October 28, 2003

Bush 43’s Catch-22

By Michael Shaw

The title of the classic novel, Catch-22, is based on a paradox in which a character’s willingness to fight in battle proves he is insane, but the recognition that he feels this way is what justifies his sanity to the medical authorities.

In Iraq, the White House is caught in a similar conundrum. According to the President, the fact that terror is becoming much worse in Baghdad means that the opposition is becoming desperate, which he sees as a reaction to the fact that things are getting better. Of course, the President does acknowledge that things are bad. But he also maintains that this is good. In fact, it’s very good, because it’s proving how bad it’s becoming for those who are bad.

So, let’s look at this past week. It started off with a White House p.r. offensive to demonstrate how things in Iraq are much better than everyone thinks they are. Then, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz almost got blown up in an attack on the supposedly secure Al Rashid Hotel. The following two days saw so many catastrophic attacks, the press couldn’t chronicle them all. And today, the Red Cross–a target of one of the attacks–is threatening to pull out of the country.

That’s just great.