Even though I had already decided I wasn’t voting for him in November, I watched Dick Cheney address his acolytes last night. Having only read his comments in print before, I was curious to see our vice president speak. But I also wanted to see some of the delegates because at this point, I'm genuinely baffled: what can they be thinking? These RNC delegates are not just supportive, they're inspired. They're so turned on at the thought of a second Bush term that they've taken a week out of their lives to travel across the country and listen to political speeches.
On TV, they looked like ordinary enough folks, the usual mix of fat and thin, conservatively dressed and lavishly costumed, vacant-eyed and intent. But watching them interrupt Cheney to chant "USA! USA! USA!" and "Flip flop! Flip flop!" and "Four more years! Four more years!", I grew more and more perplexed (and Cheney grew more and more annoyed. He makes it look like such a hassle, this seeking the consent of the governed). I thought: who are these people? The speakers are spending 90% of their time talking about how our lives will be in danger for the foreseeable future, and you're waving your arms over your heads like you're at a rock concert? What is it about Judge Doom up there saying evil men are after you that just makes you feel like dancin'?
I can understand exuberance in response to vision, the current that courses through you when you hear a man say "one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." But Dick Cheney's vision was unredeemably dark, nothing but the black waters of war all the way to the
horizon, not even a tiny green island of peace for us to aim at. It was a future without any possibility for compromise with dissenters-- such as, say, the world community. You could almost hear the festive crackle of bridges burning every time he growled "U.N.".
His is a world in which we as ordinary Americans can do nothing to make life better, safer, or fairer-- nothing except trust our leaders and kill our enemies. After all, as Zell Miller reminded protesters in his speech, "It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest." Our leaders require nothing more of me than my acquiescence. That's something that's been bothering me ever since I heard John McCain wrap up his convention speech by saying, "Keep your courage." Our courage to do what? Except for the soldiers and their families, who embody courage in its rawest form, the rest of us haven't been asked to do a darn thing that might require courage. Surely I can help America in other ways than by shopping or killing. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, please: inspire me. Exhort me. Encourage me. But don't just tell me to trust you and get out of the way.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Why does the Commander in Chief need a lawyer?
I have two words for anyone who doubts that our country’s leaders have slouched into the depths of cynicism: military lawyers. This evening I caught a TV interview (“The Abrams Report,” MSNBC, 3.11.03) with Lt. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a professorial fellow in a suit and tie. Turns out Addicott is an attorney who will advise strategists if we go to war with Iraq. The colonel explained his job simply: the generals tell him about their planned targets and he advocates either going ahead with the attack or revising their approach.
For a lawyer, Addicott had surprisingly little to say about the law. He began by boasting, “I think most people understand that we have the most powerful military that the world has ever seen, and they’re probably more surprised to learn that we comply with the laws of war better than any military in the modern era.” Welcome reassurance after those stories about American soldiers bombing Canadians while hyped up on “go pills,” right? But the way he described his work had little to do with laws and a lot more to do with limiting the number of incidents that need to be explained to the American people.
Let’s say, for example, that a commander wants to bomb tanks that Saddam has shrewdly stashed in a civilian neighborhood. Let’s say he’s targeted a spot where his troops are likely to knock off a few of those “human shields.” Or imagine the planned attack will cull some of the child soldiers the Brookings Institution says Saddam is sure to use. In those cases, Addicott would “tell the commander, under the laws of war, perhaps the target may be a legitimate military target, but it may not be prudent to attack it because of the public relations backlash.”
This is hardly the job description of a watchdog for international law. It’s a domestic public relations gambit, but we should only have expected as much. By whom, in what court, can the Bush administration fear being taken to task for not adhering to conventions on warfare? Surely not by the International Criminal Court inaugurated in the Netherlands this week—an institution the U.S. does not recognize and refuses to participate in. No, the lawyers are there to make the American military unimpeachable in the court of public opinion. Just as it takes a lawyer to smoke pot without inhaling, it takes a lawyer to convince us that we are making war without killing.
There’s irony here, if you like that sort of thing. The president says paying attention to anti-war protesters would be “like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based on a focus group.” (NY Times, Feb. 19) But while President Bush stops his ears to the chanting and drum-beating of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the streets, Commander-in-Chief Bush pays Colonel Addicott to warn him about a “public relations backlash.” If huge demonstrations and a deluge of outraged letters and editorials aren’t a public relations backlash, what are they? Is there any reason Mr. Bush can’t continue to dismiss his critics with the same insouciance after we’ve slaughtered Iraqi civilians?
I welcome attempts to limit the suffering of the innocent. But I’m appalled that our military leaders are subcontracting their ethical responsibility to lawyers, who are busy even now fixing the parameters of Iraqi suffering.
These legal experts are standing at attention, ready to file the death and loss that would result from the comprehensive wrong of a pre-emptive attack into neat stacks of greater and lesser wrongs; willful wrongs and unavoidable wrongs; wrongs that can’t be tolerated and wrongs that grown-ups must accept as the cost of war. They are there to ensure that “shock and awe” in Baghdad doesn’t translate into shock and disgust at home. For some of us, that damage control is already too late.
For a lawyer, Addicott had surprisingly little to say about the law. He began by boasting, “I think most people understand that we have the most powerful military that the world has ever seen, and they’re probably more surprised to learn that we comply with the laws of war better than any military in the modern era.” Welcome reassurance after those stories about American soldiers bombing Canadians while hyped up on “go pills,” right? But the way he described his work had little to do with laws and a lot more to do with limiting the number of incidents that need to be explained to the American people.
Let’s say, for example, that a commander wants to bomb tanks that Saddam has shrewdly stashed in a civilian neighborhood. Let’s say he’s targeted a spot where his troops are likely to knock off a few of those “human shields.” Or imagine the planned attack will cull some of the child soldiers the Brookings Institution says Saddam is sure to use. In those cases, Addicott would “tell the commander, under the laws of war, perhaps the target may be a legitimate military target, but it may not be prudent to attack it because of the public relations backlash.”
This is hardly the job description of a watchdog for international law. It’s a domestic public relations gambit, but we should only have expected as much. By whom, in what court, can the Bush administration fear being taken to task for not adhering to conventions on warfare? Surely not by the International Criminal Court inaugurated in the Netherlands this week—an institution the U.S. does not recognize and refuses to participate in. No, the lawyers are there to make the American military unimpeachable in the court of public opinion. Just as it takes a lawyer to smoke pot without inhaling, it takes a lawyer to convince us that we are making war without killing.
There’s irony here, if you like that sort of thing. The president says paying attention to anti-war protesters would be “like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based on a focus group.” (NY Times, Feb. 19) But while President Bush stops his ears to the chanting and drum-beating of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the streets, Commander-in-Chief Bush pays Colonel Addicott to warn him about a “public relations backlash.” If huge demonstrations and a deluge of outraged letters and editorials aren’t a public relations backlash, what are they? Is there any reason Mr. Bush can’t continue to dismiss his critics with the same insouciance after we’ve slaughtered Iraqi civilians?
I welcome attempts to limit the suffering of the innocent. But I’m appalled that our military leaders are subcontracting their ethical responsibility to lawyers, who are busy even now fixing the parameters of Iraqi suffering.
These legal experts are standing at attention, ready to file the death and loss that would result from the comprehensive wrong of a pre-emptive attack into neat stacks of greater and lesser wrongs; willful wrongs and unavoidable wrongs; wrongs that can’t be tolerated and wrongs that grown-ups must accept as the cost of war. They are there to ensure that “shock and awe” in Baghdad doesn’t translate into shock and disgust at home. For some of us, that damage control is already too late.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)