How Start?
One question that should be asked about any war: “What did all those people die for?” The answer should come back simple and clear: “They died to free the slaves,” or “they died to rid Europe of fascism,” or “they died defending their homes, or '"they died freeing their country from an invading occupier.” As the event recedes into the past, this reason should become more, not less, clear. What was perhaps ambiguous or complex to the actors in the moment should appear increasingly self-evident. But if the answer to that question comes back convoluted and equivocal, full of vague hopes, reasons of state, or stratagems about international relations, one can be pretty sure that war was fought for a bad reason or, even worse perhaps, no reason at all.
No one today can supply a simple reason for the invasion of Iraq that stands up to the slightest moral or factual scrutiny. Every attempt to provide a rationale for the war is patent sophistry or self-justification. This groundlessness, this inability to situate the war in anything tangible or concrete, is simply because it was based on a lie. More than a single lie, it was based on thoroughgoing hostility towards reality itself. It was based on an absurdly oversimplified ideological picture of the world. It was based on the willful ignorance and manipulation of intelligence. It was based on the fictitious and fanciful idea that Saddam was somehow connected to Osama bin Laden, a falsehood that played on the fears and anger of a wounded and humiliated nation, ready to lash out. It was based on indifference to the actual history and culture of Iraq, as if we could just easily shape another nation to our will. And, perhaps most disturbingly, it was based on the belief that projecting the image of power, of a tough and vengeful nation, was of paramount concern. The planners clearly thought about the war as it would play out on T.V.: in spectacular scenes that would impress audiences at home and abroad. “There are no good targets in Afghanistan; let's bomb Iraq,” Donald Rumsfeld remarked to Richard Clarke — There was just more to blow up.
This indifference towards the constraints of reality, this drive to make a fantasy world real, this confusion between the creation of propaganda and war, or rather, the waging of war itself as a kind of propaganda campaign, are the type of things we normally associate with totalitarian regimes. So too the mobilization of vicious public abuse and slander against anti-war sentiment. This was done not out of fear of the secret police but out of sheer enthusiasm: Many of the nation’s journalists and writers gladly volunteered for that work. They set out to make sure an insane thing became common sense among the elite. In doing all this, they betrayed their role as intellectuals for the cheap rewards of clique, career, or conceit. As a rule, this is the easiest class to buy off. They don’t even want a lot of money: you just need to flatter them that their own little notions are important and being made real, that they are not just history’s recorders and witnesses but its authors. Many of these same people now lecture us sententiously about democracy, the open society, and the dangers of creeping totalitarianism. I guess they know whereof they speak.
There is a tendency to try to portray the Iraq War as a “tragedy,” as a mistake, brought on by hubris or zeal. One should reject this framing, for the reason that it is intrinsically ennobling. Aristotle wrote that tragedy aims at making its subjects appear better than in actual life. Hegel thought tragedy did not result from the conflict of good and bad, but of two equally valid claims on conscience. The world of tragedy is a world of heroes, fate, ascents to towering heights and falls into the dark abyss; It is a world of high seriousness and profundity; of noble men with great flaws. It makes one seem wise and magnanimous to judge men and events in terms of tragedy. Tragedy is also meant to provide catharsis, a purging of the troubled soul. All this is improper in the case of the war in Iraq. It is an attempt to use heady incense to cover up a noxious stench. There is a revolting sense of self-pity in this conceit: as if the really important thing lost in the war was the innocence, honor, and reputation of our nation and its leaders.
The lesson of Iraq is that it can happen here. We are not immune: The entire nation can lose touch with reality. We saw all this happen with our own eyes. Let’s face it now: We all knew it was a lie. Some people just wanted to believe it or cynically didn’t care. We went to war and killed hundreds of thousands for something that was just not real. If the jingoism, militarism, and bureaucratic machinery of the Bush era somehow fuses with the rowdy, populist hate-mongering of Trumpism, then the question of fascism will be settled: we will unambiguously have it.