The Real Pro-War Crowd

 http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2005/11/the_real_prowar.html

The Real Pro-War Crowd: Who They Are and What They Want (Chaos, Anarchy and Death)

An Ablution contributor points us to a comment on a British Asian blog to which I'm not linking, which reads in part as follows (grammatical errors in original):

"Yes I’ve read Scott Burgess’ apologetic behaviour for the American govt. He doesn’t deny its a chemical weapon (though he tried initially until the American military admitted it)."

My initial response to this was puzzlement. How could any sane person possibly construe what I've written on the subject in this fashion, when I've made such an effort to point out - by multiple links to both weapons experts and the BBC - my belief, and the fact, that white phosphorus is not a chemical weapon?

My next reaction was that perhaps this person was simply an idiot. Or possibly a cynical liar.

While neither of these (not mutually exclusive) possibilities can be entirely ruled out on the basis of available evidence, I don't think they're fully explanatory. I think that full understanding of such a bizarre statement - which is logically similar to a claim that Simon Wiesenthal is a holocaust denier (i.e., not merely false, but completely dissociated from reality) - lies in a psychological mechanism which, when explored fully, leads to some very disturbing conclusions about the mentality of many in the appeasement community.

My guess is that this person wants so badly for the "chemical weapons" claims to be true, and for me and the US government to have admitted it, that he actually believes the patent nonsense reproduced above. Or, to put it another way, he fervently (though perhaps secretly) hopes that the US did dissolve and caramelise the burnt-to-the-bone skin of women and children with their banned "chemical weapons", because that would make America look bad - and, to those of a certain all-too-prevalent mentality, America looking bad is the overriding concern, and one that's worth many, many civilian lives.

If it were just the demonstrably delusional fantasies of one individual at issue, I wouldn't even bother addressing the comment, and would simply write it off, with a combination of amusement and revulsion, as the product of a comically warped mind. The problem is that the expressed mindset is so pervasive among those ostensibly well-meaning, caring liberals who opposed the war (and, presumably, also opposed the resultant removal of Saddam from power and subsequent Iraqi elections).

As one of them (Salon's executive editor, Gary Kamiya), famously put it in a moment of commendable honesty:

"I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen."

Mr Kamiya takes pains to show that these feelings are not out of the ordinary in his circles:

"I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings."

"Morally sensitive" indeed!

Among those who have similar feelings is our very own Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who expresses them as follows:

"Well, you know, it's really difficult; I was thinking this morning - I mean the kind of moral trauma. I've been against the war and part of you begins to... you know, it's horrible how your mind works. You think 'Good!', you wake up thinking 'Good, there's all this mess'. And then you have to question your own self, saying what kind of a human being are you, that you want this mess?"

In another piece, she explains the "root causes" of these feelings (emphasis added):

"I am ashamed to admit that there have been times when I wanted more chaos, more shocks, more disorder to teach our side a lesson. On Monday I found myself again hoping that this handover proves a failure because it has been orchestrated by the Americans."

Now when someone wishes for the war to "go wrong", they're not wishing for the establishment of a stable, peaceful democratic society. Most certainly not - after all, peace and stability in Iraq is what the evil neo-cons want, and must therefore be resisted, whether by bombs or by words. It is of an importance above all else that anything "orchestrated by the Americans" leads to failure, which is why peace is the last thing that the so-called 'anti-war' crowd wants - driven as they are by a primary agenda that's served by the instability, violence and anarchy that Ms. Alibhai-Brown views as "good".

For this ilk, the outcome that all sane people (and not just the neo-cons) desire would be a bad thing; because - and here is the essence of the mindset - like the capture of Saddam and the Iraqi elections, any positive developments put George Bush, and the United States in general, in a good light. Absolutely nothing can be worse than this, which is why people like Mr. Kamiya and Ms. Alibhai-Brown - and the millions worldwide who so passionately wish that the chemical weapons claims were true - have been hoping for sustained unrest, pain and death from the very beginning.

To hell with the Iraqis - if their misery makes America look bad, bring on more misery!

Given that to put America in the worst possible light is so much more important than the welfare of those whom they claim to defend, it is naturally preferable if the death and misery are at the hands of the Americans rather than the 'resistance'.

While it is clearly "good" if several suicide bombs can be reported on a given day - since "more chaos, more shocks, more disorder" is the hoped-for state of affairs - such attacks don't redound quite badly enough on the Americans, who, after all, are not the ones carrying them out. While this won't necessarily stop the US getting the blame, it's slightly more tricky, rhetorically speaking. So it's better if the innocents are killed by Americans.

Of course, for the ultimate in delicious moral outrage, and the most effective demonisation of the evil Americans, it's best of all when the desired misery and mayhem is the result of 'illegal' actions by the US military - like the (supposed) use of banned weapons - especially when one can then oh-so-cleverly make an ironic reference to "WMD being found in Iraq", as so many clueless bloggers have.

All of this is why so many of those who claim to be anti-war are made so palpably happy by 'revelations' like the false "chemical weapons" allegations. It's also why the likes of the individual I quoted at the beginning are so willing to divorce themselves from reality, finding 'admissions' where none exist, so badly do they wish to believe that the charges are true - so badly do they wish that innocents were brutally and illegally targeted.

The inescapable, sad conclusion is that they'd be even happier if presented with more American 'atrocities' in tomorrow's paper; because, despite their pious expressions of shock and sadness, these people actively hope that civilians (preferably women and babies) will be killed (preferably by US troops, preferably illegally). For this creates the press that enables them to most easily pursue their anti-American crusade - that being of ultimate importance, and certainly more important than any number of Iraqi victims for whom they so hypocritically claim to weep.

In the end, of course, such people are not 'anti-war' at all, but pro-war. They want the US to deal out death and destruction, in the best case using illegal or hypocritical means, in order that their all-important propaganda agenda is served. And, while hoping in their hearts for "more chaos, more shocks, more disorder", they're publicly crying out for "peace, peace".

It's difficult to imagine a more despicable point of view.