The right’s defense against the DSM: It needs something better than this

Though I anticipated inventive right-wing responses to outrage over the Downing Street Memo, I didn’t go out of my way to track them down. I knew they’d appear in good time and suspected they’d be framed in the flamboyant White House style of linking dismissive nonchalance with haughty counterattack.

Bingo. The first response to amble its way across my computer screen was just that. It came from one Thomas Patrick Carroll, a former CIA officer writing for the usually hysterical FrontPageMagazine.com, published by the always hysterical David Horowitz.

As Mr. Carroll sees things, we who are a trifle upset over the DSM’s revelations are “appallingly unsophisticated.” That’s the way he described British voters who spanked Blair in the recent election for having criminally conspired with Bush, as the memo shows, though he proceeds to universally apply the “unsophisticated” label to those who make no “genuine effort to understand the significance of that memo” -- and by that he means there isn’t any.

In addition to being unworldly, we who frown on unnecessary bloodbaths in general and illegal slaughter in particular are prone to “rant.” Carroll’s selection of a “typical” rant are the words of Britain’s Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, who said the DSM confirmed that the Blair government had “agreed to an illegal regime change with the Bush administration. It set out to create the justification for going to war. It was to be war by any means.”

Although not one syllable of that passage qualifies as a rant, or is hyperbolic or untrue, Carroll charges ahead by ignoring the inconvenience and ignoring as well as the passage’s key element and most damning observation: Regime change as a justification for war was known by both governments to be an illegal policy.

Carroll, however, thinks higher and meatier thoughts, so is forced to pooh-pooh the memo’s scandal-potential out of a slavishness to profundity. “Within hours after it hit The Sunday Times, Blair’s office came out and said the memo contained nothing new. And, of course, that’s right. But the very fact that the contrary would even be seriously asserted is amazing.

“Almost from the moment military action against Saddam was publicly floated by the Bush administration, informed analysts were pointing out the obvious -- i.e., there was a grand strategic design at work, not just some knee-jerk concern with WMD.” The “grand design” was “a military invasion of Iraq, followed by a physical presence in-country for an indefinite period of time.” What would this accomplish? Well, an invasion was “key to changing the poisonous social/political environment in the Middle East that enabled violent Islamist ideology to flourish.” (QED.)

Surely you recall all the times Bush & WarHawks Inc. said it mainly wanted to change “the poisonous social/political environment in the Middle East that enabled violent Islamist ideology to flourish.” Stated only as a secondary and minor concern was that Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to the United States. Yes, the administration was quite emphatic about that. Remember?

Still, no matter how geopolitically desirable Carroll believes Iraq’s invasion to have been -- and let’s go even further, completely over the top, and grant for the sake of argument that in time it will be a splendid success -- he simply cannot get around the memo’s acknowledgement of regime change as an illegal justification for war.

Nearly as damaging to Carroll’s case is, paradoxically, his own primary argument -- that of denouncing opponents as “unsophisticated” dolts. Folks familiar with argumentation techniques and logical fallacies know that this tack only turns on itself. One final example from its practitioner: “Those who made such a fuss about the ‘revelations’ in the Downing Street memo” do not “grasp the strategic imperatives behind what we are doing in Iraq and elsewhere…. For supposedly sophisticated commentators to miss the entire point and continue raving about WMD and UN sanctions is simply beyond the pale.”

By resorting to the right’s rhetorical weapon of desperation and irrelevance -- the ad hominem -- Carroll once again shows he cannot overcome the crushing counterargument of the war’s illegality. In short, he posits instead, “You’re just too stupid to understand.” It’s an argument that broadcasts its own weakness. I was delighted to read it.

I was also delighted to have found that, overall, the article presented the most open declaration of war on democratic consensus, the most open support for manipulative government, and the most open affirmation of rogue militarism I’ve yet seen in writing from administration apologists. Americans aren’t too keen on these things, Mr. Carroll, and you and your right-wing compatriots are about to find out just how little keen they are.

Comments

[Black Max]

Nothing more fun that watching the Right immolate itself.

Anyone know how to get off the Horowitz mailing list? I've sent probably three dozen e-mails ranging from polite requests to unsubscribe to obscenity-laden demands accusing him of everything from child molestation to wanting to build new Auschwitzes in Montana, and it all flies by unacknowledged. How the hell I got on it is another question, but I just want him to quit filling my inbox with his radical right diarrhea.

[Frank]

When the hell is Kerry going to bring this to the floor of the Senate?? He is not going to chicken-shit out again, is he?.

[dr.robert brogna]

Why not send this to Kerry, and Deane and Hillary? They need to know they have backing and support for the overwhelming task of nailing the current administration, and what it will take to get accountability in the voting machines (paper trails...not diebold). The only way left to cut them off at the pass it to get accurate vote mechanisims. They are resisting this in Florida as I speak and also in other areas of the country. They know that so long as they control the vote, they've got it knocked., Short of this, there really isn't much we can do except continue to scream.

[Dandy Don]

It's time for the Amserican media,both TV and prin to fess up and admit they have stonewalled the possible effects of the Downing St. Memo. The American people are wanting to close for the kill but we need the confirmation of authenticity from the media. The noose could be a lot tighter if the public gets the right info. Or could it be that this will be swept under the rug by the same people who have given Bush a free ride up to now. I guess I'm gullible but somsewhere in this great country of ours is another Felt that could lead our lying President to the impeachmsent proc- edures that could come if this information turns out to be true.

[newjesustimes]

>> Anyone know how to get off the Horowitz mailing list?

Look in the mail headers for the originating ip address - find the ip address of the sending mail server and start complaining VERY LOUDLY to the ISP who owns that ip space. You can look this up using the whois at http://arin.net/ You should find both the ISP and a contact Email on the site.

Failure to remove requesting individuals from a mailing list is a violation of the CAN SPAM act of 2003 (signed by our good bud the pres)

[Gonnuts]

Those waiting for the corporate owned media to help expose the Downing Steet Memo adn restore any sense of a government that actually represennts "we the people" are waiting in vain. Know this - nothing short of a revolution coming from the streets will change anything. This country long ago was bought by the corporations that bought the polticians, and all sources of the media. They own the government, the courts, the voting process, the media - and the guns.
Have a nice day.

[Black Max]

Thanks for the mailing list advice. I'll rattle their cage this afternoon.