That's the current hip, moral, "insider" justification for our occupation of Iraq. (I put "insider" in quotes because it isn't really "insider"; if it were really "insider" we wouldn't be reading about it in the paper every day.) This justification is interesting, mostly because it isn't -- and cannot be -- openly stated by the Occupier-in-Chief.
Bush can't say it for two reasons. (1) It contradicts his openly stated justification: to support the Shia-led government. (2) If he did say it, it wouldn't count as fake-"insider" and you'd be less likely to fall for it.
More on the flip.
This current hip, moral, "insider" justification for the occupation falls into the nebulous category of "what everybody knows". "Everybody knows" that if our troops leave, Shias will slaughter Sunni.
You know they will. You know it because you read it in an American newspaper.
Thus, we are occupying Iraq in order to protect Iraqis from their own government. President Bush can't say that we are in Iraq to protect Iraqis from their own government, because after all the President is propping up that very government. It would thus be untoward, embarassing, to both Bush and al-Maliki, for Bush to actually tell the truth. This is what we're quietly told in the American mainstream media.
Of course, all of the above is bull cookies, but so what? It might work.
The current hip, moral, "insider" justification is great for President Bush, because the President can hardly be criticized for justifying the occupation on grounds which he never actually stated. President Bush requires no evidence that we have no choice but to stay in Iraq to prevent a mass slaughter of Sunni by government-sponsered Shia police militias.
Bush requires no evidence for the simple reason that he never actually says that we have to stay in Iraq to prevent a mass slaughter of Sunni by government-sponsered Shia police militias.
And it's very good for beltway pundits, too; because this "insider's-secret (shhh!) justification" lets pundits state the "real" moral underpinnings of our occupation. It makes them look hip and groovy and smart. Gee whiz aren't you glad they're there to give you the real dope!
Every day you can open your morning paper and read of another Sunni store-owner in Baghdad. He says to a reporter that if the Americans leave, his family will be in greater danger.
This is sexy stuff. Who wouldn't buy this movie ticket?
You can read that the store owner is "against the occuation" but "grudgingly admits" he feels safer with the Americans there.
It makes you want to rent "Black Hawk Down" dosen't it?
In case it isn't clear yet: We're being told that the American occupation is really a humanitarian mission. And its goal is to restrain the very Iraqi govenment whose weakness is preventing the American occupation from ending.
Do those two things add up? No? That's because they were stated in the same breath, for once.
But going back to our noble humanitarian mission:
This is not what the President says. This is what David Brooks, Joe Klein, Nora O'Donnell, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Matthews, David Broder, Jonah Goldberg, E.J. Dionne and countless other Sunday Morning Conventional Column-Writing Around the Water-Cooler folks say.
We have to stay in Iraq to protect the Sunnis.
And if you've fallen for it, I would like to remind you that it is spin.
When David Brooks, Joe Klein, Nora O'Donnell, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Matthews, David Broder, Jonah Goldberg, E.J. Dionne and countless others are telling you a "secret," you can be sure, first of all, that it is not a secret.
When David Brooks, Joe Klein, Nora O'Donnell, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Matthews, David Broder, Jonah Goldberg, E.J. Dionne and countless others are telling you a "secret" that the Administration is not immediately and flatly denying, then you can be sure the Administration is happy to have it out there, and just as happy not to be saying it themselves.
And the complete accident that all this happens to justify precisely the actions that the President is taking anyway -- justifying the President's actions in ways that he is under no obligation to defend because he never actually said them -- is . . . you know . . . not really an accident.
Come on, people, this is critical thinking 101, here.
These "insider story" justifications (We have to protect the Sunni! That means we have to continue the occupation! Shhh! Don't tell anyone! Just ask this guy who owns a store!) for actions whose surface justifications we deplore when they spring from the President's mouth during prime-time addresses serve precisely the same function. They're just aimed at different audiences.
The President's justifications (terrorism, freedom, spread of democracy): aimed at warmongering mouth-breathers.
The "insider account" justification (humanitarian mission): aimed at you.
Get it? This is pretty simple but sometimes it bears repeating.
There is more than one kind of spin. The ones you are most likely to fall for are the ones aimed at you, not the ones aimed at the other person.
So ask yourself some questions:
-- Have you seen a poll of Sunni Iraqis, asking if they want us to stay or leave?
-- Has it occured to you how little imagination goes into the conclusion that we have to stay in Iraq, because that's the -- apparently -- only way to help Sunni? Why so little imagination? Is it possible that the imaginer doesn't particularly want another solution?
-- Has anyone in Washington asked Sunnis what they want, rather than pontificating on what Sunnis need?
-- Have you noticed that the Iraqi parliament -- altogether -- has made it perfectly clear that they want us to leave?
-- Have you wondered how much prodding a reporter in Baghdad has to do, to get that Sunni store-owner to "grudgingly admit" that he doesn't want Americans to leave? Did the reporter ask a leading question?
-- Has it occured to you that the reasons Saudi Arabia has said they will escalate their defense of Iraqi Sunni if the Americans leave Iraq might not be entirely ingenuous, above-board, clear?
-- Have you noticed that all of this justifies the occupation?
This diary is just a reminder not to get spun, by either the President or his stenographers.
The occupation of Iraq is immoral on its face. Justifications which are only slightly-more-clever than the offical White House justfications should not blind you to it.