The Banality of Evil
Posted by
Kevin
Richard Cohen, alleged liberal, alleged expert:
The manifold blunders of America in Iraq have made it unfashionable to recall such truths.
Fashion is a poor compass. The next time a car bomb goes off, remember Saddon al-Saiedi, a 36-year-old Shiite army colonel, father of two, abducted by Saddam’s goons on May 2, 1993, and never seen again.
As he went, so went numberless others, without a bang. Totalitarian hell - malign stability - holds no hope. Violent instability is unacceptable but not hopeless. Baghdad is closer to Sarajevo than we have allowed.”
Thomas Friedman, alleged internationalist, alleged expert:
There were three great bubbles in the 1990s: the Nasdaq bubble, the Enron bubble…and the terrorism bubble.”
… “We need to go into the heart of their world and beat their brains out, in order to burst this bubble.”
What happens when you take the word of American experts:
He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him.
Four years ago almost to this day, Joseph Briseno Jr. was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain.
…
But he survived. From Germany, he went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, then to McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. In December 2003, he went home, to Manassas Park, Virginia, where his parents, Joseph Sr. and Eva, quit their jobs to care for him.
“All our savings, all our money, was just emptied … the 401(k)s, everything,” said Joseph Briseno, who took a new job a year and a half ago to make ends meet.
…
At the Tampa VA, a nurse taught Jay Briseno to swallow his saliva — a big step that allowed him to have some pureed foods instead of just tube-feeding. He has not been able to handle any solid food, though — his injuries are too profound.
More recently, the Tampa staff tried to wean him from the respirator. This involved painstaking therapy to strengthen his diaphragm by placing weights on his belly and gradually increasing the air pressure on the machine to try to create resistance and muscle strength. So far, it hasn’t worked.
He has had other trials: surgeries, procedures and medications for bladder problems, high blood pressure, the opening for his breathing tube, dead tissue on his tongue — even an ingrown toenail. The latest is the bone disease, osteoporosis.
He can respond to questions by grunting or grimacing, and occasionally can say “mom” or “go,” but not consistently. He often opens his mouth.
God damn them all. Wars aren’t games and soldiers and civilians aren’t game pieces to be sacrificed without a moments thought. Wars are horrible, horrible things that cut lives short and mark even the survivors for life. Wars break things: countries, people, minds. No sane person, no person with an ounce of hummanity actively tries to starts a war. Decent people fight the coming of war right until the first bullet flies and fight to end the war as soon as possible. Unfortunately, decency is not a requirement for punditry stardom.
We have a sick, sick political culture. Bush is a symptom of this reckless, soulless, militaristic, fetid political discourse, not its cause. After Bush leaves we will still be cursed with men who think there is no problem an armored division cannot solve and count the seriousness of a thinker by the number of children he or she is willing to condemn to bloody death.
