The culture of genocide. posted by Richard Seymour

There are only two official narratives about Iraq: one is that it is an idealistic venture, one which will "stabilise the region" and "bring democracy" to a suffering people; the other is that 'we' overshot in our idealism, Iraq is too backward and pathologised to be amenable to the very high ambitions crafted for it - and therefore 'we' must be soberly realistic, accepting our limitations, and not get carried away with hubris. Rome, as they say, was not built in a day.

Here is the liberal commentator Thomas Friedman:

[W]e are faltering in Iraq today in part because of the Bush team's incompetence, but also because of the moral vacuum in the Sunni Arab world. Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be.

If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind.

We must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children.

This, you will note, is a piece that is highly critical of the Bush administration. Friedman, an unalloyed idealist when it comes to capitalism, and concomitantly (he supposes) a rampant technophile, is suddenly sober and portentous when it comes to Iraq. Yet, what is the recommendation here? If the Sunnis won't fall into line and accept the imperialist medicine, we should subject them to genocide, arming their foes while they "reap the wind". Presumably, Friedman would - if pushed - also urge the Shiites to finish off those within their midst of an Iraqi nationalist bent, like Moqtada al-Sadr. The racist contempt in the piece is obvious and ugly, and one tries not to ponder on it. It is analogous, in fact, to the switch from 'idealism' to 'realism' after the Indian Mutiny in 1857.

Noam Chomsky wrote of the "culture of terrorism" in relation to the US covert wars on liberation movements in Latin America in the 1980s. About the Vietnam War, he wrote of 'the backroom boys' - erudite, urbane intellectuals who were so separated by distance, and suffused in ideological training, that they were oblivious to the consequences of their actions. He was referring to intellectual culture, and often refers to opinion polls that show most Americans referring to the Vietnam war as fundamentally wrong and immoral - while most intellectuals would term it simply a mistake: noble intentions gone awry. The recent documentary film, The Fog of War, was widely hailed in the liberal press as an invaluable antidote to the neoconservative fantasia. Yet it was based on discussions with a war criminal named Robert McNamara who never acknowledged, much less recanted from, his involvement in major escalations of the crimes in Vietnam - a mission which he considers noble, fed by the best of intentions, one which simply went astray due to the hubris of the political class in Washington.

Generally speaking, sophisticated commentators sell their imperialism in humane garbs - internationalism, compassion, liberty, ending tyranny etc. But indoctrination is so successful that the ruling class can take open coverage of war crimes on the front pages, confident that few will bat an eyelid. On November 8th last year, the New York Times led with a copiously illustrated story by Richard J Opel about the occupation of a hospital in Fallujah. The reason given was that the hospital was producing "inflated casualty estimates". Never mind who says they were 'inflated' - that's a war crime regardless. You can't fuck with a hospital just because it produces casualty estimates you don't like. The Geneva Conventions are explicit on the matter:

Medical and religious personnel shall be respected and protected and shall be granted all available help for the performance of their duties. [Article 9:1]

By the way, check out what else is a war crime: collective punishment, hostage-taking, rape, torture - all US crimes in Iraq, widely covered in the press. Under the US War Crimes Act, passed in 1996 by Republicans, all those who participated in these acts - top to bottom - would be executed. I still remember the zeal with which George W. Bush countered an inept Al Gore offensive about two racist murderers in Texas. Bush said "You know what's gonna happen when we catch those guys? They're gonna git the death penalty." War criminals, however... well, if they ever are executed, it will be by Iraqi resistance fighters. Their justification should be that it's the law. The newspapers have at their disposal all manner of sophistical ways around this.

Thankfully, however, most Americans will never read a newspaper. We should consider them virgin islands.