These fought in any case,
and some believing …
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits …
and liars in public places.
— Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” 1920
Ezra Pound wrote “Mauberley” in the aftermath of World War I and, he said, in reaction to “the ineffable stupidity of the British Empire.” I was reminded of those words last week, nearly a century later, when Vice-President Dick Cheney visited San Antonio, on the rhetorical behalf of the ineffable stupidity of the American Empire. Cheney was dispatched by the Bush White House (that conglomerate of corporate bully-boys, revanchist cold warriors, and court toadies) to defend the indefensible.
He performed admirably, which is to say he declared the absolute right and authority of the United States government to do whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases, to whomever it pleases. Nominally the Cheney speech, delivered to a suitably deferential audience of Korean War veterans, was an attempt to make the case for a “pre-emptive” military assault on the nation of Iraq, an abomination the administration has been attempting to sell to the U.S. public and the world for some weeks now, although nobody much is buying.
But Cheney moved far beyond the administration’s previous mutterings about “threats to national security” emanating from a far-off country devastated by war, starvation, and seemingly permanent illegal aggression from U.S. and British air assaults. Now the U.S. is justified in attacking Iraq, declared Cheney, not because “Saddam Hussein” (a symbolic demon concocted by U.S. propaganda to stand for the entire Iraqi nation) is a clear and present danger to us or his neighbors, but because he might become a danger to somebody, somewhere, some time in the future.
Because We Can “Many of us are convinced,” said Cheney, “that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances.” “Intelligence” is indeed an uncertain business, and the vice-president and his boss are clearly convinced that U.S. citizens have so little of it they will swallow any absurdity the White House dishes out. Contrary to Cheney’s assertions, the UN inspections that took place in Iraq over the past 10 years did indeed document the destruction of effectively all of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” and, more importantly, the ability to produce the same. Moreover, even the notion that Hussein can “acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon” in the country’s current circumstances is itself absurd — but that too could be prevented by a resumption of inspections rather than military assault.
Even more shameless was Cheney’s charge that given such weapons, Saddam Hussein could “seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies, directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.” This supposedly outrageous course of action precisely mirrors U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since World War II (and only one nation on earth — our own — has ever subjected another to literal “nuclear blackmail”). But even setting that aside, how in God’s name would a supposedly nuclear-armed Iraq “blackmail” or even threaten the U.S., which possesses enough weapons of mass destruction — of every kind — ready to destroy all life on the planet?
In any case, as Cheney made clear, the U.S. doesn’t want arms inspections, of any kind, in Iraq, because successful inspections would de-legitimize the U.S. presumption of a right to attack, unilaterally, on any pretext it chooses. “A return of inspectors,” said the vice-president, “would provide no assurance whatsoever of [Saddam’s] compliance with UN resolutions.” So much for the UN, or indeed any policy short of all-out war. Recall that the U.S. has never halted military action against Iraq since the Gulf War, both in the form of devastating economic sanctions (which predominantly injure civilians) and in its entirely illegal “no-fly zones” imposed bilaterally by the U.S. and Britain without any international authorization and indeed in violation of international law.
And how do those nasty Iraqis respond to our tender ministrations? They shoot back! “We are, after all,” laments Cheney, “dealing with the same dictator who shoots at the American and British pilots in the no-fly zone on a regular basis.” The unmitigated gall of those ungrateful Arabs …
So when Bush, Cheney, and their ilk, and their media scribes, continue to repeat their justifications and “evidence,” remember: These men are liars.
They Want Total War
It wouldn’t be worth responding to Dick Cheney’s shameless and arrogant nonsense, except that it is increasingly clear that he and Bush and his illegitimate regime will be satisfied only with total war against Iraq, sooner or later, and that they will demand our loyalty and submission to the cause. They will flatter an already-willing Congress, strong-arm recalcitrant allies, and threaten or blackmail anyone else so foolhardy as to get in their way. The long knives are coming out of their scabbards, and any of us who refuse to march along will be condemned as apologists for “terrorism,” mocked as cowards, condemned as traitors. It has happened too many times before, and — barring some miracle of public and international outcry — it is being prepared to happen again.
A century later, and the angry elegy resumes:
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies. 
This article appears in September 6 • 2002.
