Out Damn, Spot

Sometimes the Qweenbean reads my interblogs. Most of the time she doesn't, though she likes to encourage me to post her funnier comments throughout the course of a day, especially as they come at my expense. It's become on ongoing gag for her... If only. She should get her own online diary for that business. But with that said, she represented to me the subtle temptation of the "moral obligation" argument for the occupation of Iraq. She reveals that even the most gentle of souls can be deceived by the insidious and repeated lie of the "Pottery Barn" rule of militarism. Or maybe it's just that it is the "Pottery Barn" rule that has beguiled her. Despite her aesthetic originality and our poverty, she loves that Pottery Barn. In any case, in reference to the last post, she says that it is difficult to think we do not have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq, or more specifically, to think that our moral obligation is to not occupy their country.

To be clear, I do think we have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq, and I am glad at the opportunity to discuss the moral consequences of the invasion and what we should do. But our moral obligation is to leave now, and until we recognize that, we are not talking about what is good and right. We are talking about what is imperial, strategic, advantageous, Machiavellian, self-serving, bellicose, illegal. We have the moral obligation of an invading destroyer to get out and offer the resources necessary to rebuild and develop the country as reparations. In case we are confused, that is not done with our bullets and bombs. Of course it's difficult to see that because we are sooo good. That monstrous narrative of death-dealing as life-giving has taken hold.

Of course imperial, strategic, advantageous, Machiavellian, self-serving, bellicose, and illegal may all have their own sense of what is good. I grant that, but I know that's not what the Qweenbean, or many of us mean when we confess we are tempted to say it seems that it is the right and good thing to maintain our destructive military presence in Iraq. We probably don't mean that the best way to be imperial or militaristic is to maintain our imperial military presence in Iraq. It's nice to think that what we mean is that we must reluctantly do this to be life-affirming. But sadly, that's just not the case. And I don't know what it would take for us to see that. I know that, though there may be criticisms of leadership, an acknowledgment of mistakes made, some semblance of regret, we would find the idea of half of what we've spent thus far (the numbers to the right) being given as compensation an outrage.

Our sense of good is very limited.