---------
I had forgotten the PIPA polls. So I looked them up again and read a few. The basic conclusions reveal a complete contradiction.
1. Most USers believe if there were no WMD and no link to al Qaeda,
then the US should not have waged war on Iraq.
2. Despite post-invasion reports there were no WMD and no link to al
Qaeda, about half USers believe there were WMD and a link to al Qaeda
and therefore the war was justified.
``Steven Kull comments, `It may seem contradictory that three quarters of Americans say that the US should not have gone to war if Iraq did not have WMD or was not providing support to al Qaeda, while nearly half still say the war was the right decision. However, support for the decision is sustained by persisting beliefs among half of Americans that Iraq provided substantial support to al Qaeda, and had WMD, or at least a major WMD program.'
Despite the widely-publicized conclusions of the Duelfer report, 49% of Americans continue to believe Iraq had actual WMD (27%) or a major WMD program (22%), and 52% believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.
Views about the decision to go to war are highly correlated with beliefs about prewar Iraq. Among those who say that going to war was the right decision, 73% believe that Iraq had WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (26%), and 75% believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda...'' (from October 28, 2004)
Wondering around PIPA brought up other disturbing problems with the US polity. Most USers think that their member of Congress supports their positive views on such things as the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Accords, working with the UN to solve international problem, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In fact most of those who reported positive support on these subjects voted for members of Congress who were opposed to these views and voted against them on the record.
The disjunction between a polity and its representation suggests to me the US voter and/or general public is in a complete daze.
There were various explanations for this disjunction under the rubric of dissonant information. The idea is that if a belief is held firmly, dissonant information or evidence to the contrary is simply ignored. This finding translates in my mind into the philosophical problem of juxtaposing values with facts.
In other words, if you believe in the value of the war, no amount of factual evidence that it was started on false pretense, has no direction, and is falling apart will convince you that there is no value to waging the war.
If evidence and argument don't count, if belief is all that matters, and as far as I can see belief is immutable, what then?
This engine of dissonance was certainly running full steam during Vietnam. It finally got so bad that the only justification was supporting our boys---who of course were ignored or treated with suspicion once they were discharged by the same public who claimed to support them.
The whole thing just didn't fit nicely in the middle class living room. It didn't go with the furniture and the life style. Children needed to be protected from it. Polite people never mentioned it. Life went on. Eventually Vietnam disappeared like a crazed alcoholic relative---one who threatened to show up at the most inopportune moments.
In other words, Vietnam became synonymous with crime and perversion, but in an amorphous, non-specific, and unreflective sense---something along the lines of Apocalypse Now.
For some it was a crime that the US went to war and was defeated. For others it was a crime the US went to war and didn't win. For still others it was a crime that the US went to war and lost. Loosing a war, being defeated, and not winning all have different moral implications. Loosing implies some lack of moral fortitude that if it were present in sufficient quantity a loss could be turned into a win. The military mind maintained this theory through out Vietnam and carries it to this day. Loosing a war through betrayal implies there was sufficient moral fortitude, but the US was purposefully crippled by some amoral pervert. Treason and treachery. The Right seems to like this theory and finds the locus of evil in those who opposed the war early.
On the other hand, not winning implies some theoretically neutral assessment. Both pro-war and anti-war liberals could agree on not winning. They could pride themselves on their objectivity and agree to disagree on the causes.
Nobody wanted to admit the US was flat out defeated. To be defeated implies a superior force, perhaps even a superior moral force won. Somehow defeat is the crime of weakness and against God and Nature. Defeat itself is the crime. America defeated by skinny little brown guys in pajamas? No way. Something else happened, but not that.
Now it's back and it's de'ja vu all over again. Iraq is turning into a crime. Evidently the US public doesn't seem to be able to figure out just what kind of crime. But whatever it is, it isn't a US crime. It isn't `our' fault. Scapegoats are sure to be found somewhere beyond the middle class living rooms that nodded approval and voted their values just months ago.
I think public denial or so-called information dissonance is a mass phenomenon that assuages conscience and is in fact a denial of responsibility for what is clearly a universally understood crime. After all, starting a war for no reason and killing a lot of people is a crime. The US public absolutely did not vote for a crime. No sir. They voted for the Good. They voted to win Iraq. And it is inconceivable that if the US won the war in Iraq, that would be a crime. Losing Iraq will be a crime, much like losing Vietnam was a crime. Nobody considers the possibility that winning in Vietnam might have been a greater atrocity than losing.
Well after working through all that, my mind is certainly dazed and confused. My lizard brain (the evident locus of moral sensibility) says USers who voted for Bush are evil and must die. My refined, powder puff Kantian brain (higher rational temporal lobes) says USers are using their lizard brain and just don't know any better.
It seems the central issue is attempting to reconcile values with facts. Since these are fundamentally incompatible there is no reconciliation.
The underlying assumption of a value ladened world view is that there is such a thing as moral rectitude at work in human events. Good guys win, bad guys lose. Such a view can not assimilate the problem that historical facts seem to have no rectitude at all. Events may have material causes and effects but these causal chains don't correspond to moral dramaturgy. Instead, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If you are very careful about how you choose to read history, then it will come out right. Vietnam revisionists are a case in point. But then, so are the WWII historians who endlessly re-tell the same story of how good triumphed over evil. A closer reading of WWII opens a landscape much more difficult to assimilate. For example, how good was it to cook the Japanese in Hiroshima for demonstration purposes, ignore the extermination camps until after liberation, sell out the communist undergrounds all over Europe or start a forty year cold war with our most important military ally?
The problem is that the moral assessment of causes and effects bares no relation to their empirical arrangements and outcomes. And yet the core of every national myth does precisely that. To point out some fact that contradicts the moral figure of the nation is betrayal of the lizard tribe.
CG