Features

We live in an all-encompassing culture of fear, which affects what we read, watch on TV, and talk about—even sports, where for example, it’s no longer sufficient to run a marathon, now one must compete in a 100-mile scamper through the Colorado Rockies i n order to risk dying of a heart attack or being eaten by a bear. 

This culture prompted the Survivor TV series and an intense media focus on obsessed winners and losers; in April, tabloids featured Aron Ralston who had an accident while climbing alone an d was forced to cut off part of his arm with a pocketknife. 

As we struggle to make sense of the Iraq war, it helps to remember that the U.S. is blanketed in this culture of fear, to view the occupation as a harrowing “reality” TV show produced by the Bus h administration. The themes are familiar: Americans are the good guys, deposited in a hostile environment, equipped with the latest technology, ordered to battle for an ill-defined goal, risking violent death each day; their opponents are cast as fanatic al baddies intent on killing all infidels; the public expects that no matter how grim the battles, how heavy the losses, the U.S.A. will triumph in the last reel. Americans are glued to their TV sets waiting for a happy ending, which each day grows more u nlikely. 

George and Dick’s adventure show isn’t going according to script—America is losing the war in Iraq. Each day brings new evidence of a strengthening insurgency; fresh proof that what was once unthinkable has now become ominously plausible—the U.S. occupation is sliding towards defeat. 

Those of us who opposed this war, who questioned the judgment of the Bush administration at every turn, who saw the election as a referendum on competence, may be tempted to take satisfaction from this growing catastrophe, to find solace in the knowledge that we were right all along. But it would be a mistake to distance ourselves from the conflict by rendering judgments rather than offering solutions. The stakes are too high, the human loss too dear for any of us to ignore reality: The administration has made a series of catastrophic blunders and led the nation, and our allies, into a no-win corner where our security will be imperiled no matter what we do. 

Given a realistic assessment of our predicament in Iraq, the question that Americans should be asking is not how can we win, but what is the best way to extricate ourselves? Unfortunately, the Bush administration doesn’t want to level with the public, doesn’t want to engage in a frank discussion of our options, because they feel that to do so would be an admission of defeat. And, of course, this is an administration that never admits any mistake, no matter how trivial, apparently out of the belief that to do so would reflect badly on their manhood.  

From the o nset of the war the Bush administration has tightly controlled discussion about Iraq. Even before the election they had such a stranglehold on the media, exercised such skill at framing consideration of the occupation that the election hinged not on wheth er victory in Iraq was achievable, or the underlying theme of the incompetency of those who led us into the quagmire, but rather who could do the best job of winning the war, who would wage the “smartest” campaign. As a result, even as the daily reports g rew bleaker, and polls indicated that a majority of Americans believed the occupation to have been a mistake, there has been no national discussion of exit strategies.  

Bullied by the Bush administration, the media has restricted its role, struggled each day to put a positive spin on the occupation, to suggest that victory might yet be snatched from the rabid jaws of defeat. However, the vital statistics of the war, ranging from the numbers of casualties to the barrels of oil pumped and hours of uninterr upted electrical service, tell a contradictory, somber story. The insurgency is growing—organized by four distinct organizations, we are told. It is unsafe for journalists to leave their quarters unless accompanied by an armed convoy; the road from the central airport into Baghdad is unsafe and visitors must be flown by helicopter into the Green zone. Many contractors have abandoned their projects; reconstruction has slowed to a snail’s pace. Some say that insurgents control two-thirds of the country and most of the oil-distribution system. America has lost the hearts and minds of the average Iraqi; eighty percent want us to leave.  

Iraq is in free-fall, headed for civil war, and the Jan. 30 elections won’t help. The United States has staged its own harr owing reality show. Like the climber trapped because of his own recklessness, forced to choose between starving to death or cutting off his arm, America is left with only dreadful choices: Are we on the set of Survivor or Lost? Will the United States face reality and make decisions that maximize our security? Or will we blunder onward, ensnared in our own version of the Donner Party?