Krugman: War's mythic reality

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> Tue, 07 Sep 2004 07:26:38 -0700

> Krugman: War's Mythic Reality

>

 

 

> War's Mythic Reality

>

> Paul Krugman, The New York Times Op-Ed Page,

> September 7, 2004

>

>

http://nytimes.com/2004/09/07/opinion/07krugman.html?hp

>

> The best book I've read about America after 9/11

> isn't about either

> America or 9/11. It's " War Is a Force That Gives Us

> Meaning, " an essay

> on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran

> war correspondent.

> Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it

> explains why President

> Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is

> ahead in the polls.

>

> War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental

> urges. " Lurking beneath

> the surface of every society, including ours, " he

> says, " is the

> passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that

> exalts us, the kind

> that war alone is able to deliver. " When war

> psychology takes hold, the

> public believes, temporarily, in a " mythic reality "

> in which our nation

> is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and

> anyone who isn't our

> ally is our enemy.

>

> This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of

> those in power.

>

> One striking part of the book describes Argentina's

> reaction to the 1982

> Falklands war. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of

> the country's

> military junta, cynically launched that war to

> distract the public from

> the failure of his economic policies. It worked:

> " The junta, which had

> been on the verge of collapse " just before the war,

> " instantly became

> the saviors of the country. "

>

> The point is that once war psychology takes hold,

> the public desperately

> wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes

> heroic qualities to

> even the least deserving ruler. National adulation

> for the junta ended

> only after a humiliating military defeat.

>

> George W. Bush isn't General Galtieri: America

> really was attacked on

> 9/11, and any president would have followed up with

> a counterstrike

> against the Taliban. Yet the Bush administration,

> like the Argentine

> junta, derived enormous political benefit from the

> impulse of a nation

> at war to rally around its leader.

>

> Another president might have refrained from

> exploiting that surge of

> support for partisan gain; Mr. Bush didn't.

>

> And his administration has sought to perpetuate the

> war psychology that

> makes such exploitation possible.

>

> Step by step, the fight against Al Qaeda became a

> universal " war on

> terror, " then a confrontation with the " axis of

> evil, " then a war

> against all evil everywhere. Nobody knows where it

> all ends.

>

> What is clear is that whenever political debate

> turns to Mr. Bush's

> actual record in office, his popularity sinks. Only

> by doing whatever it

> takes to change the subject to the war on terror -

> not to what he's

> actually doing about terrorist threats, but to his

> " leadership, "

> whatever that means - can he get a bump in the

> polls.

>

> Last week's convention made it clear that Mr. Bush

> intends to use what's

> left of his heroic image to win the election, and

> early polls suggest

> that the strategy may be working. What can John

> Kerry do?

>

> Campaigning exclusively on domestic issues won't

> work. Mr. Bush must be

> held to account for his dismal record on jobs,

> health care and the

> environment. But as Mr. Hedges writes, when war

> psychology makes a

> public yearn to believe in its leaders, " there is

> little that logic or

> fact or truth can do to alter the experience. "

>

> To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a

> significant number of

> voters that the self-proclaimed " war president "

> isn't an effective war

> leader - he only plays one on TV.

>

> This charge has the virtue of being true. It's hard

> to find a

> nonpartisan national security analyst with a good

> word for the Bush

> administration's foreign policy. Iraq, in

> particular, is a slow-motion

> disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism

> and epic incompetence.

>

> If I were running the Kerry campaign, I'd remind

> people frequently about

> Mr. Bush's flight-suit photo-op, when he declared

> the end of major

> combat. In fact, the war goes on unabated. News

> coverage of Iraq dropped

> off sharply after the supposed transfer of

> sovereignty on June 28, but

> as many American soldiers have died since the

> transfer as in the

> original invasion.

>

> And I'd point out that while Mr. Bush spared no

> effort preparing for his

> carrier landing - he even received underwater

> survival training in the

> White House pool - he didn't prepare for things that

> actually mattered,

> like securing and rebuilding Iraq after Baghdad

> fell.

>

> Will it work? I don't know. But to win, Mr. Kerry

> must try to puncture

> the myth that Mr. Bush's handlers have so

> assiduously created

> --