Hang 'em Dry

The Iraq War stems from the same kind of thinking that drives materialism: Don't buy something you actually need; simply justify it somehow and it will be right. Rationalization will never be the same as reason because rationalization always involves self-deception and false premises. America loses its moral compass because it practices self-deception as an everyday aspect of living. Americans confuse need and want more than perhaps any other culture. We spend and acquire recklessly and end up bankrupt, both economically and morally. What we want we want NOW, at any cost. Harness that dynamic with power and you have a recipe for hubris that makes for Captain Ahabs, John D. Rockefellers, and Bernie Madoffs.

Dick Cheney, a Captain Ahab of sorts, painted Iraq's Saddam Hussein as some sort of white whale and went after him with monomaniacal vengeance without regard to facts. If the facts didn't fit, he and his harpooners just made them up. Ahab’s white whale may have contained whale oil, but that was beside the point to Ahab. In Cheney’s case, oil was the point, although he framed it as a WMD and Al Qaeda issue. Cheney just may have cried “whale” (aka wolf) and then had the military and staff round up any available “witnesses” to “help them remember” that they saw “the whale” as well. Meanwhile the rest of the crew from both port and starboard sides of the political Pequod were shamed or frightened into agreeing with the plan to invade.

What is amazing to me is that no rugged individual or maverick within the Republican Party has stepped forward and called for an investigation into “Iraq-gate,” torture and all. In the wake of Obama’s plan to move on, it would be a wonderful opportunity for a Carpe Diem moment by the Republican Party to do its own laundry rather than simply hope the stink blows away in the strong winds of the current economic storm. Is Dick Cheney still too powerful to prosecute, even by Republicans, who could only gain in the long run by hanging him out to dry if he is guilty of crimes against our country? For Republicans to stick by their man even when he may wreak of corruption does nothing toward their gaining moral high ground in the future. Where are Republican principles, really? If America can prosecute governors (Illinois most recently) it can certainly do the same with Vice Presidents if that is warranted. If Bush was actually involved as he purports to have been, then he should be fair game as well.

No pardons this time. What got us into Iraq is a far greater matter than espionage or break-ins at Democratic headquarters. If we are going to be a moral example in the world or even an example to our own children, we need to do our own laundry first. Leaving it all to the historians to decide is not the proper venue for justice.