Shrug

I was really tempted to fisk Jill Nelson’s MSNBC screed against war on Iraq. I mean, the thing begs for it, from painting Colin Powell as a governmental yes-man to portraying the UN as a sage council of learned philosophers confronted by an egotistical cowboy tyrant named George W. Bush. Every paragraph, every sentence, is a shotgun spraying of critiques, most of which seem to bear only the most superficial resemblance to reality.

But, in the end, I decided, why bother? I’ve made my own views clear on the subject. Nothing I say is going to sway Ms. Nelson, or those who believe as she does. The basic axioms of her universe (peace and negotiation are always the answer; the UN has the highest moral legitimacy in the world; Bush is a plutocrat who stole the election; you can score points if you throw around words like “tyrant” and “minions” and “cowboy”) are so divergent from my own (peace and negotiation are certainly the first steps you should take, but there are circumstances where force, and threat of force, are the only effective answers; the UN is a useful place to coordinate activities, but its member states are all largely out for their own interests; Bush won the election, so, like this Gore voter, get over it; namecalling as a primary rhetorical device is the refuge of the intellectually bankrupt) that it’s almost no use even trying to argue against what she has to say.

Looking out upon the anti-war folks, post-Powell’s presentation, I see the following strains of thought:

• Yeah, those Iraqis are really yanking our chain and defying inspections, so we should have more inspections, because that will set them straight.
• It’s all a pack of lies, fabrications, and misinterpretations.

• Hey, look over there! It’s North Korea! Let’s go pay attention to them, now!

To all of these, there’s not a lot more to say. If you think more inspections will somehow magically transform Iraq into a compliant nation, willing, even eager, to disarm itself, then you’re living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land. If you think the evidence as presented was fabricated or insufficient, then you really seem to be saying that no evidence could ever be trusted or considered sufficient, so why even bother with inspectors?

As to the North Korea card, I’d feel a lot better about those making that argument if I didn’t get the sense that a lot of them (the Congressional Democrats, for example) weren’t simply trying to avert a war they don’t want to see start by distracting attention to another issue. Not that North Korea isn’t a potential threat, but our options regarding it are pretty limited, practically speaking (if they already have a nuke, military options, or even pushing them around too much economically or diplomatically might bring about horrifying results). Not, of course, that any of the folks who are horrified at the thought of military action against Iraq would at all support military action against North Korea — which means that the North Korea card is just an attempt to distract from a political battle that is being lost.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how, if at all, the rhetorical battlefield here has changed by the time we get back from Britain. But it’s late, and I’m tired, and even if arguing points against Ms. Nelson is like shooting fish in a barrel, if there are too many fish, it’s still an awful lot like work.