Why Are We in Iraq?

The topic of "why are we in Vietnam?" was so persistently examined in the 60s that Norman Mailer used it as the title of a novel. It's somewhat different these days---the question isn't so obsessive, but then this period does often seem anesthetized if not lobotomated. But those who do ask come up with a variety of answers: oil, G.W.'s Revenge (either on behalf of Daddy, or on Daddy), the neocon strategy for world domination, oil, the permanent war economy, Iraq as the permanent military base to replace Saudi Arabia, oil, etc. They are probably all true in some measure, and others besides.

But here's a response I haven't heard before, that tends to explain the virulence of the Bushite post-9-11 complex of war, torture, imperial disregard for law and civil liberties, the whole hog of excess.

It's in a discussion Tom Englehart has with journalist Mark Danner at Salon. Danner apologizes for engaging in speculative psychologizing, but even with his embarrassment, I think he's on to something:

The central question here is: Why did we have the kind of response we did after 9/11? The Bush administration, which professed itself so strong on national security, had let the United States suffer the most catastrophic attack on its territory in history. We have to remind ourselves of the effect of this. Remember, their major security programs were the Strategic Defense Initiative and confronting China. They thought that terrorism, which they didn't care about, was a matter for sissies. Like humanitarian intervention, the threat posed by non-state actors -- and many other concerns of the previous administration -- all this stuff was, as they saw it, a kid's view of national security, so they ignored it. And afterward they knew very well that reports existed showing how they had ignored it, most notably the PDB [Presidential Daily Briefing] that was famously titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." This was a very human thing. Having proclaimed how strong they were on national security, they were attacked. I think that accounted, to some degree, for the ferocity of the counterattack. You don't need to get too deep to see that. When you look at this idea of the gloves coming off, the implication is very much exculpatory. They're saying, in effect: Before the gloves were on, so we weren't able to detect and prevent this attack. "

So Danner is saying two interesting things here: first, the ferocity of the Bushite response was proportionate to their extreme shame of having left the country unprotected for 9-11, and second, that their insistence on torture and wiretapping is a way of telling everyone, including themselves, that the reason they didn't see the terrorist threat was because they weren't torturing and wiretapping back then, not because they simply weren't paying attention.

Not paying attention is something this administration does very well. Maybe the only thing.

And in case you weren't paying attention yesterday, The Big Smirk has gone below the one-third of the approving electorate that was his rock solid rock bottom, in one poll. In all the others he doesn't get higher than 38%. He's lost Independents and now the Republicans who were along for the ride.