MysteriousFaith

Biting Off More Than They Can Chew

Love or hate the current Bush administration, Americans are making a grave mistake if they do not invest some time in learning what is forming the current administration’s foreign policy. This book is a first-hand insight into the set of issues revolving around the fight against terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Book Review - An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror by David Frum and Richard Perle

The authors of this book are insiders of the current Bush administration, Frum in particular having served as one of the more formative elements of the administration’s ideas and speeches. The book quickly suggests and reinforces the belief that everything the Bush administration has put forward to us can, and should be, justly contrasted between good and evil - even such distinctions as those between Republicans and Democrats. By the mid-point of the second page of the book, Democrats have already been accused of being against the “war” (no doubt left ambiguous as to which war - that on terror, or that in Iraq - as it suits Frum and Perle’s ideas to leave undefined that which carries with it meaning).

I find this book intellectually punishing to read - it struggles to rise above that of propaganda. If I might offer one support for this, the book’s double-spaced 284 pages are rarely footnoted. Given the claims made in this book, should the authors have desired to do more than inflame and reinforce those that already agree with them, it would have served their purposes well to provide some sort of academic support. Without them, the book does not rise above that of an extended campaign speech for now-President Bush. Some of the book is ludicrous: “The clues and hints we have linking Saddam’s intelligence to the hijackers are inconclusive. But they are not nonexistent.” (page 45) Say what? Where did we begin to allow such weak-minded arguments to become the basis for military action? Are we as anesthetized to logic and reason that this type of question is purported to be meaningful?

But the flaccid logic this book espouses is best illustrated by using the authors’ own words: “Yet at this dangerous moment many in the American political and media elite are losing their nerve for the fight. Perhaps it is the political cycle: For some Democrats, winning the war has become a less urgent priority than winning the next election. Perhaps it is the media, rediscovering its bias in favor of bad news and infecting the whole country with its own ingrown pessimism. Perhaps it is Congress, resenting the war’s cost and coveting the money for its own domestic spending agendas. Or perhaps it is just fatigue.” (page 4) This is ludicrous - no where in the book do the authors make a meaningful effort to suggest that some peoples’ resistance to the “war” are on the basis of meaningful policy and consistency grounds.

The authors are guilty of tremendous over-simplification. One such example is contained within the second chapter, where they argue that America must come to understand that resolving the civil problems in Iraq will take time, that we must be patient. Now that we are in a conflict I disagree with us originally being a part of, I would have to agree. But to support the argument by suggesting parallels to the current day Soviet Union (which they suggest) is inappropriate and illogical. “A dozen years after the fall of communism, electricity and water sputter unreliably in much of the former Soviet Union.” (page 12) That sentence is within a portion of the book arguing that the change to democracy, or perhaps better said the vindication of America’s current policy can be shown to help the people if they will only stick with it. To say that now, given the dangerous situation developing in Russia, is shocking. It barely passes the smell test and is an argument that relies on an uniformed reader to assume reasonableness of the comments.

Also in the second chapter, the authors suggest that weakness led to the US pullback from full invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991. The authors castigate the first Bush administration for pulling out prematurely, and the CIA for instigating, then running from, a Sunni rebellion that would topple Hussein. The authors state “…what Iraqis and others in the Middle East saw was Saddam’s tanks crushing American-backed insurgents. Saddam had survived; therefore we had lost. And over the next eight years the people of the region would see us lose again and again.” (page 17) To suggest that one of the contributing factors to the tension in the Middle East is this, rather than a serious and more balanced analysis of our foreign policy does nothing but support the prejudice of action - of hawkish aggression - couched within a reaction to supposed past pacifism in dealing with the dictator of Iraq.

One section of the book reinforced my concerns over the neo-conservatives who are moving within the Bush administration. These people view American hegemony as a good thing, and view the world in black and white terms that always portray America’s motives as pure and those that disagree with them as evil (hence this book’s preposterous title). In the second chapter, the authors suggest that the most recent Iraqi war “achieved at least seven great objectives.” (page 32) The fourth lesson chilled me, and requires little more for me to believe that neo-conservatives have a worldview where force plays an integral part: “We have learned valuable lessons about how to fight wars in the region and how to rebuild afterward. Nobody will pretend that mistakes were note made in the Iraqi campaign and the subsequent occupation. But we have learned from those mistakes, and they will not be repeated. The United States will continue to become more and more capable and effective in the fight against terror.” (page 33) Those words are chilling. They show premeditation in the deployment of force to protect US hegemony and to perpetuate American imperialism. It also seems a tad bit premature to argue that we can say we have learned how to rebuild Iraq when so much remains to be done, and when our recent record in Afghanistan is anything but checkered.

I agree with the authors of this book in one area: those that oppose Bush must put forward a meaningful foreign policy that addresses the fear of Americans, the realities of the dangers in our current-day, and that forces institutional reform within those international organizations and governments that can most directly and immediately affect change.

We have a propaganda machine firing full force today: on one side we have the hawks who propose that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is already a done deal, that chemical and biological weapons are within the reach of anyone with a computer, a connection to the Internet, and a Zip-Loc bag. On the other hand are those who seem to struggle with presenting their own world view. Perhaps this is because the act of propaganda comes less easily to those who suggest balance in a world of dangerous extremes. Yes, nuclear proliferation is a major concern. Yes, bio-weapons are hideous tools of evil. But to justify a war on the basis of intelligence that now seems to be dubious at best while at the same time constantly crying loudly of “what-if?” doomsday scenarios to me runs the most dangerous risk of wearing people out for a time when meaningful dialogue and reasoned responses to danger are going to be necessary.

This book does nothing to address the question of “why” others hate us, and its proposals rarely rise above that of a reactionary, fear-mongering hawkish stereotype. People such as these authors chill me; their patriotism is genuine, but misplaced patriotism can easily become fascism if good people who can reason and communicate intelligently do not question them.

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• April 1, 2004

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