George F. Will "empire is always about domination"

[loftycity]

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

With no penalties, failures multiply

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/172705_will11.html

By GEORGE F. WILL
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON -- Listen to the language. It is always a leading indicator of moral confusion.

The lawyer for a soldier charged in the Iraq prison abuse was explaining a photograph. It showed some Americans standing over a pile of naked Iraqis:

"Intelligence officers came into the facility, pulled two men out of their cells, took them away, brought them back with a third prisoner, ordered the MPs to undress all of them, and then started interrogating them, and had them ... in this position where they're all embracing each other."

"Embracing."

The lawyer's client probably will offer -- this should deepen Americans' queasiness -- the Nuremberg defense: I was only obeying orders. If the abuse was the result of orders -- or of the absence of them -- fault must extend up the chain of command.

So, forgive the lawyer's language. But note what it betokens: a flinching from facts. Americans must not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact:

That pornography is, almost inevitably, part of what empire looks like. It does not always look like that, and does not only look like that. But empire is always about domination. Domination for self defense, perhaps. Domination for the good of the dominated, arguably. But domination.

And some persons will be corrupted by dominating. That is why the leaders of empires must be watchful. Very watchful.

(snip)

How should he, and we, think about what comes next? Consider an axiom, a principle, two questions and then a second axiom.

The first axiom is: When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.
(snip)
Americans are almost certainly going to die in violence made worse in Iraq, and not only there, by the substantial aid some Americans, in their torture of Iraqi prisoners, have given to our enemies in this war. And by the appallingly dilatory response to the certain torture and probable murder committed in that prison.

The nation's response must, of course, include swift and public prosecutions. And the destruction of that prison. And punctilious conformity to legal obligations -- and, now, to some optional procedures -- concerning persons in American custody. But this is not enough.

One question is: Are the nation's efforts in the deepening global war -- the world is more menacing than it was a year ago -- helped or hindered by Rumsfeld's continuation as the appointed American most conspicuously identified with the conduct of the war? This is not a simple call. But being experienced, he will know how to make the call. Being honorable, he will do so.
(snip)

This nation has always needed an ethic about the resignation of public officials. Such an ethic cannot be codified. It must grow in controlling power from precedent to precedent, as an unwritten common law, distilled from the behavior of uncommonly honorable men and women who understand the stakes. A nation, especially one doing the business of empire, needs high officials to be highly attentive to what is done in their departments -- attentive far down the chain of command, as though their very jobs depended on it.

Finally, the second axiom. It is from Charles de Gaulle: The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

George F. Will is a columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group. Copyright 2004, Washington Post Writers Group. He may be reached at [e-mail]
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When George Will calling the Neo Cons for what they are

"But empire is always about domination. Domination for self defense, perhaps. Domination for the good of the dominated, arguably. But domination."

[whistle]

1. I wonder what it will take to get George Will to being...

..contrite rather than being an apologist for the misdeeds of his party's leaders and their political ambitions. I notice he makes no apology for the pursuit of empire, he only wishes that there be no failure. Sounds a lot like what Rumsfeld was expressing his regrets over before the senate committee last Friday.

[jobycom]

2. *cough*bullshit*cough

George Will's using a lot of big words to fool people. All he said is "Hey, these things happen. But Bush is a nice guy, whether he fires Rumsfield or not."

Horsehit. We deserve better than Bush, Rumsfield, AND George Will, who sold out long ago.

[wtmusic]

3. Since when is the US a f*cking empire?

So Will is admitting that Bush is an emperor?

One would like to think civilization had progressed since ancient Rome but apparently not. We're not too far away from tossing Iraqis to the lions.

[pop goes the weasel]

5. 1899

With the Senate vote accepting the treaty that formally ended the war with Spain.

Or one could feasibly put it earlier than that, that America was born of empire, and when the empire wasn't aggressive enough in dispossessing the native inhabitants, the settlers went Rambo.

[teryang]

4. The venal babble of sychophants

...makes you want to puke, doesn't it?

No other institution or mortal may render judgement upon the princes who rule the empire. After all, these are "honorable men" (of dominance). We can only rely on the executive to cleanse itself of corruption and criminal wrongdoing based upon expediency.

And if the policy is to torture people or have prisoners "broken" by sticking a flashlight up their butts to make them talk, this is the prerogative of the dominant.

Conservative mantra after 911:

You know what's wrong with this country today? Our intelligence function is not dirty enough, its hands are tied.

[DemosthenesOfTheWest]

6. Where, to paraphrase Ivins, did I sign up for Empire of America? n/t

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Will is not really off the reservation yet, but at least he is calling a

spade a spade. Empire is a brutal, bloody business. No other wingnut has the stones to use the word empire except to deny that that's what we are doing. Empire building.