Bush lied. How many people think it matters? [View All]

[Jack Rabbit]

Based on a post in another thread.

For most of us here, there is nothing new in the Downing Street documents. That Bush lied is not a surprise.

Moreover, as far as we progressives are concerned, it matters that Bush lied. First of all, it is just wrong to prosecute a war of aggression without any real provocation. However, Bush and his aides couldn't have sold the war unless they persuaded the citizens that there was a provocation, so they fabricated facts and dissembled intelligence. American citizens were misinformed by their leaders. That brings up another grievance we have with the Bush regime over the invasion. It is just wrong for the nation's leadership to deceive the citizens on matters of great public importance. It is just wrong to go to war, no matter what the reason, and leave the citizens in the dark about it.

We progressives view the world through a democratic paradigm.

America is a democracy. Democracy presumes that a legitimate government acts only with informed consent of the citizens (citizenship being universal and equal). When the leadership, which is privy to information, does not share that information with the citizens in an effort to manipulate public opinion prior to making a decision of great importance, such as going to war, then the democratic process is corrupted. The decision to invade and occupy Iraq was reached as the result of such a corrupted process; it is the greatest single betrayal of the citizens by their leadership in American history.

That is my point of view. I believe many here share it.

Nevertheless, another school of thought that says the leader knows best and we should give him the benefit of the doubt when he is conducting policy, even when he lies to the people. He is doing it for a good reason.

Let's look at the decision to invade Iraq from an alternative to the democratic paradigm. This alternate paradigm might be called elitist or authoritarian. It isn't necessarily fascist; in fact, one can find this line of thought in a great deal of American political tradition from Alexander Hamilton to William Kristol.

America is a republic, not a democracy. The proposition All men are created equal is nonsense. There is a social hierarchy because some men are superior to others; this is natural and good. The best system of government is one that places power in the hands of those best suited to rule, creating a political hierarchy that reflects the natural social hierarchy. A popular election is an imperfect way of determining who is best suited to rule; an individual voter does best to select a leader based on the confidence he has in the candidate's judgment. Once the leadership is selected, the people are expected to support its decisions and don't need to participate in the decision-making process; that process does not even need to be transparent. If the people are dissatisfied, they will have the opportunity to replace the leadership in the next scheduled popular election.

Perhaps Mr. Bush and his lieutenants knew that there were no banned weapons in Iraq and no working relationship between Saddam's government and the terrorists who attacked America on September 11, 2001. As Mr. Wolfowitz said, the leadership told the citizens there were weapons and a terrorist association because it was something the citizens understood better than whatever other objectives they had in mind in invading Iraq. If they lied to the citizens, it was for the good of citizens; since the citizens did not remove the leadership from power when they had the opportunity to do so, they must agree.

A number of holes can be shot through this argument, even if one accepts the alternate paradigm on which it rests, but we don't need to go into that now. For one thing, I don't accept that paradigm and neither do most members of Democratic Underground.

However, we should be aware that there are people who accept it and therefore believe that it is of no great moment if the leadership lies to the citizens, even about going to war.

We know by now that Bush and the neoconservatives were consciously duplicitous in making the case for invading Iraq. What we need to do is persuade people that it matters and that it was a grave offense to the very foundations of American government.