Neocon insanity

Hat Tip to Radley Balko's always-excellent blog, The Agitator for this particular nugget of insanity: Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy, an essay posted by The Familiy Security Foundation that has since been deleted. Here is the link to the Google Archive of the essay, but in case your browser freezes up on that site, the essay deserves to be printed in full (and fisked).

Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy
Author: Philip Atkinson
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: August 3, 2007
While democratic government is better than dictatorships and theocracies, it has its pitfalls. FSM Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson describes some of the difficulties facing President Bush today.

Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy

By Philip Atkinson

President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.

Interesting that the author would seize upon that particular point, given the importance he gives to the will of the majority of the people in the rest of his essay. I guess Democracy is great, except when it elects the guy you don't like, or when public sentiment against the guy that you do like makes him somewhat less popular, huh?

Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy.

And not, let us be clear, the inevitable result of his happening to be an incompetent douchebag.

The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable - for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.

So... in the Eeeevilll that is democracy, people are held accountable for their stupid decisions. Okay. I'm with this guy so far.

When faced with the possible threat that the Iraqis might be amassing terrible weapons that could be used to slay millions of citizens of Western Civilization, President Bush took the only action prudence demanded and the electorate allowed: he conquered Iraq with an army.

"Terrible weapons" that, let us not forget, did not exist. "Terrible weapons" that President Bush ordered his intelligence officials to find, never minding whether or not they were actually there. So, Bush fabricated a thread in order to invade a sovereign nation that, as virtually everyone acknowledges today, was no threat whatsoever.

This dangerous and expensive act did destroy the Iraqi regime, but left an American army without any clear purpose in a hostile country and subject to attack. If the Army merely returns to its home, then the threat it ended would simply return.

So, the threat that did not exist to begin with will return once we leave. While of course I agree with the assessment that Iraq is much more of a haven for terrorists today than ever before, but the way that this is worded - "the threat it [the invasion] ended would simply return," doesn't nearly sound as menacing as it seems the author intends. Iraq would return to being - a country that was no threat to us whatsoever, as it turned out? That's really so bad?

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.

And ... kerblooie. The essay explodes into a mess of insane, xenophobic rambling punctuated with skewed historical references. There's almost no point in fisking from here on out, as there's no real way to make this mess seem any more insane than the author does, but I will give it a shot.

The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.

I love how the author uses a hypothetical to support another hypothetical here. "If Israel doesn't wipe Iran off the map, Iran will wipe Israel off the map. Therefore America must wipe its enemies off the map as well." Never mind the fact that after 60+ years of existence and multiple wars, Israel still exists, and has never had to resort to using nukes.

As there appears to be no sensible result of the invasion of Iraq that will be popular with his countrymen other than retreat, President Bush is reviled; he has become another victim of Democracy.

In the strictest sense, I actually agree with this statement, to the extent that Democracy is a system of government that gives a populace at least some recourse to hold its leaders accountable for their insane follies.

By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

I don't even really know what to say to this. "By elevating popular fancy over truth," ... um, wtf? Whose truth? The "truth" of your uninformed and crazed opinion that genocide is a sensible foreign policy?

However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.

Oh boy, isn't this going to be fun?

When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.

The author here conveniently forgets to mention Caesar's enormous popularity with the rank-and-file citizens of Rome, a luxury without which he would have been completely unable to defeat his political enemies in Rome, that President Bush does not share. Wouldn't the more fitting comparison to what the author suggest be something more like the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who, despite enormous unpopularity, managed to seize control of Iraq via pure military force? Or does making that comparison undermine the author's original point by suggesting (the gall of it - no pun intended) that such a tactic would make us no better than our enemies? Is it even possible to undermine the author's original point any more than the author himself already does for us?

Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome - thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.

First, the "mass slaughter" of the Gauls that the author refers to isn't quite the "mass slaughter" via nuclear weapons that the author gives as the preferable course in Iraq. Yes, Caesar killed a lot of Gauls and sacked a lot of cities, but by and large, non-fighting residents of the country were allowed to live. It was a brutal conquest, but it was not a genocide. Second, the reason that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was such an effective catalyst for his assumption of power in Rome was precisely the popularity that his conquest gave him with the masses! Times were a bit different back then. The war was cheered by the populace, but opposed by his political rivals.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

Yes, because an Iraq devastated by Nuclear fallout would be such an incredibly enriching "Asset". In any case, he would not become Caesar at this point. He would become Saddam. Caesar achieved his power because of his immense popularity with the masses. Saddam achieved his power despite his lack of the same.

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

It's besides the point to point out that this is probably impossible, given the current structure of the military, and to point out the stark-raving-insanity of this particular vein of thought (even compared to the remainder of the essay, which is saying a lot). But, popularity with the military? The military loved Caesar because his conquest of Gaul made them rich; they did not get paid much at all, except in their portion of the spoils of war. On the other hand, no action could potentially be LESS popular with the current American military than the deployment of Nuclear weapons on a populace and the devastation that follows. There would be no spoils to be had, as the author suggest turning Iraq into a wasteland of Nuclear fallout. The presumed consequences of such actions would be VERY different from what the author believes, to say the least.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming "ex-president" Bush or he can become "President-for-Life" Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

It's amazing, the doublethink possible once one convinces oneself that any action taken by "us" is good because it's taken against "them"; they are the bad guys and we are the good guys, by default. For the fear that eventually bad people might gain control of nuclear weapons and kill many of us, we should wipe out anyone we think might be bad people. Something tells me that the Author is a fan of Ayn Rand, or Terry Goodkind. After all, evil actions are only deplorable when they're undertaken by the bad guys.

It's easy to see such a statement as this essay as the work of people on the fringe, easy targets for straw man arguments and Michael Moore caricatures. But the organization to which this person belongs is not a minor one, and the essay was posted, with editorial comments and production values, for some time before eventually being taken down. People in this organization had to have read the essay and felt it made valid points, else it never would have been published to begin with. And frankly, I wonder whether or not Bush would read this article and find himself nodding along (even as he moved his lips from sentence to sentence, and inwardly transcribed "nuclear" to "nucular"). So many of his actions regarding Iraq make no sense unless this is presumed to be his mindset: that we are the good guys, that they are the bad guys, and that that remains the case no matter what actions are taken on what sides. The dark age that we instigate must somehow be preferable to the dark age that the bad guys would instigate. And a police state is wonderful, if you happen to be the police.