It MUST all be our fault

I've written many times on this blog about what the future fall out of the loss in Iraq will be (and it IS a loss, as any Islamic-Based Theocratic state would be). In truth, no objective view of history will fail to blame the hubris of Bush, which combined with his intellectual laziness and natural dogmatic nature to allow equal foolish and dogmatic right-wing think tank lifers push us into a needless, expensive, and losing war.

But this is the "Age of Dogmatism" in the United States. No longer is the ability to admit being wrong a virtue, no longer can one pay the price of their errors or incompetence.

No it shall be the fault of all of us who were critical in the beginning of this enterprise, or those who later followed our lead. It is our fault for not clapping louder, for not being dogmatic -- for using reason.

Steve Gilliard pointed out something from a book I too have read that I fear becoming true in this country on a less drastic extent:

In Antony Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin", he cites a statistic that maybe 10,000 German troops were killed by their own side for deserting. Those doing the killing were the fanatics who sat on their asses for most of the war or murdered Jews and other prisoners.

But in order to intimidate those left, flying squads would kill deserters for any pretext.

That is what we are seeing now.

The right knows the war is lost, so they do the unforgivable, they lash out at grieving women. When it is clear that Bush has created the greatest foriegn policy failure in US history, they need some target for their impotence and rage.

But as they lash out, they intensify the disorder they seek to stem. The meaner they get, the more people join Mrs. Sheehan in her vigil, the more attention she gets, the more people empathize

.

When a nation loses a war it can go one of three ways.

It can go the way of Germany, Italy or Japan after World War II, where the devistation is so broad, so sweeping, the crimes so massive and shameful that as a culture there is a spasm of shame so deep it completely changes the culture. But clearly, this would seem to require massive catastrophy.

It can, at least, go for a period of time where it reflects upon the errors that were made and attempt to correct things to not make these mistakes again. This is arguably the direction that the United States took for a period of time after Vietnam, though sadly those lessons in the long run seem to be debatable.

Or it can go as France did after 1871, as Germany or Italy did after the First World War -- look for scapegoats.

Which way will we go?

Unless the war makers in the GOP are utterly defeated through constant effort, I fear the latter will be the ultimate course in our country.

Christ is reputed to have said, "blessed are the Peacemakers", but where in the course of human events has that actually been the case among societies?

The peacemakers are mocked, spat upon, imprisoned, or killed.

And it happens in America on one scale or another as much as it occurs in any other place -- we are not special in that regard.