War and Deliverance

Anxious to assert their vision of American strength, and themselves as its personifications, they were looking for a fight with Saddam Hussein long before September 11. Casting themselves as implacable opponents of tyranny, the ideologues of the administration had, since the days of the Soviet Union, envied the tyrants' ruthlessness. Quick to denounce bias when they faced opposition, they were the first to use mass deception to assure their own grip on power. And what made all this possible?  They could not do any of it—they could not begin to do it—without war and its attendant mystique of survival.

You remember the scene in "Deliverance" where Lewis has shot one of the mountain men in the back with a broadhead arrow and he's convincing the other three that they should hide the body. The decent family man Drew (Ronny Cox) says no, they have to tell the police what they've done. After all, the law is the law.

"The law?" Lewis half laughs. "The law? What law. Where's the law, Drew?" And then Lewis goes on. "You believe in democracy don't you? Well, then, we'll take a vote." The terrified companions opt to hide the evidence.

Yeah, you believe in democracy, don't you?

So the war-lovers in the Bush administration got what they wanted with a democratic vote. The United States invaded Iraq. And those of us who were covering the build-up to that war kept saying, OK, Saddam's a bad guy, but what are the American plans for the aftermath of the invasion—for the occupation? You don't eliminate a dictatorship that has been in place for more than 30 years and expect it will be an orderly transition. The response from the supermen: there won't be an occupation; it won't be a problem.

Remember when the four guys in "Deliverance" come out of the woods after burying the first mountain man? They've got another one waiting to kill them down in the gorge. They've got bone-breaking rapids in front of them.