This is about the most disturbing thing I've read in a long time. It's by a scifi writer who supports the war, but thinks it's part of a broader Western-vs-Islamic megaconflict that's bound to expand into full-scale, decades-long war. He of course thinks that we're being way way too soft on all the Islamic world. The guy's a great writer, plenty smart, and of course just as wrong as spotted owl condoms on how he analyzes the war. But if you can hack it, it's a fascinating view of how far the mind must be bent in order to continue to support the war in Iraq.
Message from DanExcerpts:
I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said.
“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler... “I mean the Century War with Islam. Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, “It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.”
“You mean the War on Terrorism,” I said.
“I mean the Long War with Islam,” he said. “The Century War. And it’s not over yet where I come from. Not close to being over.”
<snip>
“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”
“That’s absurd,” I said.
“Is it?” asked the Time Traveler. “The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.”
“That’s just stupid,” I said. If I’d ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasn’t now. He was obviously a mental defective. “The planes, the Japanese planes,” I said, “were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasn’t aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If we’d declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, we’d never have . . .”
I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.
<snip>
“Twenty-five years from now, every man or woman in America who wishes to vote will be required to read Thucydides on this matter. And others as well. And there are tests. If you don’t know some history, you don’t vote . . . much less run for office. America’s vacation from knowing history ends very soon now . . . for you, I mean. And for those few others left alive in the world who are allowed to vote.”
“You’re shitting me,” I said.
“I am shitting you not,” said the Time Traveler.
“Those few others left alive who are allowed to vote?” I said, the words just now striking me like hardthrown stones. “What the hell are you talking about? Has our government taken away all our civil liberties in this awful future of yours?”
He laughed then and this time it was a deep, hearty, truly amused laugh. “Oh, yes,” he said when the laughter abated a bit. He actually wiped away tears from his one good eye. “I had almost forgotten about your fears of your, our . . . civil liberties . . . being abridged by our own government back in these last stupidity-allowed years of 2005 and 2006 and 2007.
And it just goes on and on. It's fascinating because the guy who wrote this is clearly laying the groundwork for a let's-don't-call-it-fascist government, mostly justified by the threat from monolithic Islam, led by Iran. But if you want to see where the only logical justification of the pro-war stance must run, it's worth it to read this story.
The real irony here is that a sci-fi story dressed up as the importance of knowing history is itself built around a profound misinterpretation of the Peloponnesian war. Still, this Dan Simmons guy is a great writer and I'd gladly read one of his books--so long as he leave his dumbass politics out of it.
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