Voice…

“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering

Apparently there has been quite a stir around the blogging universe regarding an audio file recently released by the Pentagon to the NY Times. The audio file, about and hour long, gives a lot of

unique insight into the relationship between the government/pentagon and media military analysts working for popular media outlets. The obvious concern is that the Pentagon uses these analysts to portray a favorable impression and message on how the war is going and on the administrations role in prosecuting it. The audio from the luncheon between Rumsfeld and the analysts took place in December of 2006. In it the analysts suggest, with Rumsfeld’s agreement, that Iraq needs a dictatorship. As hard as it sound I’ve written on the same topic myself in some of my classes. I even did a final paper on it which is posted around here somewhere. Iraq was created out of an agreement between western powers. The nation was created with little regard for regional or ethnic tensions and these tensions were held in place for the last several decades by a strong dictatorship. The surprising thing is that none of this was thought of before the war in Iraq took place.

Here is a link to the NY Times article.

A blogger and Professor who has posted the audio online w/commentary.

Another portion of the audio has Rumsfeld commenting that the American public lacked the maturity to appreciate that we are still under threat from terrorist attack, and that the only way to ‘correct’ this would be another attack. I don’t know which part i find more noxious. The idea that America really has forgotten about the current war and terrorism, or that what we need is another attack to rally us all together.

America hasn’t forgotten. Every single one of us is well aware that we are in the middle of a war. Nobody in this country is really ever going to forget what happened the day the towers fell. What we aren’t are a people who like to blindly follow the pied piper. Just because we don’t share Rumsfeld’s predilection for the ‘us against them’ mentality. Just because we don’t view this as in irreconcilable conflict of ideologies, this doesn’t mean that America has forgotten. It means that nationalism can only really take you so far. Eventually you have to re-engage the rest of the world. Eventually you have to look at the bigger picture.

It could be argued that the Iraq that exists today as a nation is a largely failed endeavor. Poorly partitioned in the treaties of Sevres and Lausanne in the 1920’s, conflicting Muslim sects, little to no national unity, and held in check for the last several decades by a brutal dictatorship. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine Iraq as it exists today…

~ by tokyocityblues on May 15, 2008.