[wvns] Norman Podhoretz, Psychopath
Face of a psychopath
Glenn Greenwald
Thursday June 21, 2007
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
Neoconservative icon Norman Podhoretz followed up his Commentary
article titled "The case for bombing Iran" -- excerpts of which were
re-published in The Wall St. Journal -- with an interview elaborating
on why he "hopes and prays" that we bomb Iran and how he envisions the
bombings. Though he generously acknowledges that such an action would
likely "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that
will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a
lovefest" -- consequences to which he is transparently (and
revealingly) indifferent -- he goes on to suggest that Europeans and
even the Muslim world might be grateful for our attack; the bombs will
be greeted as Bombs of Liberation and Protection:
It's entirely possible that many countries, particularly in the Middle
East -- the Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, who are
very worried about Iranian influence and power --would at least
secretly applaud us. And I think it's possible that other countries in
Europe, for example, and elsewhere, would be relieved to see the
Iranians entirely deprived of the capability to build nuclear weapons,
or at least have that ability retarded for five or 10 years or more.
As Think Progress notes, not only would a bombing campaign fail to
stop the Iranian nuclear program, it would be far more likely to
accelerate it, just as the Israeli attack on the Iraqi program did.
And a military bombing campaign, guaranteed to kill untold numbers of
Iranian civilians, would obviously unite Iranians in anti-American
hatred and generate unified support for the most militant political
elements in that country.
But beyond those rather obvious points, just contemplate the level of
bombing and slaughter that would be required merely to have a chance
of fulfilling Podhoretz's goal of "entirely depriv[ing Iran] of the
capability to build nuclear weapons, or at least have that ability
retarded for five or 10 years or more." How would that be remotely
possible without bombing them until Podhoretz's real goal -- regime
change -- were achieved, a goal which, if achievable at all, would
require bombing so widespread and brutal that it ought to be
unthinkable. Yet Podhoretz sits there, in the most smug and casual
manner, and blithely "hopes and prays" that we do it.
Any doubts about what Norman Podhoretz is -- and what the movement is
which reveres him -- ought to be forever dispelled by his answer,
given in the same interview, to the question of what the British
should have done in response to the detention of 15 of their sailors
by Iran:
They should have threatened to bomb the Iranians into smithereens if
the sailors weren't returned immediately. They should have threatened
it. Whether they would have had to carry out the threat, I doubt,
maybe they would have.
Just think about that. England should have threatened and then "bombed
the Iranians into smithereens" if their sailors were not returned
immediately. Contemplate the depravity required even to suggest such a
thing -- that a nation of more than 70 million human beings be reduced
to rubble, perhaps vaporzied, over an incident of that magnitude,
which was peacefully resolved after two weeks. It is really warped
beyond belief. And it's the tone that is almost as notable as the
content -- the breezy, smug wave of the hand that signifies the brutal
deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, possibly many more.
And there is nothing unusual about Norm Podhoretz in the
neoconservative world that he leads. Unsurprisingly, it is Norm's son,
John, who -- beyond his garden-variety excitement over bombing Iran --
made one of the most reprehensible and deranged (though illustrative)
statements of the entire Bush presidency:
What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill
enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so
afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of
Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an
insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?
At the time, Greg Djerejian said in response:
It's quite sad that the son of an accomplished, prestigious American
intellectual would muse so innocuously about the merits of mass
butchery--basically the wholesale slaughter of a broad demographic of
an ethnic group writ large--a policy prescription that is
quasi-genocidal in nature.
It may be "sad," but at this point it is certainly unsurprising. And
the "accomplished, prestigious American intellectual" who is John
Podhoretz's father shares the family enthusiasm for "mass butchery."
And while all of our media stars solemnly lament how the "fringe"
liberal bloggers are ruining our political culture with all of their
naughty words and extremism, the genocide-craving Podhoretz Family
sits at the epicenter of a political movement that is still as
predominant and powerful as it is deranged, and they are treated with
the utmost seriousness and respect.
In this week's Newsweek, Michael Hirsh has a worthwhile article
reporting on his observations during his visit to Iran. While listing
the internally repressive measures taken by the Iranian governemnt,
Hirsh describes Tehran as "bustling," as "traffic crowds the streets
and boulevards," filled with the "chic" Iranian women and the
"meterosexual" Iranian males who seek greater economic security and
prosperity. That is what Norm Podhoretz and his friends hungrily want
to annihilate.
Matt Yglesias, in a recent post about the administration's "debate"
over whether to bomb Iran, wisely included a random photograph of an
Iranian street with civilians walking on it. These are the people Norm
Podhoretz and his comrades want to slaughter:
[Photo by Flickr user Koldo used under a Creative Commons license]
Our ability to render invisible the people we kill when cheering on
our wars is one of the primary mechanisms which make it so easy to
embrace that option. Yesterday, a quite revealing exchange occurred
during the White House Press gaggle; it is unnecessary to identify the
reporter asking these questions because there is really only one White
House correspondent who would (the one who is considered to be "crazy"
by her "journalistic" colleagues as a result of disrespectful and
annoyingly off-script outbursts like this):
Q A study shows that Iraq is the second-most unstable country in the
world. Do we have anything to do with that?
MR. SNOW: Do we have anything to do with that? Yes, I saw the study --
Q -- the killing?
MR. SNOW: We don't -- I'm not sure I got the --
Q I'm talking about Petraeus, also, intensifying -- is he trying to
build a kill record before September?
MR. SNOW: No. No. In point of fact, Helen, if you take a look at the
record of the last two months, the people who have been trying to put
together the kill record are al Qaeda. Go to the mosques --
Q Is everybody who resists our occupation a terrorist?
MR. SNOW: Do you think somebody who goes in and blows up 50 people in
a mosque is resisting occupation?
Q What have we done for five years?
MR. SNOW: What we have been trying to do is to work with folks to deal
with a highly volatile situation in Iraq in the wake of a murderous
regime --
Q We've killed thousands of people, tens of thousands --
MR. SNOW: Many have died, and hundreds of thousands died under the
previous regime. This is a place that has too long been wracked by
violence. And the fact that in fighting --
Q We're not supposed to be comparing, are we?
MR. SNOW: Unfortunately, if we fought evil guys who simply would say,
you caught us, we're evil, we give up, we'll be good -- that would be
great, that would be wonderful.
Q Everybody isn't evil who fights for his land.
MR. SNOW: A lot of the people we're talking about, Helen, aren't
fighting for their land, because it's not their land. They don't even
come from Iraq.
Q Are we fighting Iraqis, inherently, in their own country?
MR. SNOW: Are we fighting Iraqis inherently? I think if you take a
look at what General Petraeus is saying, is that increasingly Iraqis
are joining with us to defend their country from the onslaught of
outside fighters, whether they be from al Qaeda or Iran.
Q Good, but we have to admit we're killing a lot of Iraqis who are
against our presence.
MR. SNOW: I'm not sure. I mean, that requires the kind of canvas of
those who have died that I'm not capable of doing.
Nothing could be more boring to Tony Snow than the question of how
many Iraqi civilians we have killed as a result of our invasion and
occupation. His yawn is virtually audible. What could be less relevant
than that? It is better if we do not know. We can just keep repeating
over and over that we are "killing Al Qaeda" -- a "fact" which Michael
Gordon and The New York Times will be happy repeatedly to re-inforce
-- and we can ignore the rest.
What Norman Podhoretz is advocating -- blowing Iran into "smithereens"
-- is criminal and morally twisted for reasons that should require no
elaboration. But the far more significant fact is that such advocacy
does not relegate him to the fringes. Quite the contrary, the movement
of which he is an integral part, on whose behalf he speaks, is well
within the political mainstream as depicted by our political press.
And it is doubtful that there is anything he (and his comrades) could
do or say which would change that.
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