Why aren't the headlines reading "Barely 2000 American soldiers lost in 30 months, Iraqi's ratify Constitution enabled by overthrow of Ba'athist fascism"?

Basically, the opponents of the liberation of Iraq in the West* are Transnational Progressives, Tranzis for short. The Tranzis believe that everything that was bad about the 20th century - that is, WWI, WWII and Vietnam, tranzis having a very poor grasp of history - was due to the conflict of nation-states. It was to eliminate this conflict, and ultimately to eliminate the nation-state itself, that the League of Nations, and its successor the United Nations, were formed.

Now, if you are an adherent of this belief, it logically follows that nation-states are bad, and America, the richest and most powerful nation-state of all, is the very worst. And that since the fundamental nature of the nation-state is bad, only bad can arise from the actions thereof.**

So everything America does is bad. But Saddam Hussein was a fascist, and the Tranzis are intrinsically opposed to fascism, because fascism exalts the nation-state above all else. This opposition is fundamental to their ideology.

Of course, the Tranzis have had no success whatsoever in achieving their goals. So naturally America (which is evil) cannot ever achieve those goals, because those goals are good and America (as the premier nation state) cannot do good things.

Right.

This means:

1. America is not in Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. (Because America is evil, and doesn't do such things.)
2. If America says that it is in Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people, it is a lie. (See above.)
3. If America follows a course of action clearly designed to liberate the Iraqi people, it is (a) only from some hidden motive and (b) doomed to failure.
4. If the Iraqis actually become free, for example, voting in huge numbers in clearly free and fair elections, then that is necessarily bad, because democracy is unfair to the people.
5. If Iraq, with America's assistance, becomes a prosperous, safe and generally healthy nation, then prosperity, safety, and health are ipso facto also evil.

So, the underlying source of all the wailing and fury of the left is that the liberation of Iraq has proved them to be wrong. And unless America fails, and fails horribly, they may be forced to admit it. Remember, when the left tried to free the world they ended up killing a hundred million people. So America has to, has to, has to fail.

Because the alternative would be unthinkable.

Steven Den Beste has written on this at length, and explains it better than I do here, but I don't have a link handy.

Update: Steven Den Beste provides a link (though I'm not sure if that was the one I was thinking of) and a handy search URL.

* Ignoring for the moment the Ba'athists and the Islamists, who oppose it for the very sensible reason that they want to be in control.
** Well, the idea that only bad ends can arise from bad means is another logical fallacy, but we'll leave that one alone for now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:20 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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