guilty minds, guilty acts… »
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bullies…

Posted on Monday 26 July 2010

"I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions."

When I was reading over those documents about the Invasion of Iraq yesterday, many new things occurred to me. It always seems to happen that way:
    We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.
                    Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot
We didn’t invade Iraq because Iraq was dangerous. We invaded Iraq because it wasn’t. Iran was a danger. North Korea was a danger. But not Iraq.
    I want to be the bully on the block
                   Colin Powell 1992
    a bully is always a coward
                    M. Edgeworth Ormond 1817
Maybe everyone already knows that. Maybe I’ve always known it too. But this morning, it feels kind of fresh. Now that I think about it, the bully proverb applies to George Bush, Dick Cheney, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, etc.

Just as I clicked "Publish," the email bell rang notifying me that there was a new comment on my musings from yesterday. I think Woody frames my thoughts from this morning in a better way, with a question that I can’t answer but can sure say something about:

Dr. Blix’s words from 2008 impress me as those of a reasonable man who takes a middle course between the extremes of Bush the Master Criminal on one hand and Bush the Bumbling Idiot on the other. I suspect Blix is very close to the truth. My distaste (and disgust) for all things Bush make it hard (read “impossible”) for me to be anywhere near objective in assessing that recent past. Even though part of me demurs violently, I’m almost willing to split the difference, as expressed by the good doctor, so as to be able to move on. But I neither forgive nor forget.

Cheney, though, is something else altogether. The very idea of establishing the US as the earth’s sole superpower, so we can grind the rest of the world into dust – or not – simply because it suits us, is an iconic example of what the word “overweening“ means. Help me out here – isn’t that precisely why the names of Euripides, Aeschylus & Sophocles are still known at all to us, because they shouted from their Attic rooftops a few millennia ago their discovery that pride leads to destruction? Why is it so hard for our species to learn anything?

Dick Cheney is certainly a prime example for the Proverb:
    Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
                   Proverbs 16:18
A more modern version would come from the psychoanalysts who attempt to understand Narcissism and people with Narcissistic Personality Disorders. The afflicted require an inflated view of themselves and their own opinions in order to maintain psychic equilibrium. The can’t be wrong, so they appear prideful and arrogant – have hubris. They can’t tolerate flaws, and that very intolerance becomes the greatest flaw of all – the tragic character flaw of Aristotle’s Poetics. Dick Cheney is a classic case by any criteria.

Others would formulate the motor behind a Dick Cheney as The Will to Power, a supposed instinct in man attributed to Nietzsche [though that attribution is in question]. Some feminist writers see it as a male trait – an innate drive to dominate others.

And then there’s Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic. That certainly has relevance in talking about Dick Cheney. It goes like this:
    A man stands in a field, claiming ownership. A challenger appears and they begin to fight over ownership. There are two possible outcomes. First, one of the men kills the other and becomes the owner [left to wait for the next challenger]. The second outcome is that one of the combatants surrenders, thereby becoming the Slave of the victor [Master].
Hegel’s point is that the Slave is the winner. The Slave has achieved a level of self-consciousness to realize that he values his life more than the ownership of the field. He has moved away from the primitive  attempt to conquer with power and can enter relationships with other Slaves based on commerce, negotiation, and cooperation. The Master remains wedded to power dynamics and can only wait until the next challenger comes along. His fate is sealed and his ultimate demise is assured – a Bully to the end.

So Bush and Cheney went to Iraq and Vanquished the Bully, Saddam Hussein. They actually thought that would be the end of something. "How could we have predicted the Insurgency?" How could they expect anything else? All they did was put a new Bully in place [the U.S.] as a target for every challenger in the Middle East – and there are lots of them. And we’re still trying to win? Insanity.

But beyond musing about Proverbs, Psychoanalysts, and Philosophers, I think the bottom line is fear. Hussein didn’t let us publicize that he was powerless, because he was afraid Iran would attack him if they knew. Why shouldn’t they? Hadn’t he had attacked them when he thought they were weak after their revolution? Why do Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jong-il want nuclear weapons? Because we have them and they are afraid of us. They want us to be afraid of them. Why did Bin Laden bomb New York? Because he was afraid of us and wanted us to be afraid of him. We are, so we’ve spent the last nine years trying to kill him.

So back to Woody’s question, "Why is it so hard for our species to learn anything?" I’m not willing to see Dick Cheney, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong-il as fully representing our species. They are a particular kind of person. They often have Hubris, Narcissism, The Will to Power, aspirations to be Masters, act like bullies, and are fear-based to a fault. Left to their own devices, they make a terrible mess of things. In government, we put checks and balances in place to try to rein them in, but they often get the upper hand. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, they say. I’m more impressed that power-mongers are characterologically sick people who corrupt things all by themselves if given the power and the chance. And they always seem to think that the way to deal with their own fears is to scare the hell out of everyone else. Why do we elect them periodically, let them be in charge? I guess we’re afraid too, and they look strong and fearless. Not true. So back to the bully as coward theme, with their Operation Iraqi  Windbag  Freedom, Bush and Cheney took a shot at someone they know they could beat [but they couldn’t even bring that off].

Hans Blix is not one of those people – not a bully, not a coward:
Blair’s blind faith in intelligence
"… I told Tony Blair it would be absurd if 250,000 troops were to invade Iraq and find no WMD. So it was…"
guardian.co.uk
By Hans Blix
28 January 2010

… But it may be that the spectacular failure of ensuring disarmament by force, and of introducing democracy by occupation, will work in favour of a greater use of diplomacy and "soft power". Justified concerns about North Korea and Iran have led the US, as well as China, Russia and European states, to examine what economic and other non-military inducements they may use to ensure that these two states do not procure nuclear weapons. Washington and Moscow must begin nuclear disarmament. So long as these nuclear states maintain that these weapons are indispensable to their security, it is not surprising that others may think they are useful. What, really, is the alternative: invasion and occupation, as in Iraq? …
He says we can’t ask these rogue states to do something we won’t do ourselves. Now there’s a guy I’m thinking would be someone I’d like to see representing our species. – a golden rule kind of guy. I’m looking forward to watching him tomorrow [coming Tuesday…]…

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