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roachboy · 02-09-2005, 07:47 AM

yes, shakran--and this is why there is no way to seperate the "elections" and positions on the war in general--what is at issue is the whole narrative that lets you connect elements together. this narrative is political through and through. and this applies to all positions.

i find the trope of "bush hating" to be a rightwing cliche, meaningless both in itself and as a move put forward here to explain why irate, for example, kept running into responses he did not like in this thread.

as for what i might have expected for the iraq debacle---i did not expect anything. i opposed the war at every step, not because i thought saddam hussein a swell guy, but rather because i understood, from very early on, that the administration was making things up to justify war. i watched the explanations/rationales change, over and over, along the lines outlined quite ably in earlier posts here.

the way i understood the motvations for war, i assumed that the rosy scenario hallucinations of the wolfowitz crowd would have to pan out in the real world for the gamble embodied in this adventure to work--for an outline, read "the project for a new american century" mission statement with a critical eye, and direct it toward the war in iraq. which would mean that there would have had to be no insurrection. and the photos of the hussein statue being toppled by an imported pseudo-crowd would have to have had some documentary value--one that extended beyond a measure of the dreamworld the administration lived in, and the extent to which its military apparatus performed the roles of actors in this dreamworld. the wolfowitz scenario was of course a farce--and so far as i was concerned, the war from that point onward slipped inexorably into debacle.

later i had--and still have--a more conflicted view in that i found the logic of my own opposition to the war leading directly into an implicit cheerleading for signals of further debacle---which ran counter to the more pacifist-oriented elements in my positions, which pushed toward looking for ways to reduce deaths. so i began to think in terms of a best scenario that would enable the bush squad to pull out of iraq while saving face, mostly because doing so meant the minimizing of death--on all sides. with that in mind, i thought--and still think--that the conditions under which these past elections were held were so dubious as to make the whole process into something of a charade--i could not understand why allawi, the bushpuppet, and the administration in the states insisted on holding them despite these problems. and now i am interested in the problems that the apparent wide defeat of the allawi regime--and the apparent victory for al-sistani---pose for the administration.

in general, i think that the elections should have been delayed. it is in the refusal to treat the elections as a possible space for meaningful transition away from american occupation that i began to see that bush is to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of socialism. and that is a disaster for everyone. including the conservatives, whose position a priori leaves them no alternative but to see iraq upside-down.

but none of the above functions as confirmation of my opposition to the war.
but i admit that within this lay the knot posed by my opposition.

what really alarms me is the saber rattling about iran. because i do not think this administration is above launching another misbegotten adventure to distract from the endgame of the previous misbegotten adventure.

expectations are projections into the future.
these projections rely on premises.
this applied to all sides, conservatives included.

02-09-2005, 07:47 AM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	yes, shakran--and this is why there is no way to seperate the "elections" and positions on the war in general--what is at issue is the whole narrative that lets you connect elements together. this narrative is political through and through. and this applies to all positions. i find the trope of "bush hating" to be a rightwing cliche, meaningless both in itself and as a move put forward here to explain why irate, for example, kept running into responses he did not like in this thread. as for what i might have expected for the iraq debacle---i did not expect anything. i opposed the war at every step, not because i thought saddam hussein a swell guy, but rather because i understood, from very early on, that the administration was making things up to justify war. i watched the explanations/rationales change, over and over, along the lines outlined quite ably in earlier posts here. the way i understood the motvations for war, i assumed that the rosy scenario hallucinations of the wolfowitz crowd would have to pan out in the real world for the gamble embodied in this adventure to work--for an outline, read "the project for a new american century" mission statement with a critical eye, and direct it toward the war in iraq. which would mean that there would have had to be no insurrection. and the photos of the hussein statue being toppled by an imported pseudo-crowd would have to have had some documentary value--one that extended beyond a measure of the dreamworld the administration lived in, and the extent to which its military apparatus performed the roles of actors in this dreamworld. the wolfowitz scenario was of course a farce--and so far as i was concerned, the war from that point onward slipped inexorably into debacle. later i had--and still have--a more conflicted view in that i found the logic of my own opposition to the war leading directly into an implicit cheerleading for signals of further debacle---which ran counter to the more pacifist-oriented elements in my positions, which pushed toward looking for ways to reduce deaths. so i began to think in terms of a best scenario that would enable the bush squad to pull out of iraq while saving face, mostly because doing so meant the minimizing of death--on all sides. with that in mind, i thought--and still think--that the conditions under which these past elections were held were so dubious as to make the whole process into something of a charade--i could not understand why allawi, the bushpuppet, and the administration in the states insisted on holding them despite these problems. and now i am interested in the problems that the apparent wide defeat of the allawi regime--and the apparent victory for al-sistani---pose for the administration. in general, i think that the elections should have been delayed. it is in the refusal to treat the elections as a possible space for meaningful transition away from american occupation that i began to see that bush is to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of socialism. and that is a disaster for everyone. including the conservatives, whose position a priori leaves them no alternative but to see iraq upside-down. but none of the above functions as confirmation of my opposition to the war. but i admit that within this lay the knot posed by my opposition. what really alarms me is the saber rattling about iran. because i do not think this administration is above launching another misbegotten adventure to distract from the endgame of the previous misbegotten adventure. expectations are projections into the future. these projections rely on premises. this applied to all sides, conservatives included. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-09-2005 at 07:52 AM..