Selling Iraq

Walter Benjamin once pointed out

The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values. All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.

The Republican administration mired in failed policies and mindful of the upcoming elections is flailing about for issues to run on. Politics in the USA has long escaped dealing with things of substance in favor of appearance. The shiny surface image is everything as practice honed in the world of advertising replaces political discourse. Mentally impaired snitches become canonized and personality cults form around mean spirited dunces. So when it comes to talking up the Republican record it is a matter of deciding which pigs ear can be turned into a silk purse. The recent killing of Abdul Zarqawi has been seen as an opportunity to talk up the success of the Iraq war and Vice President Cheney has sallied forth to convince the electorate that the debacle in Iraq is a triumph of statecraft.
The Washington Post reports

Speaking at the National Press Club, Cheney predicted that 10 years from now people will look back at 2005 and say, That's when we began to get a handle on the long-term future of Iraq.

Cheney also stated

I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered

The article goes on to point the basic untruth of this statement. Cheney has been at work for some time trying to dress up the rotten meat of the Iraq war as something more palatable . Famously in 2003 he informed Meet The Press

I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators

and of course the turning point in 2005 that he refers to above is his statement.

The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency

Cheney bases his analysis of the situation in Iraq on what he percieves as a the continuing success of the institution of a stablee and viable political structure.

Nevertheless, Cheney said he was "absolutely convinced we did the right thing in Iraq." He said the United States was making "major progress" in Iraq, where a transitional government took power in April and was working on drafting a new constitution.

This is an extension of his view expressed in 2003 before the war.

But the point is this is not a nation without resources, and when it comes time to rebuild and to make the kinds of investments that are going to be required to give them a shot at achieving a truly representative government, a successful government, a government that can defend itself and protect its territorial integrity and look to the interests of its people, Iraq starts with significant advantages. It’s got a well- trained middle class, a highly literate work force, a high degree of technical sophistication. This is a country that I think, but for the rule of Saddam Hussein and his brutality and his diversion of the nation’s resources and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, can be one of the leading, perhaps the leading state in that part of the world in terms of developing a modern state and the kind of lifestyle that its people are entitled to.
They understand the importance of preserving and building on an Iraqi national identity. They don’t like to have the U.S., for example, come in and insist on dealing with people sort of on a hyphenated basis—the Iraqi-Shia, Iraqi-Sunni—but rather to focus on Iraq as a nation and all that it can accomplish as a nation, and we try to be sensible to those concerns. I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world.

Cheney has maintained a consistent story of success and this is what is going to be sold in the runup to November.

Unfortunately for the Republicans inconvenient facts have kept emerging of massacres, torture and increasing American casualties that keep tearing holes in the flimsy fabric they try to dress the horror of Iraq in. The Washington Post has also published a memo (pdf) from within the US embassy that gives a very different view of the progress of governance within the country.

Our staff report that security and services are being rerouted though ‘local providers’ whose affiliations are vague. As noted above, those who are admonishing citizens on their dress are not known to the residents. Neighborhood power providers are not well known either, nor is it clear how they avoid robbery or targeting. Personal safety depends on good relations with the “neighborhood” governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or co-opted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors.

It is a well known axiom that nothing sells like success and under aestheticized politics it is only the illusion of success that needs to be projected. Cheney's lies will be sold to an electorate that only buys shiny surfaces and even though the tinsel is fast wearing off, they may be preferable to the dull reality of failure and defeat.