Dry Your Eyes, Emo Kid
In a thoughtful, reflective post using himself as a laboratory, Robert Stacy McCain shows why so many conservatives are idiots. Part the first:
In the run-up to the war, my opinion was like that of Nicias toward the Sicilian expedition, feeling that the Alcibiades-like arguments offered for the invasion were false and that the policy was unwise. But, like Nicias, I felt that if the U.S. did invade (and by Labor Day 2002, that decision had clearly already been made) victory was the only acceptable outcome. In other words, "Let’s win this ill-advised blunder of a war!"
Hey, how’d that work out for the Athenians anyway. The point being, Nicias’s feelings mattered to the outcome of the Sicilian expedition in no way at all. Similarly, Robert Stacy McCain’s team spirit did not make the Iraq invasion any less criminal or more pointful. But he seems to think it’s important, somehow, that he cheered.
No nation has ever benefitted from military defeat . . .
Quick. Someone distract Mike Godwin for a second! I’ve got a counter-example. And of course, right down to this very week conservatives have been insisting that the nation of Iraq "benefitted from military defeat." Admittedly, they’re full of shit about that, but the contradiction is amusing. Instead let’s add Turkey after WWI to the list of candidates.
That the Bush administration misused American strength is, I think, inarguable. But let us not obscure the distinction between criticizing bad policy and wishing ill to one’s own nation.
Indeed, let us not! But obscuring the distinction between criticizing bad policy and wishing ill to one’s own nation is exactly what conservatives have been doing since before the Iraq War even launched. It’s what McCain is still doing, in the very exercise in self-excuse and special pleading from which I keep quoting. Ever since the Bush Administration and its volunteer auxiliary in the pundit and blogging classes began selling the country on the Iraq War, they have been pretending that every critic has really been "wishing ill to his own nation," because they’ve been pretending that they somehow were the nation. McCain is just continuing the tradition. It was pure propaganda and arrogance of power when conservatives were up. Now that they’re down it’s just self-pity. Back then they could at least infuriate. Now they just inspire contempt.
The most laughable thing, and I admit we’ve covered this before, is how concerned conservatives like McCain are with feelings, theirs and everybody else’s. These are people who have never hesitated to tell black people or feminists or gays to toughen up. The campaign against "political correctness" was all about how these whiners were just too sensitive, dammit. But by golly, when it comes to Republican leaders (with Democratic connivance) dragging the country into criminal folly, you had better have exactly the right emotions about it expressed in the most excruciatingly considerate way, as defined by the cheerleaders. It’s the most important thing in the world!
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
November 22, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
And, suddenly, again, I want to have your baby. Nice.
Comment by kidbitzer —
November 22, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
this is confederate sympathizer mccain, right?
ask him how the csa profited from losing a war.
oh, that’s right. they weren’t a nation.
just a bunch of traitors.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
November 23, 2008 @ 12:05 am
“…obscuring the distinction between criticizing bad policy and wishing ill to one’s own nation is exactly what conservatives have been doing since…”
.
forever, really.
Comment by abb1 —
November 23, 2008 @ 5:40 am
I’m the same way – reluctant to start raping, but once I started I just must finish with an orgasm, ’cause otherwise my psyche could be damaged: I’m very sensitive by nature and rather emotional.
And also, I’m not a Saddam-lover like most of you here.
Comment by dhex —
November 23, 2008 @ 11:40 am
we generally want our “others” to toughen up, so we can keep yelling at them and not get distracted by their feelings.
Comment by Gator90 —
November 23, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
I love McCain’s casual acknowledgment that Bush’s decision to go to war had “clearly already been made” by Labor Day 2002. Wait a second … you mean Bush was LYING all those times he said he was striving for a non-military solution and war was a last resort?
Of course, anyone who accuses Bush of lying is just wishing ill on his/her own nation…
Comment by jaltcoh.blogspot.com —
November 23, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
No nation has ever benefitted from military defeat . . .
Post-WWII Japan?
Comment by ck —
November 23, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
How about Iraq? Does McCain want to argue that Iraq did not benefit from losing the war against the U.S.? Would the country have been better off if Saddam’s forces had defeated us? (some could make that argument, but it would be sublimely preposterous for a war supporter to make it)
Comment by ck —
November 23, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
Of course, Jim made that very point in his post. Suddenly I don’t feel so clever.
Comment by McGurk —
November 23, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
What is particularly disgusting is all this “support the troops” tripe with all this worry how they “were spat upon after Vietnam and all the other rhetoric.
Comment by asl —
November 23, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
This post is spot on and I love the dog.
Comment by agum —
November 23, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
Stacy McCain’s a known Confederate “Noble Cause” sympathizer, which tends to correlate with being a natural sentimentalist. And blubbering into a tumbler of Wild Turkey.
But McCain’s specific failure to distinguish between strategy, tactics, and utterly pointless (but glorious) struggle — that’s another sign of the Confederate sympathizer.
You’ve got the endless paeans to Lee’s awesome tactical victories, while the Confederacy was failing to achieve any strategic aims in the East and was getting eaten in the Western theater.
Then you’ve got glorification of pointless struggle, with no strategic or tactical objectives in sight, for pride’s sake.
The dregs of the Iraq war and Civil War have a lot in common. It gives the neo-con ideology a natural appeal for Southern white conservatives.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
November 24, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Emotions are so personal for war supporters, because so much of their support for the war back in 2002 and 2003 was based upon personality – George Bush’s personality, and the personality-differences between the Real American, red-state clear-eyed Gandalfs and the effete, coastal-enclave-dwelling, pear-shaped liberal wimp Wormtongues.
They supported this war, because they created a dichotomy of personality types based on whether one supported or opposed this war, and they wanted to see themselves as having the war-supporter persona.
Comment by Ian —
November 25, 2008 @ 3:48 am
“let’s add Turkey after WWI to the list of candidates.”
What?
The Ottoman Empire was knocked out of WWI by an armistice signed Oct. 30 1918. It had been a catastrophic war for them: horrible casualties, all territory outside Anatolia lost, and the Allies were about to partition even what was left. In contrast, the Turkish War of Independence (May 1919-1922) went exceedingly well for the political entity it brought into being, the new Turkish Republic. That war of independence was no more a part of WWI than the Russian Civil War — there’s overlap, yes, but they’re distinguishable.
Similarly, Japan did not benefit from WWII, which turned the country into a post apocalyptic wasteland. Japan benefitted greatly from the Korean war: the US Army needed jeeps and transport trucks as quickly as it could get them, which gave Toyota a new lease on life.
Losing a major war and suffering foreign occupation is the worst thing that can happen to a people, because it makes them vulnerable to every other sort of catastrophe. From that point on, their lives and livelihoods depend on the goodwill of the occupier. If the occupier is nice, or if they can kick the occupier out without turning their country into the set of Mad Max, then their country can prosper again.
Comment by ajay —
November 25, 2008 @ 8:05 am
12: the South benefitted from military defeat – if it had won, it would be a horrible little extraction-industry republic, with a social structure based on brutal racial repression; but fortunately it lost and is now a part of the richest country in the world!
Comment by Aunt Deb —
November 25, 2008 @ 8:31 am
Well, this post made my morning, Jim. I’ve been busy and hadn’t read your blog for a bit, so this was waiting for me today. Thank goodness.
Comment by Publius —
December 4, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
You need to hit the history books again. As a matter of fact, the wishy-washy leadership of the Athenian efforts actually did sabotage their efforts.
That is to say, it was likely wrong for them to go to Sicily in the first place (as it was in Iraq), but beyond the initial backhanded speech by Nicias, the venture did indeed suffer because of a lack of strong, aggressive leadership, noticeably absent with the untimely departure of Alcibiades.
Athens had opportunities to win the day, but were too passive and afraid to make a mistake.
Thucydides, Kagan, and really anyone else who’ve spent the least bit of time studying the matter could provide you with more granularity.
It’s actually a compelling piece of history, it’s too bad many get caught up in the most superficial reading of it.