British deaths, we learn about it immediately – from our own government. When the progress of the war inclines us to euphoria, we learn the bad news of the combat that awaits us in the future – from our own Pentagon.
Unaccustomed to hearing the truth from our politicians, we are getting it squarely from our government.
Those news organs, entertainers and political figures who appeal to us based on a distrust in government are the big losers in this new era of trust and credibility. When The New York Times implies that a quagmire lies ahead but hints that our government doesn’t want us to know the truth or when retired generals darkly hint that plans have gone awry, we have only to turn on our televisions and see the war live and in person, reported with all the accuracy and immediacy we could possibly want.
This disjuncture between the dire predictions and ominous warnings we read in the elite media and the reality we see on television footage is widening the credibility gap of the doomsayers and narrowing it for the government.
The line “Trust me, I’m from the government” is no longer a joke.
Extremists of the left and the right still bemoan our loss of privacy and warn of plots to deceive us. But their prophesies increasingly belong to the paranoia of the way-out left and the far right, rather than a rational calculus based on experience.
We are watching, hearing and reading our government telling us the truth, and it is a welcome change for us all.
Do we trust our government to intercept phone calls and monitor Internet traffic? How do we balance the need to protect privacy and stop another terrorist attack? Can we trust police and prosecutors not to abuse the new power the Patriot Act gives them?
These are the central questions of Homeland Security policy. The reservoir of good will and trust engendered by the tenor and nature of the coverage of the war in Iraq is helping us all to see that the government of Johnson, Nixon and Clinton is not the government of George W. Bush.
This government is one that we can, increasingly, grudgingly, guardedly trust.
In the long-ago days of my sprog-hood, I dimly recall that leftists made the case for their various causes based on reasoned argument. I believed some of their facts and most of their conclusions to be wrong, but at least we had a common language with which to carry on the discussion.
Increasingly, I find that the ideological left presents its minions with a catalogue of causes and positions that they must buy wholesale, without questioning any individual datum. (If I’m wrong, ‘splain to me how a group that is supposedly pro-Women, anti-gun, anti-state-religion, anti-conformity and anti-authority can prefer the Taliban’s Afghanistan over Bush’s America). Trying to argue with a leftist these days is all but impossible — how do you reason with someone who only emotes? Who has abandond arguments in favor of postures?
Of course, it’s unfair to expect people to be able to reach good conclusions based on bad data. Schools inundate students with a shopping list of carefully selected facts, rather than teaching them critical thinking skills. And our news media has been running around poisoning wells for a generation. Given the relentless daily trickle of garbage-in, it’s a wonder there’s anything but garbage-out in the public discourse.
Scott, a surprisingly nice article you included. I expected your comment to be characteristically cynical. Do you agree with it?
S. Weasel: Thanks, your comment above hits the mark exactly. Today’s radical left is dangerous. Free speech doesn’t cover treason, slander and incitement to violence. I think many have crossed the fine line.
Western civilization must be defended. If it means forwarding the Anglosphere, then let’s go!
Dale, what would you do then if these people have ‘crossed the line’? arrest them for speaking their minds?
As for treason, provided it’s only verbal, of course it should be allowed! Half the people who post to this site could probably be portrayed as highly treasonous, for advocating the dissolution (or near-dissolution) of the state. Personally, i have very little time for any kind of national allegiance; my sense of what is right or wrong is far more important.
And S. Weasel… since when did not supporting one thing imply you support it’s enemy? That’s simplistic, oppositional thinking, which surely doesn’t belong on a site that purports to represent a philosophy which bypasses the traditional right/left divides. Criticism of Bush over the Afgan episode didn’t mean the left *liked* the Taliban, just that they questioned the methods used for, & motivations behind their removal, and were dubious about the ‘peace and stability’ that would follow. In my experience, prior to Sept. 11th, you were far more likely to read about Taliban atrocities in the leftist press than elsewhere.
And S. Weasel… since when did not supporting one thing imply you support it’s enemy?
Since some specifically and explicitly supported the Taliban.
How do you think John Walker Lindh ended up over there? Taking a disastrously wrong turn at the “We Are the World, Give Peace a Chance, the Taliban Sucks” Rally?
“And S. Weasel… since when did not supporting one thing imply you support it’s enemy?”
I don’t think there is any distinction that matters between supporting a dictator and opposing the only means of deposing the dictator. In both cases, the result is the same – the dictator stays in power. Would you say that someone whose policies will inevitably result in a given outcome supports or opposes that outcome? I would say they support that outcome, regardless of their “intent.” Or ask a frothing-at-the-mouth Bush hater: If I were to oppose any attempt to vote G.W. Bush out of office, would you say that I opposed him, or supported him?
Not to forget, either, that a significant portion of the “anti-war” crowd really were on the other side, and wanted a U.S. defeat. Many of the rest of the anti-war crowd did not make any effort to distance themselves from the anti-U.S. elements. Having lay down with dogs, they are getting up with fleas. Pardon me if I am less than sympathetic.
You don’t think the pro-government tone of that article is a bit over the top?
I don’t know, Scott, I kinda liked it. In fact I’m saving it for future reference. No one need give any government a carte blanche, but I get tired of the constant cynicism. Sometimes it feels good to just relax and believe once in a while…and then question another day. The mental anguish is wearying.
A__t: Sigh! nothing can be done about it (the radical left). They, like the poor, will be with us always….but permit me a fantasy once in a while. 🙂
I agree with you Dale (on the article Scott provided), I am as well tired of the constant cynicism and that article was a fresh breeze. How are we supposed to have peace anywhere anytime if all we hear, read, see and talk is soaked of cynicism? That would be something for the peace dudes to consider…maybe it’s time to speak and act in positive terms instead of burning American/UK flags…
Personally, I’m at the point where it takes a special effort to believe a government official.
Who said that the price of liberty is constant vigilance?
A few words about the polarization over the liberation of Iraq:
Author Marc Steigler noted in his novel David’s Sling that there are basically two modes of organized decision making: the analytical, causal-model-driven or “engineering” mode, and the more opinion-oriented “political” mode.
Problems that can be solved by the engineering method obviously should be. Hard data and well understood causal models lead to hard solutions, where once the final numbers are in, there can be no further doubt about the right course to take. But not all problems are susceptible to that sort of approach — for example, in cases where there’s no certainty about the causal model, or where different people have different values for the various costs and benefits of the actions available — and then we have to use politics.
The decision to go to war is always political in this sense. No two persons will agree exactly on the costs and benefits, even after they’re all known. How does one compare the value of freeing Iraq to the value of maintaining a generally noninterventionist foreign policy? How does one compare the value of a dead American soldier to the value of a dead Iraqi dissident in a Saddamite torture chamber? So the correctness of the decision will always be a matter of opinion, and even after all the results are in, it will be possible to differ about the wisdom of the action.
This is in part a plea for less sarcasm and more courtesy between the pro-war and anti-war camps. If differences of opinion are literally inevitable, as is the case with war, then there’s no call to get rank with those who disagree with you — if they disagree honestly.
What riles and tickles many of us in the pro-war camp has been the subset of the anti-war community that has denied the objective basis for the arguments for war — e.g., Saddam Hussein’s oppression of Iraq; his thousands of victims; his torture chambers; his funding of Palestinian irredentist terrorism — even after these things had been objectively verified.
You can honestly differ about whether these were adequate reasons for the United States to invade Iraq and topple the Baathist dictatorship. That’s acceptable, even if there are many of us who can’t grasp the difference in our values. But you cannot simply deny the realities just because they help to justify the position opposite your own. That’s intellectually dishonest, and worse: it implies that you consider these realities to fatally undermine your position according to your own values, and that you deny them because you don’t want to admit you were wrong by your own lights.
Francis, thank you for that excellent piece. I have had a hard time putting words to exactly the same thoughts. I hope you will permit me to keep your posting in a file for future reference. I believe that society needs the realism of the conservative side and the compassion of the liberal. What distresses me most is that the liberal side has given up on compassion for out-of-touch rantings and crass rudeness. I would love to be able to have reasonable dialogue with these folks (as i have visited no war blogs to try to do just that) but instead have been called a moron. The polarization of american society if very frightening. Again, thanks for the lucid commentary.
The war will not cease…