As the Worm Turns

Now that young Americans are once again the cannon fodder of politicians' ambitions, being subjected to from ten to 25 attacks every day in Iraq, and dying at the rate of one a day for awhile, the worm is starting to turn. The most vocal alarm is coming from a traditional harbinger (people who have been "in country" and have talked to troops there) and from a source that usually isn't heard from this early (families of military personnel.) But it's only going to grow.

At the same time as Americans are beginning to question what the hell we're doing over there, they are also beginning to doubt that there was sufficient reason to start the war in the first place. The White House admission that one of the two pieces of evidence Bush claimed in his State of the Union address to show that Iraq was readying nuclear weapons (the uranium buy in Africa) was false made lots of news, much more dramatically than the earlier revelation that the other bit of evidence (aluminum tubes that turned out to be the wrong kind for nukes) when it was shredded weeks ago.

This is how it happens to extremists. The uranium lie happened because White House political operatives intimidated and overrode intelligence and foreign policy professionals. They've been doing that since 9/11, although until recently it's been heresy to say so. But being hoist on their own petard is only a part of how the worm turns. Extremism always invites its opposite. The claim of complete virtue, of being the force of pure good battling against the force of pure evil, encourages the hidden evil to rise and explode. When it does, the claimer of total virtue looks doubly bad, and moreover, cannot admit to sin or error. It doesn't allow the worm a lot of wriggle room.

The drama, or at least the soap opera, will continue, with its ups and downs, heroes and villains, dizzying ascents and incredible collapses, the inevitable falters and the underdog comes through, or not. Que sera sera may not be much of a political philosophy, but stay tuned. As grandma used to say, you live long enough, you see everything. For instance, Ralph Nader running again.