American Tragedy

There was a moment when the film maker Woody Allen understood that he was not going to be sufficiently funny anymore.  There's a scene in his film "Stardust Memories" in which a UFO appears and extra-terrestrials tell Woody Allen that he ought to give up on serious film making and return to his earlier funny movies.  The joke is of course all about the Id, that base of consciousness and drive that animates western people.  The humor is that we can know precisely what's wrong with us and still somehow be helpless in the face of it.  Knowing this won't set you free no matter what Oprah Winfrey might say.  Irony won't save you either.  If you know you're failing and you proceed to fail anyway and somehow you know the reason why this was inevitable, you are a tragic figure according to Aristotle.  If you choose to find this funny you are dabbling in high comedy and the difference between this and tragedy is simply a matter of degree.

What's worse, of course, is that you can see people who are perfectly self aware who are making other people pay for their conscious decisions about how they will think about their lives.  This is the new American decadence in our new century.  The plan for a "surge" of American troops in Iraq is the product of this contemporary decadence.  Think tankers and politicos alike know that this is a policy that won't succeed.  Back in the days of the Viet Nam war this idea of a "surge" was called "escalation" and we all know how that worked out.  Foreign troops cannot prevail in the midst of a civil war.  Everyone knows this . But look!  The new American decadence about self-hood has taken over.  We can know for certain that a plan is bad and endorse it anyway because the infrastructure of the plan still suits our idea about ourselves.  Both Democrats and Republicans hope to somehow re-imagine that Iraqis will meet our tanks with flower arrangements and dancing.  Remember Donald Rumsfeld telling the media that the images of liberated Iraqis were "breathtaking"?

I believe that Americans should have the courage to leave Iraq.  The people of the region need to decide for themselves how they will assume the mantle of a nation state.  Our brave American service men and women should not be in the cross fire of a civil disturbance and we should not confuse a reluctance to admit this with the idea that our national security is at stake.  I have always marveled at the degree to which Americans who live in the richest and strongest nation in history can be led to believe that their security is imminently threatened by some incompetent insurgency in a country far from home.

We will all hear much in the coming weeks about how we must send more troops to Iraq to ensure that we don't have to fight the terrorists here at home.  This is a ruinous idea and it's not based on political or strategic realities.  But it does sound a lot like the old domino theory.

When Woody Allen was funny he was of course a smarter film maker.  The joke in Washington is however the stuff of tragedy.

 

Comments

[Brenda B]

Iraq was a sovereign state before the US invaded. The people could have been empowered to overthrow Saddam on their own, but instead the US blew their world apart. More troops isn't the answer,but the US must find some solution to the mess they created.

Calling the horrible situation in Iraq an "incompetent insurgency" points to your inheritance of a good dose of common US arrogance. Oh, these dumb little Iraqi's with their silly conflicts. The conflicts are deep and serious and years of being under the thumb of a murderous dictator will no doubt create a desperate people full of anguish and hate. Having your country invaded, your homes and insitutions blown up, your neighbours killed and not having access to the basic necessities will also create turmoil in the psyche, don't you think? How about having a non-Muslim country write your new constitution for you? Won't that ill-affect the mind?

The US has to take responsibility for the devastating effect the invasion has had. Getting the hell out of there will protect US troops but will do nothing for the victims of the US invasion.

Don't take the easy road of blaming the victim. Don't say (like the Republicans who want to get back in with the voters) that the Iraqi gov't needs to step up... we can't do all the work for them. That is such a conveniant and deadly lie.

The US gov't must come up with a way to right this wrong and not just back out and leave the bloody mess it created. That would be criminal.

[Janet Gayes]

I think we need to do both - leave and help the Iraqis clean up the mess that we have spent decades contributing to. How is the question. We need better answers than just more troops.