We?re sleepwalking into disaster

We hear a lot about “madmen” taking power in far-off lands — most often lands with large oil reserves. A few pertinent questions: Has the White House lost its collective mind? Do the president and his minions believe that Americans can be stampeded into another needless war to save his party from the consequences of the catastrophe in Iraq? Is the Bush administration seriously thinking of bombing — possibly nuking — Iran for political purposes? Is it actually possible, as has been reported, that Bush believes himself to be on a divine, messianic mission?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then our democracy may be sleepwalking into its worst crisis since the Civil War. A “pre-emptive” strike on Iran, because it might hypothetically develop nuclear weapons five or 10 years hence, would be a naked act of aggression. Not to mention an offense against the U.S. Constitution. On what authority would Bush make war on a nation that played no role in Sept. 11, bears enmity toward Al Qaeda and has never seriously threatened to attack the United States? His own? God’s?

So far, Iran hasn’t even violated the nonproliferation treaty giving signatories the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use. It boasts of purifying a small amount of uranium ore to the standard needed to generate electricity. Experts say Iran would need roughly 100 times its present refining capacity over several years to accumulate enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb. Despite the absurd and offensive posturing of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a demagogic politician playing to his own “base” — no immediate danger exists.

Yet, many of the same keyboard commandos who orchestrated the propaganda campaign that drove the U.S. into Iraq are beating war drums. Scary “intelligence” claims again proliferate. The same geniuses that claimed to know the precise location of Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs now warn us of Iran’s double-secret arms programs. Full-page ads have appeared in newspapers in the United States and Europe conjuring the prospect of Iranian nuclear attacks against Israel and the West — an entirely imaginary scenario.

At times like these, it’s worthwhile recalling George Orwell’s distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Orwell wrote the essay “Notes on Nationalism” in 1945, just as the most cataclysmic war in human history was ending in Europe. “By patriotism,” he wrote, “I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world, but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.”

Nationalism, as Orwell defined it, “is inseparable from the desire for power … a nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige … his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.” To him, it was “power hunger tempered by self-deception,” a kind of moral insanity.

Presaging his masterpiece “1984,” Orwell was most alarmed by the fervid nationalist’s indifference to reality: “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

Real patriots must prevent this madness from happening. The generals are speaking out. Where are the Democrats and the sane Republicans?

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons canbe reached by e-mail at [email protected].