Perpetual War

Gene Healy has a great post at his blog, Cato@Liberty, on the topic of the neocon war cult.

First he quotes a Washington Post article about how the hardest-core neocons are really mad at Bush right now for pursuing what they consider a timid foreign policy. "They believe that a perception that the administration is weak and without options is emboldening Syria and Iran and the Hezbollah radicals they help sponsor in Lebanon," says the WaPo.

Healy comments, "Now, you could marvel at the brazenness of all this: the same people who helped lead us into the biggest foreign policy disaster in 30 years trying to push another war (or wars) on us without so much as a prefatory 'sorry about the whole Iraq thing, old boy.' But the current squawking also strikes me as a useful reminder of how very, very important war is in the neoconservative vision. It is as central to that vision as peace is to the classical liberal vision.

"For the neoconservatives, it’s not about Israel. It’s about war. War is a bracing tonic for the national spirit and in all its forms it presents opportunities for national greatness. 'Ultimately, American purpose can find its voice only in Washington,' David Brooks once wrote. And Washington’s never louder or more powerful than when it has a war to fight."

This is all true, but it also misses a point. The main reason for perpetual war, IMHO, is that it's the only feasible justification for the erection of the sort of tyranny we currently suffer under. How could you justify spying on your own citizens were it not for the "war emergency?"

By what means could you excuse rounding up suspected enemies, holding them without charging them, and subjecting them to torture if it wasn't for the extreme pressures exerted by the anxiety and danger of war?

How could you possibly get away with overthrowing Article I of your own government's founding document and usurping the power of the legislature with "signing statements" except under the dire threat posed by the ever-vigilant enemy.

And why would people tolerate blatant attacks on and threats against "subversive" newspapers such as the New York Times, whose right to report facts is constitutionally guaranteed. We've been told that this paper and others are endangering America's security by reporting facts inconvenient to the administration.

"Those are hard words, I know. But this country's at war!"

And why don't you let George Orwell tell you exactly why it's at war:

The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

And how does one keep the structure of society intact, according to Orwell and Hermann Goering? By keeping people frightened, paranoid, revved up with fanatical anger, and stupid.

Hey, it worked for Hitler. It worked for Stalin. And it works for Bush and Cheney.

Make no mistake, the object of the neocon worship of perpetual war is their stimulation and your subjugation.

It's a policy that can take some strange twists and turns, however. While there is an auxiliary cult of "the ultimate sacrifice," which places the war dead on the same spiritual level as the early Christian martyrs, we are not allowed to see the individual flag-draped coffins as they are flown home from Iraq or wherever else the neocons have decided we need to murder people this week.

Seeing them might bring us a little too close to the knowledge that the remains of a human being are lying in that box.

But don't worry about that; just praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and, as Healy concludes "Who we’re fighting is secondary. That we’re fighting is the main thing. To be a neoconservative is to thrill to the sound of gunfire. (From a nice, safe distance, generally.)"