Iraqi Horror Picture Show

Been enjoying the Rockin' Iraqi Reality Programming? Stripped entirely of its context, its been a real-time video game zapped directly from reporters embedded in military units to you embedded in your La-Z-Boy. What great entertainment, smart bombs and night vision and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with remotely triggered missiles. Is this CNN or the Sci-Fi Channel?

But move your recliner back to the far wall and you have a wider perspective. Now you can see your curio cabinet with your Franklin Mint antique miniature porcelain wheelbarrow collection and your velvet Elvis painting and your discounted scratch-and-dent coffee table. You've added context and that context tells you that this isn't Donkey Kong. This is a real war and real people are dying by the thousands. (That context also tells us that most of those dying are sadistic medieval thugs whose idea of fun is treating their fellow citizens to an evening of ripping off fingernails and gouging out eyes, followed eventually by a bullet in the brainpan. So as much as I hate war and violence, I just can't seem to get my tear glands pumping for these slithering subhuman Saddam wannabes.)

Now dismount your recline-o-matic and step through the door of your cozy American home. Your context is now your neighborhood. See the nice clean streets and the bright ChemLawns and the cul-de-sacs and your choice of three different floor plans? So now you ask, "Why are we fighting this war?" Well, we've heard the answers. Weapons of Mass Destruction and counter-terrorism and freeing the Iraqi people. But that's not the context I want you to consider. I want you to ponder the historical context.

History? Argh! Most people's context doesn't extend that far. "The past is past. We can't go back and change things. We can only deal with the present." That's not an answer, of course, that's an evasion. That's like asking your neighbor (whose floor plan is identical to yours), "Why did you punch that guy?" and he says, "Because he punched me first." So you ask why he punched you first and he says, "It doesn't matter, if he punches me I'll punch him." Never mind that maybe the reason he punched you is because you've been tracking mud into his house and drinking his Coors Light and boinking his girlfriend. That would require your neighbor to understand historical context. "History? Argh! If he punches me I'll punch him!"

The historical context of this war is that Saddam is spawn of our own loins. And so are the Islamist terrorists. Imagine if, following the Greatest Generation's war, a libertarian regime had been in power. One that actually respected the limits imposed by the Constitution. It would have meant that we had nothing to do with impaling Palestine's heart with an Israeli state and guaranteeing that state's existence with billions of taxpayer dollars and weaponry. Suppose we'd never engineered the Shah's rise in Iran. Suppose we'd never nodded approvingly while Saddam murdered his way into power in Iraq, never backed him in his war against Iran, never, as many reports claim, given him a green light to invade Kuwait. Imagine, in other words, that we'd never tracked mud into Moe Muslim's house or drank his beer or boinked his women. Would we be fighting this war now?

So why did we do those things? To gain some advantage in the geopolitical Parcheesi Game of the Moment that means absolutely nothing now? Most likely. Do the Brits still control the Suez Canal? Are the Dutch in power in South Africa? Does the Pope rule all of Christianity? Millions died for those causes. Where are those causes now? And who really cares?

The airplanes that rammed the Pentagon and altered the New York skyline may have come out of the blue, but the reasons behind them didn't. History, recall, is that stuff you're doomed to repeat when you ignore it. Unfortunately, most Americans have vision as wide, and memories as deep, as their flat screen plasma TVs. They'll never understand the real storyline of this made-for-TV war: American policymakers sending American soldiers to die for the purpose of cleaning up the mess created by yesterday's American policymakers. Who will tell them? Conservatives who live for the votes of the moment, liberals who live for the emotions of the moment, news channels who live for the ratings of the moment?

So prop up your feet and enjoy the great victory. Another clean-up war will be coming your way next season.