Niggles
Niggle One…
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how certain words are changing?
I have a very specific example in mind which, for no obvious reason, gets me quite irritated.
Within the past couple of weeks or so I've heard both Bush and Rumsfeld
use the following phrase – "weapons of mass murder". The fact
that they've both used it, and on more than one occasion, whereas
previously all we heard was "weapons of mass destruction", suggests
its use is intentional.
Is it because they're recognising that the previous, more conventional,
usage is becoming counter-productive, simply reminding folk of just
how elusive (absent?) the vast hoardes of WMD in Iraq are proving
to be?
Are they trying, once more, to trigger an emotional resonance in their
audiences by what amounts to yet another rather clumsy attempt at
subliminal conditioning?
Whatever may be the reasoning behind it, I find myself becoming increasingly
niggled by such devious tricks and distortions.
Niggle Two…
This isn't really a new one, its just that I've not yet found the right opportunity to express it. (Every time I've had a mind to do so, something else has occurred that has engaged my attention elsewhere.)
I'm sure that by now we've all heard the argument.
The argument that instead of focussing on what's passed, instead of debating endlessly about missing WMDs, or forged evidence, or defective intelligence, or spin, or the entirely misplaced urgency that meant Blix couldn't be given more time to complete his mission, or any of the other mile-wide holes in the reasons we went to war, we should all instead acknowledge that Iraq's a better place without Saddam Hussein (it is?) and we should now concentrate on rebuilding Iraqi society.
Hmm.
Odd that the argument's customarily trotted out by those who either backed the war or were half-hearted in their opposition to it. (I was going to say "always" rather than "customarily" but, on second thoughts, that's far too sweeping and I don't have the data to back it up – you can only get away with that sort of stunt if you're a politician, or part of the intelligence community maybe.)
Or is it so odd?
Damn convenient really, if we all just somehow managed to forget all about how completely (and probably deliberately) misleading those reasons were, and just set about repairing all the damage that wouldn't have occurred in the first place had we not been fobbed off with a pack of lies.
I'm sure the dead, the dying, and the maimed would really want us simply to brush aside the reasons they're dead, dying, or maimed so that we can all bend our thoughts to how best to exploit the wonderful opportunities that a devastated oil-rich Middle Eastern country presents us with.
However, the argument is based upon a false premise, and fosters the impression that this is an either/or situation. Either we conduct a "post mortem", or we rebuild Iraq. The false premise is that we're only capable of doing one thing at a time.
Huh. Sorry, computers ain't got anything on society when it comes to multitasking.
Sure we should bend our efforts to, as far as possible, making good the damage we've done – ideally at our expense, not by compelling the victims to foot the bill (but I'd best not start on that, for its an entirely separate niggle) – but that doesn't mean we can't also investigate precisely how and why that damage came to be, and to hold to account those responsible – if only to make damn sure they don't go and do the same thing all over again somewhere else a few months/years down the road.
On the subject of reconstruction, pity really we can't bring the dead back to life, or make the maimed and disfigured whole again.
All right. I give up. I'm wrong. Let's now adopt it as a principle by which our lives may be guided…
The very next time we collar a serial murderer, or a rapist,
or a paedophile, we shouldn't focus our attention on what he's done,
or the damage he's caused (even if it was only yesterday). Nor indeed
should we expect him to account for his actions. Oh no. That's just
dwelling on the past.
What we should really do is go around and clean up all the mess he's
made. Also taking care of course to ensure that he can go and do exactly
the same things again tomorrow.
Oh pleeease… don't start going on about our murderer/rapist/paedophile being a criminal. Surely we chucked out such old-fashioned notions as the Rule of Law (and hence the concept of criminal) with our tromping all over the United Nations Charter, and with Bush deciding that the International Criminal Court is OK for everyone apart from Americans. To say nothing of Guantanamo Bay. So criminals? Pah! Thing of the past.
Wow! Wonderful. Think of the money we can save. No courts to pay for, no police, no forensic specialists, no prison service… just let the military do it all. Oh, what a wonderful world beckons!
Niggle Three…
Another phrase we've all heard: "Saddam Hussein was a monster and the Iraqi people are far better off without him", or words to that effect.
Ahem, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it through an American administration's sticking their nose into the affairs of another country that the monster achieved his position of power in the first place?
The argument that the Iraqis are better off without him (with the implied sentiment that this alone would have been sufficient justification for the war) has the taint of "the end justifies the means" about it.
The end justifies the means. What a lovely phrase. Rolls off the tongue real well.
The end justifies the means. But does it? Does it really?
So was the US administration's giving the monster a leg-up to power justified by the now what… five, six, seven thousand Iraqi civilians dead or dying?
Y'see, that's the fallacy with the "end justifies the means" argument – we can never truly know what the real end will be, or even when.
So in this case, the "desirable" end (the removal of Saddam Hussein)
was achieved by the means of helping him to power originally.
Now that's a really odd piece of reasoning.
"The end justifies the means" can only ever work if we extract a slice of time and arbitrarily (i.e., to suit our own purposes – in other words, whatever's convenient) determine "this particular point is the beginning" and "this other particular point is the end".
No. Let's not be fooled. The argument that "Saddam Hussein was a monster and the Iraqi people are far better off without him" is no more than a belated attempt on the part of the pro-war types to bestow some sort of "moral validity" on the atrocities and mass murder that they instigated.
And they have the nerve to call Saddam Hussein a monster!
And the biggest niggle of all is when palpably absurd distortions and distractions are trotted out in interview after interview, and they're so seldom challenged, seldom exposed to the ridicule they so richly deserve.
