I've had approximately a month to stew over the events of September 13, 2007. That evening as I graded physics homework I observed the oddest presidential address that I can recall this administration producing. President George W. Bush addressed the nation at 9:01 PM, EDT according to official records¹ — on MSNBC at least he was prefaced by Keith Olbermann and his talking head brigade spouting what passes for journalism in our dark times. Olbermann used to be a voice of reason in a news cycle full of shrunken heads, but his tendency towards ad hominem monologues has given me no choice but to wash my hands of him altogether. I found myself very much in the position of the students at Columbia University who arrived to hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak only to find themselves party to a nineteen minute lecture on how bad a person he is. I continue to hope that the American public at large does not need this 'vaccination' and that this was simply MSNBC being out of touch with its demographic. But without any further pre-game discussion, let's jump to the matter at hand:
"In the life of all free nations, there come moments that decide the direction of a country and reveal the character of its people. We are now at such a moment."
President Bush's politics has always been dominated by what Slavoj Žižek called "The Ethics of Urgency"² — if we trace back through the President's speeches we see that very often he speaks of these moments of absolute urgency when action must be taken. The pragmatic sort of myopic utilitarianism shared by most of my countrymen (including myself, to be true) understands decisions made out of dire need are rarely optimal and often totally wrong. However, because the need to make a decision, any decision, was so great, the consequences are somewhat mitigated. This is the theme I believe the President addresses.
"In Iraq, an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival....This ally has placed its trust in the United States. And tonight, our moral and strategic imperatives are one: We must help Iraq defeat those who threaten its future and also threaten ours."
This point has already been addressed in Our tomorrow starts today: one minute to midnight in Iraq, in which StrawberryFrog writes: "The moral imperative of 'you broke it, you fix it' can be answered with more clichés, to wit: 'When you're in a hole, stop digging', and 'Don't throw good money after bad', or from Dr. Einstein 'No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.'" There is no clear moral imperative here: the United States is not even in a position to imagine itself in the place of Iraq or any other country, and therefore it cannot judge the right course of action. It is as if we had entered a new period of isolationism that was ushered in, paradoxically enough, by a period of increasing globalization. There is no clear strategic imperative, either.
I have to admit to my own failure and my future profession's failure to supply a political or ethical theory more convincing than the President's. Ultimately it is our fault for ushering in an era where the three major ethical theories are still in a state of mutual antinomy. But there are more immediate causes to be addressed.
The president continues to describe the 'troop surge' strategy, with frequent reference to General David Petraeus's report on the state of Iraq given just three days earlier. This is the same report that inspired MoveOn.org to place a full-page ad in The New York Times with the heading "General Petraeus or General Betray Us" — in quite poor taste, yes, but it's still a free country. After quoting the success in Anbar, the President introduces his new strategy for the Iraq War:
"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success.' The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home. And in all we do, I will ensure that our commanders on the ground have the troops and flexibility they need to defeat the enemy."
This is a terrible, horrible call to battle. In three words our President objectified the United States military and reduced them to the material economics of war: the exchange rate of american lives to iraqi lives, the dynamics of troop supply and insurgent demand, and the corresponding rule of diminishing returns.
What follows is a few words designed to erode away at the base of those who wanted to end the war months ago. I was one of them, but with this speech and in the aftermath of this speech I cannot say that the war should end now. Were I in the unimaginable shoes of the Iraqi people whom The Onion tells us still feel sorrow at the death of their loved ones³, I would want any help at all, even if it came from the Americans. After reinforcing this last requirement of the American people, neither moral nor strategic, the President relays an anecdote from a dead soldier's family:
"Earlier this year, I received an email from the family of Army Specialist Brandon Stout of Michigan. Brandon volunteered for the National Guard and was killed while serving in Baghdad. His family has suffered greatly. Yet in their sorrow, they see larger purpose. His wife, Audrey, says that Brandon felt called to serve and knew what he was fighting for. And his parents, Tracy and Jeff, wrote me this: 'We believe this is a war of good and evil and we must win even if it cost the life of our own son. Freedom is not free.'"
We have to wonder how many Americans truly believe this rhetoric, that our troops are fighting for our freedom, for Iraqi freedom, and to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil, and we have to wonder how many of us want to believe it because the staggering weight of our error that now must be followed is too much to bear.
Footnotes:
- Speech text in the public domain: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070913-2.html
- Available at http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2481/
- Available at http://www.theonion.com/content/news/study_iraqis_may_experience