Author's note: I'll start with a partial apology. I'm using the word "raping" primarily in a figurative sense in this diary. It's certainly an accurate enough word as it applies to what happened at Abu Ghraib, and it would be no surprise if it turned out to correctly describe other aspects of our presence in Iraq as well, but I know that some people object to the term ever being used figurately and I'm sorry if this upsets them. "Dehumanizing, dominating, and fucking them over" wouldn't fit in the title, and in any event it does not convey the shame and permanent psychic injury that rape imparts.
This diary is prompted by Atrios's link to a Think Progress article describing Bill Kristol's wish that we'd just shut up and see if Bush's new policy works. My answer to that is, no, Bill, we won't shut up, because this is a metaphorical rape in progress, and our fundamental responsibility is to stop it. It may not be clear how we can stop it, but shutting up certainly isn't the answer.
I don't think I've ever posted a true rant here. Ever wonder what it would look like if I did? So have I. Let's see how it fucking goes.
MEMO
To: Bill Kristol
From: Reality
Re: Long Time No See
For an effete man, you sure seem to think that you know a lot about war. In a sense, I suppose, you do. I'll bet you're quite the interoffice politician. And you certainly have no shame or compunctions. That's all well and good. But real war, and it's cousin occupation? No, not much of a clue.
Here's a tip: There are two ways to carry out a successful occupation.
One is to be absolutely ruthless. Terrorize the population. Someone kills one of your soldiers, you execute ten members of the population, chosen pretty much at random. That exerts some social pressure on them. Now, some hotheads in the populace will still kill some of your soldiers -- because armed and fearful soldiers tend to commit the occasional atrocity, and because they do need someone to fuck and that will generally mean the young and comely (and generally unwilling) natives whose families really don't like their sisters and daughters and mothers being put into that position -- so that will often mean a whole lot of those executions, each one leaving its own land mines in the hearts of the local population that may explode years or decades later, but you can do it.
You can do it. You can be like the Nazis or the Soviets or sometimes the British or Americans. If you're lucky, you end up with a forgiving subject population that is later willing to re-establish good relations -- an India, a Vietnam, maybe a Czech Republic. The problem for you is that -- to the great and eternal credit of this country -- Americans have very little taste for this, especially if it's televised. We have a lot of tolerance for bombing, so long as we don't see the consequences, but not for the close quarters stab-stab, strangle-strangle, shoot in the head kind of occupation that one really must implement to make this work. So, there's option 2.
Option 2 is winning over the populations hearts and minds. It's hard, but it can be done. Japan. Italy. Germany. There's one key precept to bear in mind if you take this approach.
Do not rape the native population, you motherfucking son of a bitch!
That's not simply a literal precept, Bill, although it certainly is that. It means, to dip into the vernacular, don't fuck them over. Shall I give you an operational definition of "not fucking them over"? Glad to.
Do not subordinate their legitimate interests to your aspirations.
Wait, that didn't go far enough. Here:
Don't even appear to be doing so.
"Well!" I envision you sitting up straight and blinking rapidly and adjusting the cut of your suit jacket across your shoulders. "We're certainly not doing that! The Iraqis want peace just as much as we do!"
Bill. Bill, look at me in the eyes. You're smarter than that, you pustulent pilonidal cyst, you.
They want us out, Bill. Even the people that we support want us out.
They don't want us making the decisions for them. They want to chart their own course. Right or wrong. With us or agin us. We're not winning any fucking hearts and minds here, Bill!
They think -- I know you're going to find this incredible, I know that you're going to find it unbelievable that they could come to this conclusion -- they think that we're putting our interests above theirs.
They think that we're trying to ensure control of their oil, and that we're trying to ensure that any government must give us favorable treatment if it wants to stay in power. They think that our actual problem with Maliki is that he isn't sufficiently willing to play along with us. And Bill -- they don't like that! They see that as raping their country by helping ourselves to its national resources! I don't know where they got that idea, Bill, but they did. And they don't like being raped!
They think that what we want is permanent bases in Iraq so that we can continue to impose our power in the region. Now it may be that they would support our temporary presence so that we can use our air power to prevent the worst scenarios of a full-scale civil war -- but that would be a way of winning hearts and minds, by preventing bloodshed. Presented in the right way, with regional and international support, there could well be a role for us there -- and we might well be able to get that support if we would just make it clear that we are not interested in raping Iraq! But we'd have to mean it, Bill. We'd have to be open and transparent and allow controls to be placed on us, because somehow -- somehow -- we've lost some credibility.
They think that we don't actually favor democracy in Iraq because we don't want Iran and Syria to gain control over the country. They may think that because that's what we say. But Bill, that ship has sailed! It was obvious that, in a Shi'ite majority nation breaking out from under a Sunni tyranny, the Shia would take control, and they would probably align with the only other Shi'ite power around them, that being Iran. This is not rocket science, Bill. It was one reason that many people wanted to see Saddam removed with a scalpel rather than a bludgeon, and the Ba'ath party moderated and integrated into a cosmopolitan government rather than driven to start an insurgency with all of the weapons we left them to loot. But what's done is done, Bill. Sunni still outnumber Shia in the region, and there will be a balance of power. There are still interests to be served on all sides here, and we can be a help in doing so, if we stop slavering at the idea that we can continue raping Iraq indefinitely.
But, in describing Bush's Congressional opponents, you say that
It’s so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months and say the president has made a decision, we’re not going to change that decision, we’re not going to cut off funds and insist on the troops coming back, so let’s give it a chance to work. You really wonder, do they want it to work or not?
Irresponsible, you motherfucking slimy sack of shit? Bush is sitting on a barstool sucking down an unlimited number of blood-of-the-Iraqi-people-flavored margaritas and you say that it's irresponsible to tell him that we're cutting off his credit? No, you meatball, you sponge cake, it's the fucking opposite of irresponsible. It is finally saying that anyone with three brain cells firing can see that this is not going to work. Irresponsible is tut-tutting about wanting Bush to pay his fucking bill and get off the damn stool. You want six-to-nine more months of raping the Iraqis. No. We would like the healing to begin, thank you. They're going to hate us for a long time at best, and the only way to ameliorate that process is to (1) stop trying to rape them, (2) start trying to be helpful in ways that other countries would agree is helpful, (3) stop trying to rape them, and (4) stop trying to rape them, you motherfucking pampered misbegotten idiot spawn of ambulatory canker sores! We make it clear: we don't want control of their oil to which we're not entitled, we don't want pernament military bases there, and while we and every civilized nation of the world would like them to have a government that respects human rights to the maximum extent possible, we are not going to try to impose it on them because we do not have the best moral standing to do so at the present moment, having irresponsibly foisted anarchy and civil war on them with no plan for what came after toppling Saddam's statue. And we might want to say that we're sorry. With cash. For reconstruction and for refugee camps. Lots and lots of cash. Cash obtained from repealing tax cuts on asswipes like you and your ilk.
Every day that we stay there, Bill, things get worse. The hole gets deeper. Eventually we're going to climb out. When we do, we'd like it to be six-to-nine months less deep than you'd have it be. And we're not going to stay there for another two years just for the palpably obvious reason that Bush and Cheney do not want to let history say that they are the ones who lost the war. Because that's what it's about now, Bill. Blame.
My greatest disappointment is that I don't have the chops to be an editorial cartoonist. I've wanted to draw a four panel cartoon of Bush as a surgeon, Iraq as the patient on the operating table. Bush slices into the body, and removes a tumor shaped like the head of Saddam Hussein! Bush exults! The surgical staff applauds and adores him. He stands in a corner of the room and gives a self-congratultory speech. And the unattended patient continues bleeding to death.
Hearts and minds, Bill, hearts and minds. Make it clear that the only interests we will put first, while in Iraq, are the interests of Iraq. Disclaim any desire to impose our desire upon them against their will. And then get the fuck out. They might like us more if we'd stop raping them.