-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: April 17, 2007 12:38:07 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Unreal Men Who Base Their Decisions on Fictions in a
Communal-Fantasy World, AKA the INSANE
TWILIGHT ZONE:
PASS THROUGH THE PORTAL TO
THE ALTERNATE REALITY OF THE WAR PARTY’S PROPAGANDISTS
by Gregory Cochran
The American Conservative, April 9, 2007
http://amconmag.com/2007/2007_04_09/article.html
I think almost everybody has wondered what would have happened if
they had made a different choice in life, taken a different path.
If you didn’t think of it by yourself, seeing “It’s a Wonderful
Life” a few hundred times has probably driven the point home by now.
Many authors have applied this idea to big turning points, writing
about alternative histories in which Hitler won World War II
(Fatherland) or the South won the Civil War (Bring the Jubilee).
The notion may not be pure fantasy: the many-worlds interpretation
of quantum mechanics suggests that these Worlds-of-If may really
exist, although forever unreachable.
Or maybe not so unreachable. A very odd pattern of statements by
prominent supporters and members of the Bush administration
suggests that we may have some truly unusual visitors—literally out-
of-this-world.
You see, the president and his associates keep referring to
historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in
the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical
events.
Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former)
secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany
after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn’t any. You can’t find
it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there
at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no
trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the
similarities between today’s Iraq and America after the
Revolutionary War, but again, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t
any. I don’t believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of
Philadelphia every morning back in 1784.
And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to
admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003?
Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably
backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in
1998?
Now some might say that these statements were just talking points —
that is, LIES— but I sure wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of lying.
More to the point, there have been many ahistorical statements that
are just strange and don’t seem to advance any particular political
agenda.
For example, when President Bush said that the Japanese lost two
carriers sunk and one damaged at the Battle of Midway (instead of
losing all four, which is what actually happened), who gained? When
POTUS said that Sweden has no army (it does), what political
argument was advanced?
We’re talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on
earth. It can’t be that they’re just pig-ignorant — of their own
history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation.
We can learn more by examining these statements in detail,
including those of the administration’s close supporters. They too
keep diverging from the history we know.
Recently, Rep. Don Young of Alaska quoted Lincoln as saying,
“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be
arrested, exiled or hanged.” Lincoln never said that, of course.
Cliff May, at National Review, said “President Roosevelt waited
until after World War II to put in place a commission to
investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor.” Pretty fly for a
dead guy: FDR passed on just before Germany surrendered, well
before the Japanese quit. And anyhow, the first of many Pearl
Harbor investigations—the Roberts Commission—started only 11 days
after the sneak attack.
More and more, I get the feeling that Bush and his friends come
from one of the Worlds-of-IF — a sad place, even worse than the one
we actually live in, a world in which their odd statements are true.
When tired or stressed, they refer to the history that they lived
and learned in school. But their briefing books recount an
alternate history in which Iraq in 2002 was not a poor and backward
country but the coming threat, as our Germany was in 1938. A
history in which America, after the Revolution, was a flaming
cesspool like Iraq today, a world in which Lincoln executed unruly
legislators. One in which World War II dragged on long after the
indecisive Battle of Midway. One in which our occupation of Germany
was plagued by guerrilla warfare. One in which we’ve been fighting
World War IV with Iran and Syria for 25 years, as Jim Woolsey has
repeatedly said. One in which a hostile Islamic Caliphate has
bothered to go through the formality of coming into existence.
Close study of such statements might eventually give a rough sketch
of that other world’s history. This would be of immense value, for
it would allow us to learn much about the inner workings of the
historical process, just as the discovery of a different kind of
life on Mars would be an epochal event in biology.
The fact that a history that diverged from ours at least 200 years
ago, judging from the differences in the Revolution, still bears
some resemblance to ours—still had a battle of Midway, just not the
same battle—suggests that unknown overarching forces constrain the
course of events. But the story is never the same in detail.
The casual mention of World War IV strongly implies that these
interlopers also had a World War III. They must have suffered
greatly—maybe bombed out, likely short on resources such as oil. I
would guess that those disasters irretrievably darkened their
political perspective, just as our World War I left an entire
generation embittered and disaffected. Certainly some kind of
civilizational blight is needed to explain Vice President Cheney’s
“Dark Lord” shtick.
Somehow they came here, so there must be a gate or portal. Judging
from the spatial clustering of identifiable visitors, it’s
somewhere in Washington, probably very close to the AEI building.
Possibly inside. It may be an accident of nature, or it might be a
scientific wonder used for judicial exile, just as bad Kryptonians
were sent to the Phantom Zone. You have to wonder about that when
you consider the kind of guys they’re sending.
If two-way transfer is possible, there could be vast business
opportunities. There are reasons to suspect that science and
engineering took a very different path over there: their limited
understanding of nuclear weapons—they seem to think that nukes are
roughly as easy to build as bottle rockets—suggests that nuclear
fission may never have been developed on their timeline. But even
if they’re behind us in some areas, they’re likely to be ahead in
others. I’d guess that they know far more about torture than we do.
Practice makes perfect.
Even if they’ve never split the atom, they have much to offer. The
very existence of such a portal is the most significant new
scientific result in a century, far more important than any result
expected from the most advanced accelerator. The sheer physical
presence of Condoleezza Rice on this plane suggests, indeed
demands, new physics that may lead to the long-desired marriage of
quantum mechanics and general relativity. It’s either this or
string theory.
Of course this means that we need to corral some or all of these
visitors for study and experimentation. Such experiments would, I
suppose, interfere with their civil liberties, if they had any, but
they’re obviously not citizens of these United States. Technically
they’re illegal aliens. Gitmo’s a-waitin’.
And perhaps we can do more. Obviously this other world is in a
sorry state and could stand some saving. They’re our closer-than-
brothers—our other selves living in a world gone bad, a world in
which the toast always falls butter-side down, a world where Mr.
Potter owns the Building and Loan. Undoubtedly an irrepressible
desire for freedom burns in every heart there. As soon as possible,
we should begin preparing for their liberation.
It will be a cakewalk. .
___________________________________
Gregory Cochran is a physicist and evolutionary biologist.
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