The Epistemology of Iraq
Juan Cole has a thoughtful piece in which he ruminates on why, in a recent poll, 57% of Americans still cling to the belief that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots.
"Why would so many Americans cling to patently false beliefs? One can only speculate of course. But I would suggest that the two-party system in the US has produced a two-party epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. If it were accepted that Saddam had virtually nothing to do with al-Qaeda, that he had no weapons of mass destruction (nor any significant programs for producing them), and that no evidence for such things has been uncovered after the US and its allies have had a year to comb through Baath documents-- if all that is accepted, then President Bush's credibility would suffer. For his partisans, it is absolutely crucial that the president retain his credibility. Therefore, rather than face reality, they re-jigger it to create a fantasy world in which Saddam and Usamah are buddies (as in the Jimmy Fallon/ Horatio Sanz skits on the American comedy show, Saturday Night Live), and in which David Kay (of whom respondents say they've never heard) never recanted his earlier belief that the WMD was there somewhere."
This is dangerous, he believes, because by clinging to myths, the party in power is incapable of studying, understanding, and perhaps fixing the problems not only with our occupation of Iraq, but the battle against fundamentalist terrorists as well.
Worse, he sees the only people questioning these myths in the Senate are moderate Republicans, a breed with as much a future as white tigers. Democrats, Cole writes, have not crafted an effective critique of the Bush league approach to the "war on terror." This is especially damning since, if 57% of Americans believe this, then that means a not insignificant number of Democratic voters believe the Osama/Saddam connection as well.
Another myth that the neocons are suffering under is the myth that war stimulates the economy. James K. Galbraith, taking the long view, disagrees.
And it gets worse when you consider that as of 2003, foreign central banks now finance nearly 40% of the U.S. current account deficit. That benefits their country's by helping to keep the dollar strong and keeping the prices of the goods we import low. But what if one or more of those countries -- and we're talking primarily Japan and China -- decides to leverage that debt [subscription required]? Alan Greenspan says not to worry, but "'There is surely something odd about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor,' Lawrence Summers, Harvard University president and former U.S. Treasury secretary, said in a recent speech. He calls it 'troubling' that the U.S. depends so much on 'inevitably political' entities to finance its foreign debts."
"Why would so many Americans cling to patently false beliefs? One can only speculate of course. But I would suggest that the two-party system in the US has produced a two-party epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. If it were accepted that Saddam had virtually nothing to do with al-Qaeda, that he had no weapons of mass destruction (nor any significant programs for producing them), and that no evidence for such things has been uncovered after the US and its allies have had a year to comb through Baath documents-- if all that is accepted, then President Bush's credibility would suffer. For his partisans, it is absolutely crucial that the president retain his credibility. Therefore, rather than face reality, they re-jigger it to create a fantasy world in which Saddam and Usamah are buddies (as in the Jimmy Fallon/ Horatio Sanz skits on the American comedy show, Saturday Night Live), and in which David Kay (of whom respondents say they've never heard) never recanted his earlier belief that the WMD was there somewhere."
This is dangerous, he believes, because by clinging to myths, the party in power is incapable of studying, understanding, and perhaps fixing the problems not only with our occupation of Iraq, but the battle against fundamentalist terrorists as well.
Worse, he sees the only people questioning these myths in the Senate are moderate Republicans, a breed with as much a future as white tigers. Democrats, Cole writes, have not crafted an effective critique of the Bush league approach to the "war on terror." This is especially damning since, if 57% of Americans believe this, then that means a not insignificant number of Democratic voters believe the Osama/Saddam connection as well.
Another myth that the neocons are suffering under is the myth that war stimulates the economy. James K. Galbraith, taking the long view, disagrees.
And it gets worse when you consider that as of 2003, foreign central banks now finance nearly 40% of the U.S. current account deficit. That benefits their country's by helping to keep the dollar strong and keeping the prices of the goods we import low. But what if one or more of those countries -- and we're talking primarily Japan and China -- decides to leverage that debt [subscription required]? Alan Greenspan says not to worry, but "'There is surely something odd about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor,' Lawrence Summers, Harvard University president and former U.S. Treasury secretary, said in a recent speech. He calls it 'troubling' that the U.S. depends so much on 'inevitably political' entities to finance its foreign debts."
posted by John at 1:39 PM
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