Unleashing Evil

An interview by Tom Engelhardt with Andrew Bacevich The Arrogance of American Power gives some interesting insights into the US military and the current situation in Iraq.

There are a couple of important implications that we have yet to confront. The war has exposed the limited depth of American military power. I mean, since the end of the Cold War we Americans have been beating our chests about being the greatest military power the world has ever seen. [His voice rises.] Overshadowing the power of the Third Reich! Overshadowing the Roman Empire! Wait a sec. This country of 290 million people has a force of about 130,000 soldiers committed in Iraq, fighting something on the order of 10-20,000 insurgents and a) we're in a war we can't win, b) we're in the fourth year of a war we probably can't sustain much longer.

Bacevich also questions the view that it is the neo-cons alone responsible for this defeat.

I object to the generals saying that our problems in Iraq are all due to the micromanagement and incompetence of Mr. Rumsfeld -- I do think he's a micromanager and a failure and ought to have been fired long ago -- because it distracts attention from the woeful performance of the senior military leaders who have really made a hash of the Iraq insurgency. I remember General Swannack in particular blaming Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib. I'll saddle Rumsfeld with about ten percent of the blame for Abu Ghraib, the other ninety percent rests with the senior American military leaders in Baghdad

The takeover of the arm forces by neo-con interests is explaned but some interesting comments on Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are made.

I would emphasize that it's not because Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are diabolical creatures intent on doing evil. They genuinely believe it's in the interests of the United States, and the world, that unconstrained American power should determine the shape of the international order. I think they vastly overstate our capabilities. For all of their supposed worldliness and sophistication, I don't think they understand the world. I am persuaded that their efforts will only lead to greater mischief while undermining our democracy. Yet I don't question that, at some gut level, they think they are acting on your behalf and mine. They are all the more dangerous as a result.

I would imagine few people in power don't justify their actions through the belief they are acting for the best. Cheney et al may not be motivated by the desire to do evil but their actions in seeking to control the might of the US miltary so they can impose their will on the rest of the planet has surely unleashed evil. It is their belief they have access to an assured knowledge that causes them to act this way. This is why they are so dangerous. That they are prepared to act this out even while others die and suffer to inform them they have no such knowledge involves them in evil. Even though the creepy precence projected by Cheney and Wolfowitz sometimes seems to suggest otherwise one does not have to be evil to do evil. People are still responsible for the consequences of their actions when assured knowledge lets them surrender to hubris and abandon the duties of morality. That they may not be evil in no way way absconds them from responsibility of the evil they have unleashed.