Tragedy of Iraq is a Conceptual Failure to Define Goals and Terms

Giant tragedies like the 1914 Great War assign guilt all around, because there was an historic clash of contrary forces that left no choice but destruction, and many hundreds of leaders, social and ethnic forces resoundingly get the blame - Russian, Serbian, Austrian, French, British and German, among others.

But the tragedies of Viet Nam and Iraq, a sort of "gratuitous massacre" of a small, prickly country, seem to have no beneficiary (except perhaps those who supply the arms, or the gods of Folly), no admitted cause or even planners, and no goal, no upside, no potential for "victory", or even any definition of what "victory" might be.

Surely, the nincompoops that Bush put into power - the aggressively incompetent and sputtering Rummy, the drunken Cheney, and dozens of others - continue in ignomy and failure. But beyond mere mistakes, something else is going on, an assault on the very concepts of logical thought themselves.

To understand the tragedy in Iraq, look to the analogies with Viet Nam. A hint is given by Perle, the neocon chief architect of the war, when he complains, in pissant fashion, that he and his fellow neocons were not able to direct the war after they started it.

In the time of Viet Nam, we had futile, funny conceptual "wars": "...on Drugs", "...on Poverty", and "...on Communism". The terrors of the "Domino Theory" were touted as well as the goal of making Viet Nam into a "democracy" and rescuing it from "Communism". Many voices which never reached the toady mainstream press cautioned at the time that the Vietnamese were our greatest fans, and only wanted to do business with us.

Our politicians, misled by the language, clung to the false concepts of the "War on Communism" and the "Domino Theory."

The forces termed "Communist" won, Saigon was renamed "Ho Chi Minh City", and the Americans were kicked out. But contrary to the mythology promulgated by the architects of that disastrous war, Viet Nam did not join our enemies; in fact, Viet Nam skirmished with China, and helped save the Cambodians from Pol Pot, whom we funded until 1978. This war was really started in 1946, when we ferried French client troops to Viet Nam, betraying our wartime ally Ho Chi Minh, and lasted until 1974. Two generations of Vietnamese grew up with the need to fight, using stone-age tools, against modern military establishments with world-class resources and no moral proscription against blowing up civilian targets. Pretty tough, after their long war to kick Japan out of Viet Nam, following their centuries-long historic issues with China.

The falsity of the jingoistic concepts held dear by American politicians was revealed later, as Viet Nam showed its essential desire to do business with the world, and expressed its own character in its own way - and even extended forgiveness to the USA and to Sen. McClain for carpet-bombing civilians and even for once terming them "gooks" during a return visit.

So Viet Nam, what ever else it was, and whatever other false reason for the massacre, involved a conceptual failure, a failure to understand the Vietnamese, a failure to grasp the essential problem, and a divergence between the "terms of discourse" used by the American ruling class and media from the reality this conceptual structure was supposed to represent.

One old academician stated that, conceptually, it was as difficult to understand what is going on in a political grouping, once it gets larger than about 5,000, as it is to extend our normal concepts of the everyday world to the microcosm of sub-atomic particles or the macrocosm of "warped space".

When you look for historic, gigantic tragedies like The Great War of 1914, look for the immense conflict of societal and cultural forces and the inevitable destruction, which seems unavoidable.

But when looking at arbitrary tragedies, voluntary, gratuitous insults to reason as "destroying Viet Nam to save it" and "killing the Iraqis to save them from the insurgents", look to conceptual failure. Look to small minds and the arrogance of power. The refusal of those intellectually conceited, mean-spirited folks to admit their mistakes, and their refusal to give up their erroneous ideas and incompetent, precious theories.

In the case of Iraq, there is not only the same divergence between goals and reality, there is not even a vague assessment of what the existing society was like or what the end result Bush is supposedly seeking.

What is, then, "victory in Iraq"? What would be the "exit conditions" which would justify all the effort?

But even prior to that, how accurate is our assessment of what Iraq's reality consists of? What are its culture, goals and people like? We cannot know, we don't even speak the language, and, even if we did, we might disclaim an interest in finding all these things out. But by becoming the occupying power, we really assume, historically, the obligation of knowing all these things.

"What are Bush, and the American Armies, doing in Iraq?? What the HELL are they thinking??"

The point is, they are thinking, but their terms of discourse don't match the reality of the world, and they are too proud to admit it. Hubris...