The Frozen Revolution

One of my most amusing college memories was recently evoked by something said by, of all people, Vice President Cheney. I was hanging out in the room of a frat brother, Dan, with some other guys and girls, smoking weed. In that amiable atmosphere Dan decided to read his latest history paper (remember, this was an Ivy League school, we were smart freaks). He began, "Russia was in the throes of a revolution..." At this point one of the girls, a sweet airhead named Joey, piped in. "What's a frozen revolution?" For reasons having mostly to do with THC, we all burst into hysterics. Some of us enjoyed Joey's pre-Emily Litella-ism. Others thought that it really was a frozen revolution, since some of the insurrection took place in the tundra and Siberia. We also enjoyed the pure cornball triteness of the phrase. It actually became a comic catchphrase among us for several years (which is why the memory has endured).

But I can't remember the cliche being repeated by anyone until yesterday, when our Veep, wearing his usual protective blinders, announced stalwartly that the Iraqi insurrection was "In its last throes, if you will." [If we will what? Suppress our projectile vomit?] The poor guy's credibility has long since gone the way of the Pacer and the Betamax, but he proceeds merrily on, hoping that nobody brings up that other less agreeable phrase from my fraternity days, "the light at the end of the tunnel," referring to the Vietnam's war impending victory. Oh yeah, that victory never quite happened, unless you want to acknowledge that our profitable current trade relationship with Vietnam is a nice consequence of our defeat.

[Warning: Michael Jackson alert!] The end of Jacko's trial (he got off! No kidding!... The jokes can go on and on) was most damaging not to the losing plaintiffs, or common sense, or the E network, but the Republican leadership. They were suddenly bereft of one of the great news distractions, forcing the media to promote Iraq back to the front pages and the greater awareness of the public. Okay, Jeb Bush was still doing his damndest for his bro, trying to rekindle a lawsuit against Terri Schiavo's ex-husband for not waking up earlier in the middle of that awful night to find her crumpled body. But that ship has pretty much sailed, and serves only as further proof that Republicans are genetically incapable of admitting they are wrong.

Then Karl Rove chimed in with a schoolyard slur at Democrats and anyone who opposes his policies, saying that Republicans responded with appropriate military vigor to 9/11, while the Democrats wimped out and only worried about trying to understand the enemy. Modern Dems took great umbrage, though in its gross generality it is about as minorly accurate as Howard Dean's characterization of the Reps as the party of white Christians. In fact, we all wanted to kill a lot of Arabs after 9/11; it was a common revenge response that tapped into all our reptilian anger. The difference between the Reps and the Dems was that the Reps got fixated on the kill button, while the Dems retreated and tried to approach the matter rationally. I don't think, in times of national crisis, there's a rat's ass difference between the two parties in their fierce desire to protect America. If Gore had been Prez on 9/11, we would have gone into Afghanistan just as forcefully, and maybe even have gotten Bin Laden. But Iraq would have been a different story.

We don't have access to that parallel universe in the space/time continuum where we did not overthrow Saddam, so we can't tell whether removing him from power was worth the cost of this ongoing struggle. When the Elder Bush, the one with some statesmanlike qualities, decided not to attack Baghdad in 1991, even with the world allied with us, he did so for practical reasons--there was no exit strategy. Such forethought was not inherited by his son Georgie.

Putting aside the WMD issue (and history will not ignore the fact the entire pretext for the invasion was bogus), the value of the Iraqi invasion is seriously in doubt. We have created a power vacuum in that region that will result in years of tumult. Even if there were no insurrection, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds mix about as well as oil, water, and hydrochloric acid. And the insurrection has drawn to it wayward terrorists happy to kill Americans where and when they can. Basra is so much easier to get to than Times Square.

I really wish the Neocons had been right on this one, but history and logic are not on their side. Our continued occupation, however well-intended, is ineffectual. Life in Baghdad is terrible. Recently there was sabotage that left a third of the city without drinking water. This two years after the "Mission Accomplished" banner was unfurled, and a year after sovereignty was purportedly returned to the Iraqis. Stories of prisoner abuse, both here and in Gitmo, continue to arise. This is not the way to "win the hearts and minds" of the native people, as we tried to do in Vietnam while searching for the light in the tunnel.

And still, there is still no exit strategy. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Five to ten American soldiers die each week trying to maintain order. Practically every day there is a bomb explosion decimating what remains of the Iraqi police and civil service, the folks we're trusting to take over. Neither the Dems nor the Reps really know what to do; Teddy Kennedy dredged up another Vietnam cliche in accurately denoting the whole mess a "quagmire." I am not so clever as to see any solution myself, and worry that quagmire may turn into quicksand.

I can only turn to the wish-fulfillment fantasies our cinema has provided. What we need is for a real-life Superman to fly up as he did in the original movie and turn time backward, so that this war never began. As was said by a megacomputer in the 1980s movie "War Games," the only way to win a war--in that case a nuclear one--was not to wage it at all.

But as long as Cheney is confident, I suppose I shouldn't worry.