What follows is an exchange with a man I knew since the sixties who was once a friend and might still become one again – who knows? We shared many good times. He later became a Neo-Conservative with whom I argued many times before our attack on Iraq. Out of respect for him, I have eliminated all identifiable information regarding who he is as well as some references to family issues irrelevant to the subject at hand. However, I post this exchange because I believe that the battle for America’s soul is at bottom, as the ultra right says, a moral battle. Only the forces of decency are disproportionately (not entirely, but disproportionately) on one side, and it is not theirs.

One of the worst things about the political parasites who seek to rule by dividing the country is how they undermine friendships and the foundation for social and political trust in order to win power. Other than the dead and maimed, this is the deepest evil committed by Rove, Bush, and their key enablers. As the carnage in Iraq and earlier Yugoslavia demonstrates, social peace is not to be taken for granted, and those who deliberately undermine it by dividing a society must rank among humanity’s worst enemies.

In part these letters exemplify the effects of this crime.

I will add to this exchange as it continues, if it continues. I will also occasionally add links as I find time to incorporate them.

FIRST EXCHANGE

Peter and I had argued years earlier about the case for war with Iraq. The present exchange originated when I sent him the following after many months of almost no contact. I was uncertain how to proceed, but hoped the passing of so many years and dashing of their fantasies had opened himn to rethinking his position. As a note of explanation, Peter had earlier alluded to his friends and contacts among NeoConsrevatives and Likud supporters.

Peter –
This is a report of some of the goodness your friends have helped bring both to this country and the people of Iraq. Notice how the attitudes described in the Pentagon report are unlikely to lead to Iraqis liking the United States. Or think much of democracy.

Do you have any second thoughts at all as to your utter self confidence that you were right before the war began?

– gus

“On Friday, the Pentagon released the findings of their fourth study of
the mental health of US Troops in Iraq. According to the New York Times
the report was submitted in “November” but

“Pentagon officials have not explained why the public release of the report was delayed, a move that kept the data out of the public debate as the Bush administration developed its plan to build up troops in Iraq and extend combat tours. Rear Adm. Richard R.
Jeffries, a medical officer, told reporters on Friday that the timing was decided by civilian Pentagon officials.”

Editor and Publisher summarizes the findings:

• Sixty-two percent of soldiers and 66 percent of Marines said that
they knew someone seriously injured or killed, or that a member of
their team had become a casualty.

• The 2006 adjusted rate of suicides per 100,000 soldiers was 17.3
soldiers, lower than the 19.9 rate reported in 2005.

• Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said
noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

• About a third of troops said they had insulted or cursed at
civilians in their presence.

• About 10 percent of soldiers and Marines reported mistreating
civilians or damaging property when it was not necessary.
Mistreatment includes hitting or kicking a civilian.

• Forty-four percent of Marines and 41 percent of soldiers said
torture should be allowed to save the life of a soldier or Marine.

• Thirty-nine percent of Marines and 36 percent of soldiers said
torture should be allowed to gather important information from
insurgents.

One of the key findings of the report is that these ethics problems are more pronounced the longer tours are extended and the more tours soldiers serve. And the Guardian
notes:

“There are about 150,000 US troops in Iraq. Many have been complaining in emails and blogs about President George Bush’s decision this year to extend deployment from one year to 15 months as part of an attempt to pacify Baghdad and Anbar province.

“The Pentagon this week imposed restrictions on internet postings from war zones, and claimed it was because of the risk of providing sensitive information to insurgents.

(snip)

“Reacting to the ban, soldiers said that the real reason for the curb was their negative comments about the war, including scepticism about Mr Bush’s claims about progress.”

Thence ensured a couple of emails which led to him writing, quite nicely:

” . . . it distresses me to think that I facilitated alienating you due to my always difficult personality. Trust me when I assure you that even if we still don’t agree on everything, you won’t find my personality that dismissive and condescending this time. I always enjoy our discussions, and look forward to starting them again.”

SECOND EXCHANGE

Taking a deep breath, I replied

Dear Peter
This is a painful letter to write, but for me the issue goes deeper than personality. It goes to the depths of what it means to be a decent human being. There are many kinds of disagreement. Most do not threaten my willingness to maintain old and long treasured ties. But some do. I will describe very bluntly how I see these issues – and you can determine whether we have anything useful to say to one another.

Many thousands of Americans are dead and tens of thousand wounded while in all too many cases returning to poor care and in some cases to losing their children. The trust of many thousands of men and women who volunteered to serve their country has been betrayed. Pretty reputable sources claim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead who would not be dead if we had not invaded. God only knows how many are wounded. NONE of these people attacked us on 9/11. Not one. This is a crime that will stain our country and those who supported this mass murder forever.

Domestically habeas corpus has been assaulted and torture made a part of US policy, as was made explicit with Jose Padilla. Elections have almost certainly been gamed with rigged voting machines. “Signing statements” have been used to violate the constitution using the most specious and dishonest reasoning by paid whores like Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo. (But in writing this I slander whores. Whores do not hurt, kill, or lie to make a living, and some I have met have remarkable personal integrity.) The Dept. of Justice was undermined on an unprecedented scale, as has become obvious to all who pay attention. It was perverted to undermine investigating dishonest Republican incumbents while prosecuting Democrats for non-existent crimes, like some third world dictatorship. The tactics for establishing control over it more closely resembled those employed in the old Soviet Union more than they did anything in American history. The Terri Schiavo case was only the most spectacular of many attacks on the courts, rule of law, and simple decency. New Orleans was left to twist in the wind, its inhabitants treated like second class Americans. Bush flew to Washington from Texas to sign the Schiavo decree, but played the guitar and raised money while New Orleans drowned. Today I read that equipment needed in Greensburg, Kansas, is in Iraq. Science has been subordinated to the most extreme ignorance and blind pride on a wide front, while bright foreign students increasingly go elsewhere for their scientific education. Every effort was made to weaken environmental protection when it got in the way of corporate profits. A national political machine was built – the K Street plan. A CIA operative investigating nuclear terrorist threats was outed to settle a political score with her husband and character assassination became the normal way of dealing with political critics. Soldiers who told the truth as they saw it were cashiered, to be replaced by political generals. You told me General Anthony Zinni was a “political general” who needed to be fired so competent men like Paul Wolfowitz could direct matters. As any honest person now knows, Zinni was right and the chicken hawks you regarded as heroes were wrong. The “leadership” you helped enable has treated us to one lie after another – like the “mushroom cloud” claim you repeated to me years ago when I was critical of attacking Iraq.

Perhaps you will say, as you did once, that all politicians are equally bad. No they are not. Some are not murderers, nor do they try and subvert their country’s institutions. Some lie about consensual blow-jobs, others lie about what affects us as citizens and are responsible for the deaths of thousands. Some need to be criticized, others need to be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned.

The ruling elite you supported and have made excuses for has blood on its hands that I have no right to forgive. I will never forget your statement that Kerry was obviously more incompetent than Bush. After it was obvious to any clear eyed person Bush was incompetent and a liar. Go to my web site www.deal-with-it.org that I put up years ago to see that I was way ahead of the curve here. I was made a stranger in my own country for years by the forces you defended and I suspect fed with financial contributions. My own mother accused me behind my back of treason because of that site and the card deck that went with it. She could do that because of the national climate of hate and bigotry you helped support.

At what point does disagreement over policy leave the realm of politics to become an issue of basic morality vs. grotesque and hideous immorality? I think when massive numbers of innocents are killed over lies and our constitution is assaulted and the patriotism of those who disagree is questioned, the point has long been crossed.
If you still cannot repudiate these people and their vile actions then to me there is something withered in your heart, an inability to care for others beyond your family and perhaps those useful to you. I know you care about your family, so I know you are not a sociopath, thank God. But then, if you cannot repudiate these moral monsters, what is wrong with your heart?

Many people were deceived. That is frequent enough. We are, all of us, fallible. I was fortunate enough to have the time to study these issues in some depth, and I seem in retrospect to have been a pretty good judge of Bush’s character. But people who still at this late day find excuses for the likes of Kristol, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Ledeen, Cheney, Bush and their key henchmen have taken themselves outside of civilized company. In my eyes they have no excuse beyond willful ignorance, arrogance, youth, or simply not giving a damn about anyone but themselves and those close to them.

If you no longer support the criminals who dominate our government, then we do have things to say to one another and a friendship still to pursue. But if you really still support these people I do not think we have anything to talk about important enough to overcome these differences. I wish you no ill – but I also wish you no power to hurt those who have done nothing to you.

Gus

Peter replied:

Hi Gus,
You letter IS truly painful. I have considered dozens of responses, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that you have defined the world into those who agree with you, and those who don’t, and you define those who don’t as ‘indecent.’ I fall into the latter category, it seems, and therefore am not worthy of your friendship. So be it.

I will say that I have read your missive many times, in many places, and it has always impressed me as the antithesis of what I believe. I am not dismissing your positions, although I disagree with most of them, but it’s your conclusions that are stunning, intolerant, and fully representative of a complement of people who inhabit the fringe of the left in this country. I have friends who reside there, and although we never discuss politics, we are aware of the vast differences we have over national policy. Yet we
remain friends.

Today I found a rather interesting website, which has posted photographs I felt reflected your world view quite nicely. It was sad to view these horrific pictures and actually think of you, but I guess I have no alternative.

As always, my friendship is here for you when and if you choose to access it. I understand your anger and frustration, and I have and do share some of it, but I don’t understand your intolerance. Considering how opposed you have been to intolerance of your family, the Catholic Church, and the various entities in your life that you have commented upon to me over the years, I find it paradoxical that you have succumbed to the temptation of ‘absolute truth.’

Here is the website link. Enjoy! And if you are ever capable of disagreeing with me without the accompanying imprimatur of ‘subhuman,’ let me know. http://www.zombietime.com/hall_of_shame/

Regards,

Peter

THIRD ROUND

Peter-
On some issues I am intolerant.

I am intolerant on issues involving the deaths of many thousands who did us no harm – based on misleading information in a war that was both unjust and incompetently run, making the numbers of innocent dead and maimed even higher than it otherwise would have been. Those who died needlessly had no opportunity to make their case. I can at least try and guarantee their deaths will not be forgotten. Those who still find excuses for these crimes are in my mind no longer open to either moral or empirical argument. Their hearts are hardened, their minds closed.

My “demand” that I be agreed with is in fact my demand that those with whom I spend voluntary time adhere to minimal standards of morality. Even so, my rhetoric has been far milder than that of many of those with whom you apparently agree.

The same goes with our constitution. It makes it possible for people who disagree to live together peacefully because the losers believe they have a fair chance to win “next time” and the winners are committed to respecting the rules enough to moderate their use of power. When you attack the constitution – and your friends most definitely have at many levels – you undermine the possibilities for social peace domestically just as they have undermined it externally. They undermine the foundation of mutual trust that enables people of many views to live together peacefully. Perhaps without intending it, they are as much enemies of civilization as Osama Bin Laden.

I am intolerant of this kind of thing whether it comes from the Leninist and Maoist left, the fascist right, would-be oligarchs, or the theocrats. When people who believe this are not in a position to implement their evil, I’ll engage in debate and wonder how people can become so demented. When they are in power, by their own actions they have made themselves the enemies of civilized behavior and standards of decency. I cut some slack to family members because they are family and not in positions of power and because family ties cut deep. Even so, in all too many ways they are today’s “good Germans.”

These kinds of issues cut far deeper than where we stand on medical policy, taxes, national parks, poverty policy, drilling in ANWR, affirmative action, foreign aid, and even global warming. In these latter – and on many other issues – I certainly require no agreement among my friends. Where one comes down on them is not a good measure of their character.

On issues of killing innocents and domestic peace – you are right, there are limits beyond which I no longer have the time to engage in discussion except in a public space where they can be embarrassed. To me, by endorsing those positions you demonstrate that, at base, it is you who have no respect at all for those who disagree with you since any tactics are legitimate in attempting to defeat us. Your side endorses aggressive war and undermining the rule of law – and you have the nerve to say I am intolerant? Perhaps you believe this because your side has truly abandoned morality except for its utility in winning. From such a perspective there is no real difference between disagreeing on aggressive war or habeas corpus and the rate of taxation or medical policy. Such a position cannot distinguish between moral disagreement and policy disagreement because there is in truth no morality for them. But the essence of an ethic is to be a restraint on our behavior, to over ride in some cases our desire for gain. Ethics trumps policy, or should. The issue is not that I think you are “subhuman” as you claimed, but rather as immoral.

This brings me to that nasty little web site. If you pause to remember, I supported (and still do) taking out the Taliban. I supported, (and still do) guaranteeing Israel’s right to exist so long as it is democratic. In other words, you are very forgetful or so caught up in self-righteousness as to be unwilling to think in other than dichotomies. I appreciate now the frustration of some who argued that NeoCons desecrate the name of Judaism by equating disagreement with them with anti-semitism. Rather like the Southern Baptists who equate disagreement with them as “anti-Christian.” I have never before been called anti-semitic. What arrogance and pride, Peter.

From my perspective the dismissive tone you adopted earlier, before the US invaded Iraq, is not a case of having a “difficult personality” as you claim, but of fundamentally not respecting other points of view. The web site you sent me is proof. It is abhorrent. But that you equate such views with those of us who disagree with you (now well over half the American people) certainly explains why you and your allies endorse such evil actions in order to “win.” You see us as hateful zombies. That being so, it is you who instituted that withdrawal of friendship years ago without either of us acknowledging it. Only now do I see the full implications of what happened at that time.

You claim to be religious, indeed you equate your views with Judaism, so I ask again, what is wrong with your heart that you have so little concern with the innocent or those who have done you no harm? Judaism used to be concerned with justice for the weak. And what kind of deity do you truly honor?

Sincerely,

Gus