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"Blueprint for a Mess," The New
York Times Magazine (2 November 2003) by David Rieff http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/magazine/02IRAQ.html It’s been
another busy FW weekend. Stephen
Straker posted Rieff’s work on Saturday with a succinct note. I made a go at responding late Sunday
afternoon and posted sections 5 & 6. Keith has downloaded the whole thing
this morning with commentary under another subject heading. We have surely succeeded in giving it
good broadcast coverage and hopefully someone other than the three of us read
it! I agree
that Rieff reinforced the perception that this was about oil by the
circumstantial evidence of the soldier’s protecting just that ministry, but to
me the impact of that section was not that it proved a point but that he added
damning weight to the incredible lack of priority in after battle planning. To me, it’s like differentiating between
homicide and premeditated murder. It’s
now ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that Bush2 went over its head based on false
pretenses, not just false evidence. How simple
it could have been to protect all of the buildings and plan to have enough
soldiers and tanks there to do it. What a different image that would have projected, after all
that publicity and demonstration of our ‘shock and awe’ precise bombing
capability. It is
infuriating to know that men and women are dead unnecessarily and treasure lost
needlessly because ideologues in one department deliberately froze out another
in the pursuit of their textbook plans.
How stupid to freeze out Arabists and the foundational democracy work of
the Future of Iraq project. It was
a callous, myopic and reckless thing to do, but that is what happens in a ‘zealous
mode’ and protecting one’s power. Miz Molly
(Ivins) wrote recently, in response to the conservative media counterattack on GDubya’s
increasingly vocal critics, it is not rage but anger that is building here. Anger can be productive, rage is
not. As to the gross
generalization that Bush2 critics are gleeful with death counts and mistakes on
the ground to prove their point, let me unequivocally say that ‘raising hell’
about what is not right, pointing
out what is wrong and where death
and sacrifice have been made for naught
is not gleeful work, but is often necessary to chip away at the powerful imagery
that can be abused by those in power, intimidating and confusing ‘sheeple’. Not everyone will understand the
ramifications of every policy decision and each diplomatic affront, but they do
understand when a President does not appear at military funerals to honor those
who followed his command into combat, they do understand when they sense
preferential treatment for one elite over the greater common interest in national
security, domestic and foreign policy, they do recognize scandal and
corruption, and I hope they will recognize in good time an imbalance in the system
that needs correction. The pen is
indeed mightier than the sword and some of us ‘hellraisers’ plan to use it. – KWC Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk> |
