Iraq War: Establishment Fantasies

One of the hallmarks of the pre-Iraq War days was the proliferation of bad historical analogies. How many times did we hear about World War II and Pearl Harbor and tortured analogies about who did what? We were fighting the "Islamofascists," a concept whose only apparent use is to provide reomantic Second World War imagery. We heard about Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It's enough to make you think that people don't learn much from history.

The latest print edition (03/29/04) of Business Week pushes the notion that we're in a new Cold War.  BW is not nearly as nutty in their editorials as the Wall Street Journal. But in this issue, in an editorial called "War on Terror: New Lessons," you have a hard time not thinking about a stereotypical movie plutocrat, puffing a cigar behind his expensive desk in his plush private office in his mansion, cynically reminiscing about how great it was to have the Commies to fight:

Similarly, short-term military or tactical victories in Afghanistan or Iraq today -- including the possible capture of Osama bin Laden -- are not sufficient. Instead, the U.S. and the leading European powers must think in terms of emphasizing common interests that will sustain a long-term fight against terrorism and fundamentalism. Individual freedoms, women's rights, democracy, open markets, and free trade -- these are all values, shared by the U.S. and Europe, that could form the framework for sustained cooperation against a common enemy. The goal is not simply to capture individual terrorists but to drain the swamp that produces them -- a task that could take years.

All I can say is, get a grip, people. The Bush Republicans are about as blatantly hostile to the democratic nations of Europe as they can be. Just a few days after the horrible 11-M attack in Madrid, the Republicans were howling from the radio talk shows to Congress about what contempible cowards the Spaniards are.

If you want the good old Cold War days, read some Ian Fleming novels. And as convenient as it may be to recycle old editorials that used to serve as boilerplate during the Cold War, Osama is not Stalin, Islam is not Communism, and the Europeans are not going to bail us out in Iraq. Fantasize about something else. Like that Mars trip that Bush talked about for a few days in January.