Facts

So I'd planned this morning to vivisect Andrew Sullivan's weekly Sunday Times piece, just for laughs, especially in light of the shocking revelation not long ago that Republicans as a whole don't like gays all that much, all in all, really, pretty much. I mean, who knew? Unfortunately, he hadn't posted it to his site yet. I attempted to find it on the Sunday Times site, but either I'm even more inept than I think I am, or it was designed by a team of autistic howler (ass)monkeys, for I couldn't find it on my own, and their search engine wanted me to give them money before it would show me anything. And while I like a good vivisection as much as the next man, I don't like it nearly enough to actually _pay_. Do I look like I'm made of money to you? No? What about marzipan? Possibly butter?

Well.

So there was no bloggery this morning, no sirree, which was a shame as the article apparently carried the juicy title of 'Ominous fault lines open under Bush’s feet'...Instead I felt clever as I did my real analysis homework; Radon measures aren't all that hard to work with. Pretty much any measure you can build out of a Radon measure, as near as I can tell, will also be Radon. I went out, basked in the fresh air and sunshine, and as I did so I stumbled upon an open-air production of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the foot of a monument in Volunteer Park by a group from Cornish College of the Arts, which just goes to show you the difference between Seattle and Iowa, where all I'd be likely to stumble across is swine feces. Enthusiastic performances by some foxy, foxy homos, high camp with prostitutes played by men in drag, but somewhat disjointed, and without a single clear artistic vision. Sometimes sort of classical-minimalist, sometimes more absurdist. But enjoyable enough. All but for the two teenaged girls sitting just upwind of me who insisted on smoking their foul tobacco cigarettes and gossiping bitchily rather than paying any attention to the play itself. I made a note of them in my Palm Pilot: it reads 'crowing assbastards'. As perhaps you can tell, I like to use the word 'ass' in compounds. It's a hobby. They were nearly the archetypes of the people who sit behind you in the cinema and don't turn their mobile phones off. Only ranker.

Home at last, I find my Official Arch-Nemesis^[TM] Sullivan, who is as disgustingly right-wing on most things as I am disgustingly socialist, has indeed gotten his posting on! There's a little bitlet on his Daily Dish called 'The Clincher' (Clencher? As in, clencher of my teeth and buttocks as my entire body spasms in pain and illogic?) which needs some addressing. The Telegraph reported the discovery of documents in Baghdad that claim an al-Qaeda envoy paid an official visit on Iraq in 1998. Sullivan says that, 'if verified' (a nice ass-covering, there), this would pretty much demolish the anti-war crowd. Speaking as one of them, I don't think this is entirely true. Consider. This visit happened in March 1998, long before 11 September, before even the bombings of US embassies in Africa, as the Telegraph freely admits. There is so far no evidence that this visit was ever followed up. There is as yet no evidence that Iraq materially aided al-Qaeda in any way. There are still strong indications to the contrary. (I.e., Osama bin Laden calling for Hussein to be overthrown and killed.) But let's be generous. Suppose such evidence is found--and it's genuine: that still will not chance the morality of the war in the slightest. You can't justify your actions with things you don't know until afterwards.

Suppose you're high on pixie sticks and espresso, pulling your car out of the driveway, hungry for blood, when you 'accidentally' back over your neighbour's kid twelve times as an example to the rest of the block. Suppose afterwards you learn said neighbour's kid was actually a cat-molesting neo-Nazi who dealt smack to nuns. (Who knew? Certainly not you. He was always such a quiet boy.) Does that make it retroactively more moral to have pulverised the kid?

Well, no, of course not. Don't be silly.

Whatever new information may come to light now cannot be used to justify something that's already been done. Otherwise you aren't acting on logic at all, but on faith: faith that you'll find some just cause, after the fact, to rationalise the thing you've already set your heart on doing. That's like killing someone because you believe Jesus told you to do it. Or because you believe your dog told you to do it. It's not rational. In an individual, we'd call it insane.

Just believing isn't enough to carry an argument. Otherwise al-Qaeda would win hands-down. They believe. On what grounds do we argue with their conclusions? We believe they're wrong when they say that, for example, the world ought to live under a tyrannical oppressive theocracy and make women second- or third-class citizens. So how do we decide which of the two competing belief systems, theirs or ours, is the one we should support? Do we decide on the basis of whose faith is the purer? Of who is freer from doubts? Of who can shout slogans the loudest? Or do we look at these 'fact' things we keep hearing so much about? Like, do we possibly attempt to amass evidence and come to some logical conclusion from it? Maybe? Perhaps? Just a little?

Let us consider the facts. Before the fact, the US had no evidence that Iraq actually had any significant chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons capability. The US had no evidence tying Iraq to al-Qaeda. The US had no evidence that Iraq represented any kind of a security threat. In fact, the US just wanted a convenient target it could blow to bits as an example to other nations. The administration has freely admitted so, as I'm sure everyone has heard by now. They lied. Let me just repeat that.

They lied.

The case they attempted to build before the invasion was a sham. They had no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or of al-Qaeda connections when they were selling this war. When they claimed that they did, they were lying. They spoke untruly. They prevaricated. They opened their mouths and discharged a thick warm stream of the feces of untruth. The evidence they offered of weapons of mass destruction was pretty well debunked by Unmovic. They didn't even bother to offer any evidence of al-Quaeda ties, just repeated the same empty claims over and over in the hopes that, like a commercial, repetition would jam it into people's heads as God's own truth. Those who supported the war were supporting a great big fat juicy perky plump-thighed incontinent rank sweaty leprous lie. I am now going to repeat the word 'lie' several times for emphasis.

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

(Which is not to be confused with Lie, as in Marius Sophus Lie, of Lie groups fame.)

By any rational standards, the anti-war movement was absolutely in the right. No compelling evidence was presented to justify the government's claims. No just cause was presented that would stand up to scrutiny. Rejecting the war was the only reasonable thing to do. An unjustified war is an unjust war.

Which brings me back to Sullivan, saying quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard (in the last five minutes)...

My view is that, after 9/11, we have little option but to launch a pre-emptive strike and hope for retroactive justification.

Yeah. That's really stupid. I mean, that's so stupid, I'm not even sure how to argue with it. Let's just cross our fingers and pull the trigger? Why don't we just declare war on everybody? I'm sure they've all done something...

But I understand why people demand proof before such action.

What, because the alternative is to live governed entirely by paranoia and propaganda, completely pissing away all the qualities of rationality, objectivity, and free thought that make western civilisation worth living in?

This new finding - and I bet there will be more like it - strengthens my position, I think.

That it's okay to be as irresponsible and bloodthirsty and rash and arrogant as you want, so long as you can think of a halfway convincing excuse afterwards?

It's clearer and clearer that we did the right thing. And this debate is even more important to have now when we can look at the evidence than before, when we couldn't.

Of course. It's vitally important that we save the debate on whether we should kill some people and trash their cities until after we've killed and trashed. That makes it so much harder for people to dissent.

If only there were a National Bitch-Slap Anyone Who Says Something Patently Untrue and Illogical Day...

(Metaphorically bitch-slap, of course.)

Write your Congressperson. This is an idea whose time has come.

Posted by aloysius at April 28, 2003 12:30 AM |