The danger posed by those in positions of power having enhanced narcissism is well documented and illustrated by Heather Mac Donald in her City Journal article, Baghdad’s Real Torturers. She points out that the "torture narrative" that held sway at the New York Times, much of the media, among various anti-War intellectuals, and came to dominate much coverage from Iraq for months at a time, is now being brought into serious question by the finding of real torture chambers in Baghdad.
The U.S. military recently uncovered alleged evidence of torture in Iraqi-run Baghdad prisons, including what appeared to be a torture chamber in an Iraqi Ministry of Interior detention facility. The Sunni reaction to these discoveries poses a considerable problem for proponents of the anti-American “torture narrative”: The Sunnis are calling on the U.S. military to correct the situation! “I wish the Americans would go to [the prisons] and find out about it,” former detainee Sadiq Abdul Razzaq Samarrai told the New York Times.
This is bizarre behavior indeed. According to Andrew Sullivan, Seymour Hersh, and other proponents of the “torture narrative,” Americans are the leading sadists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba. For the Sunnis to ask the Americans to protect them against alleged Shiite abuse would seem to them as delusional as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz appealing to Hitler for salvation.
The abu Graib "torture narrative" was always about the fantasies of the proponents rather than the reality on the ground. The American response to the abuses at abu Graib, abuses by a group of immature, irresponsible, sadistic soldiers who relished abusing those who were under their power, was exemplary for a nation at war. The abuses were identified and actions initiated to redress the situation and hold those responsible; this was well before the story ever became fodder for 50+ front page stories in the New York Times. That the soldiers involved may have been acting out their own dramas to enhance their narcissism is arguable but not of particular interest to me; they are no longer in a position to harm anyone. The abuse of power of the media and the arguments of the intellectual elites who do still hold power in the West is of much greater moment.
[When I talk about enhanced narcissism, it includes true, developmentally derived,, Narcissistic Character Traits/Disorder as well as what has recently been described as Acquired Narcissistic Character Traits/Disorder; I will address the distinction in future posts in my current series on Narcissism]
Mac Donald points out that there was never much basis for the "torture narrative" and raises an important question:
When the history of the war on terror is written, the strangest chapter will address why so many American intellectuals were so determined to believe the absolute worst about U.S. behavior. Unfortunately, their willful self-delusion has influenced American intelligence policy more than has the truth.
Allow me to help answer the question. The prevailing intellectual ideological structure among the Western elites derives from the mother lode of Deconstruction, Marxism, and their offspring, Political Correctness. PC thought insists that every situation must be deconstructed in order to discover the hand of the oppressor and the existence of the victim. By definition, oppressors are white men and their representatives (which is how Condaleeza Rice, for example, can be attacked as one of "them", an oppressor, rather than applauded by the liberal elites as a successful, extraordinarily bright, black woman.) In their universe, the primary obstacle to a world of peace and bliss is the United States and their allies. The United States, by definition, is an oppressor of indigenous and peace loving people everywhere and the main arm of the US by which it exerts its will is the military.
It is important to recognize how powerfully self-reinforcing this structure is for the bulk of the now mature baby boomers who comprise the media, academia,and the Democratic party. The idea of the US as oppressor came to them at the time of their greatest, youthful, triumph. Many radicals who came of age in the 60's and 70's believe they stopped an immoral war, impeached an evil President, and brought the American war-machine to a halt. This was their greatest moment; remember how all those Vietnam era soldiers were vilified, by the likes of John Kerry, as baby killers, torturers, murderers, and worse. Now an opportunity has come to recapture their past glory, with a cast of dramatis personae that is remarkably similar; another immoral war of aggression, another evil Republican President, another war-machine to be halted. Their narcissism can not tolerate the idea that they may be wrong. To admit that the people of Iraq are freer now, have a real opportunity for democracy in the heart of the despotic Muslim middle east, and that they do not see us as oppressors and torturers, is tantamount to admitting error. The people of Iraq matter as little to the left as the Vietnamese did in the 1970's; they are mere cannon fodder in the real battle between the forces of good (the noble rebels) and evil (the establishment) that they imagine themselves to be engaged in. How many who look back on their college or high school days as "the best days of their lives" would love to have the opportunity to be young, rebellious, and right once again.
The halls of academia and the press rooms of the major media outlets all consciously, and unconsciously, support this narrative. This is why they can claim, without a trace of irony, that there is no liberal bias in the media or on campus. If everyone agrees that their position is a moderate one, then anyone who disagrees is a right wing reactionary. It keeps everything simple and straight-forward. And, it has the virtue of being believed universally among everyone they know and respect. The upshot is that there is no one in the news room who would even question the contention that American troops are torturers, by nature. Unfortunately, and despite all their protestations to the contrary (as Shakespeare once put it, "methinks they protest too much") the left hates the American military, except when they can depict them as victims of the American machine, grinding down their individuality, crushing the spirits of poor minorities wherever they may be found. (The fact that the average recruit is above the mean in terms of education and socioeconomic class is irrelevant to them because it doesn't fit their narrative.)
Even those among them who do not consciously disdain the military (for many, they don't even know anyone in the military, so how could they hate them?), they are fully invested in the underlying narrative. The fantasy of a peaceful world without war if only we disarm has been animating the left for many years now and shows no signs of dissipating.
One more note: the fact that the Democrats, although lacking the courage of their convictions, are flouting the "withdraw from the quagmire" at this time is revealing. The administration has been pointing out the vacuous nature of the "Bush lied" lie and the Democrats have no real answer to that (although Joe Biden repeated it in slightly more lofty language today). By taking a position in favor of immediate withdrawal from a situation they insist is a disaster, they are very likely to look very foolish when the Iraqis vote for their new government in 3 weeks. For a political party to look foolish is quasi-suicidal; it is worth wondering if they are, in effect, making a suicidal gesture to avoid despair over their edifice crumbling.
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