Psychopathic Conservatives

Here's another article I came across while reading Bad Attitudes--in it E.L. Doctorow rips Dubya a new one as he demonstrates clearly that the chimp has zero understanding and even less concern for the ramifications of his war of choice. As Doctorow says:

He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability, which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

It took me about a nanosecond to realize that I'd come across a very similar response to Iraq last night while catching up with Juan Cole's website. Cole notes a disturbing element to his tete-a-tete of late with Jonah Goldberg...well, tete-a-tete might be giving a little too much credit to Jonah. Tete-a-derriere is a little closer to the truth:

I am so sorry to bother readers here with this one last posting on the whole Goldberg fiasco...But the ignorance was already apparent. The really sad thing is this paragraph:

' Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there's another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I'm all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc. One caveat: Because I don't think it's right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I'll donate the money to the USO. He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is. '


I cannot tell you how this paragraph hit me in the gut. I was nearly immobilized by disgust and grief. This man really does see Iraqis as playthings. He is proposing a wager on the backs of Iraqis. Millions of Iraqis are going through winter with insufficient heating oil. They are jobless. The innocent 250,000 Fallujans are homeless. Imagine what $1000 means to them. And here we have an prominent American media star, a man who sets opinion on the Sunday afternoon talking heads shows, betting on them as though they are greyhounds in a race. They are not human beings to him, but political playthings on which to be wagered.

This entire paragraph is an excellent symbol for the entire project of the neo-imperial American Right. They are making their own fortunes with a wager on the fates of others, whom they are treating like ants. Get in their way and they stomp on you. Make an anthill the wrong place and they blow it up...

A wager on the backs of human beings. Perhaps Mr. Goldberg would like to bring back slavery, as well.

Indeed. I continue to be amazed at how utterly cynical the wingnut/warmonger crowd is when it comes to the sorry mess they've created in Iraq--and Afghanistan. The only thing that matters to them--the ONLY thing--is the potential to gloat. The fact that they're gloating about a whole lot of dead people doesn't register, probably because few if any have ever considered putting themselves on the line AND because, well, they take after their leader, who shows a remarkable lack of concern about why the war was fought in the first place (JOKING about the lack of WMDs? Unfuckingbelievable).

You know, even if Dubya can't comprehend values like sympathy, empathy, compassion or concern, perhaps someone should explain simple strategy (strategery) to him. There's a nice little book about military strategy called The Art of War. Sure, the tactics are a bit out of date (best estimates place its writing between 320-400 B.C.E.)--but one strong strategem that's still relevant today can be found in one sentence:

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

What part of that didn't he get?