� UNTS | Main | I Guess We Just Weren't Listening �
June 17, 2003
Neologisms & Policy
Many people, especially guilty chickenhawks and pacifists are now flogging themselves and everyone over the issue of the missing weapons of mass destruction.
I have to ask, when did 'weapons of mass destruction' enter the lexicon of foreign policy? Since when did it become a crime to possess them? I think the answer should be obvious. GWBush invented both the term and the crime. Now that people are attempting to be wiser in retrospect I find it a little ironic that they are using the same political terms which have been invented for this very geopolitical situation.
Weapons of mass destruction are not criminal in the hands of France. But machetes in the hands of Hutu are. This distinction should lead us to the heart of the issue with Saddam and Iraq. Unfortunately those who are crying the loudest now are those who never put enough weight on the most important humanitarian issues of the day. They are guilty of being seduced by the illusions of political rhetoric.
As I look back at my own decision making, I think a crucial turning point in the war of reasons and excuses was Powell's presentation to the UN. While I was skeptical from the beginning about the Bush vision, especially as regards Rumsfeld's destruction of Powell's diplomacy, I finally found good reasons to support the destruction of the Baath party.
What nobody is talking about today is the phrase 'material breach'. This was once the trigger point. That it is no longer is testimony to the ephemeral nature of political values. I imagine this should be expected. So when we talk about credibility we should remind ourselves that we are engaged in a game of rhetoric that shifts from month to month and season to season.
Is the Ituri slaughter genocide? Like most everything else we mutter, 'that depends'. Depends on what? It depends on our ability to convince people we are right and that our language is acceptable. This has a shifting dependence on what actually transpires with regard to justice or brutality on the ground and that is the key issue.
If Bush lied about "WMD's" it is because he could and the world community that balked in the face of Saddams tortures expected him to. Define what a 'WMD' is and you will produce an epistemological nightmare. By the way, where is Judith Miller these days?
Posted by mbowen at June 17, 2003 12:43 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.visioncircle.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/150