You Got Wagged

Whenever I think back on the first year or so of this war (the one in Iraq in case there’s any confusion), I can’t help but think of the movie Wag the Dog. For the uninformed, the basic plot of the movie is that the president of the United States, in order to take people’s mind off a scandal he’s involved in, hires a Hollywood producer to “stage a war.” They rally the American people behind the phony war by using every possible gimmick they can think of to tug at the heartstrings and foster a sense of unity and patriotism. I actually hadn’t seen Wag the Dog until the Iraq war was about six months in and even though the movie was already several years old by that point the similarities between reality and fiction were downright eerie.

There was the compelling footage: In the movie it was video of a young girl running through the streets, dodging bullets while clutching a cat (which they CGI’ed in later) to her chest. In real life, there was footage of the Saddam statues being pulled down and the shots of Jessica Lynch being wheeled by on a stretcher.

There were the hit songs: In the movie, they hired Willie Nelson to compose numerous uplifting songs that would get people emotionally attached to the war. In real life, Toby Keith released “American Soldier” while the Top 40 producers infused quotes from soldiers, their families and the president into sappy pop songs.

There were media created heroes: In the movie, Woody Harrelson plays the war hero William Shuman (“Old Shoe”). In real life, Jessica Lynch gets a book deal and a movie of the week for being a cutie pie caught in the middle of a dramatic rescue attempt.

Then of course there were all the symbols: In the movie, the architects behind the war threw “old shoes” into trees and onto power lines in honor of the aforementioned hero. In real life, yellow magnetic ribbons and American flags with some variation of the slogan “Support the Troops” went on the back of every car on the road.

With the exception of the far-fetched idea that the entire war in the movie was completely made up Wag the Dog was, almost without exception, strangely prophetic of what would start happening in 2003. I’ve been thinking about that movie and its similarities to reality a lot over the last couple days as I read the book Last One In by Nicholas Kulish. The story is about a gossip columnist who gets embedded with the Marines at the beginning of the Iraq war. Amongst other things it explores how the media in this war totally dropped the ball and made a farce out of the whole operation by presenting a completely distorted picture of the truth, all in the name of better ratings of course. It talks about reporters smearing grease and dirt on their faces and posing for stand-ups in front of burning vehicles to make it seem as though they were right in the middle of some important battle. It talks about reporters making up stories about anything, even if it was ninety percent bullshit, just so they could fill airtime or print space. It’s a very intriguing (and funny) read, which I highly recommend.

Anyway, all that lead up was to preface the fact that Lynndie England has been in my head. Remember Lynndie England? She was the soldier who became the face of the whole Abu Ghraib scandal because of an infamous picture of her pointing at a naked prisoner while smoking a cigarette. She was sentenced to eleven years in prison for her part in the “torture” of Abu Ghraib prisoners. From the very outset of that whole Abu Ghraib thing, my spider senses were tingling. Something just didn’t sit right with me about the way it was handled, or covered, or just plain perceived. And even to this day, I can’t help but wonder if the whole thing was just another incident of the tail wagging the dog – like it was nothing more than a big smoke screen intended to rally us together while distracting us from something else.

There’s no question that this war has been far from popular. Even before the decision was made to invade there were people screaming, protesting, sending up righteous anger at what they viewed to be evil and arrogant American imperialism. The “architects behind the war” did everything they could to rally people together with the aforementioned songs, symbols, heroes and whatnot. But I think they also sensed that even the people who were in support of the war needed some kind of outlet for their own anger. Supporters needed to show everyone that they only supported the “noble” aspects of the war. They needed everyone to see that they weren’t merely blind “let’s-just-kill-them-all” warmongers who had no respect for human life. Abu Ghraib and the accusations of torture gave them that opportunity. It allowed war supporters and detractors alike to meet on common ground where they could direct their anger at a few mutually agreed upon patsies. And the media, as predicted, went right along for the ride.

In case we’ve all forgotten, the “torture” in question at Abu Ghraib involved stripping prisoners naked, letting dogs bark at them and forcing them (the prisoners) to form naked human pyramids. As far as I was concerned, that always qualified more as a dumbass fraternity prank than anything that might resemble torture. And at first it seemed like a lot of the conservative radio shows I listened to thought the same thing. But then all of a sudden even they joined the angry throngs in condemning the “torture”, boldly stating that those involved should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. And as I said, Lynndie England became the ultimate face of evil in the whole thing. So much so that I can’t help but wonder if she’s in jail right now because she was simply a pawn in some evil and fucked up game of wag the dog.

She really did make the perfect villain. Unlike Jessica Lynch who was cute with long and pretty hair, Lynndie England had short hair and mannish features. The infamous picture that everyone has seen shows her with a cigarette not only in her mouth – an obvious “dirty” habit – but actually dangling from her lips in a way that could only be described as white trash. And of course, she was seen standing next to a naked man, pointing at his penis no less. Everything about that picture conjured up four words: “white trash dirty whore.” It was easy for people to hate her. It became easy for people to condemn her. I wonder if there would have been the same reaction had it been an attractively longhaired and feminine girl in that picture. But the thing is I firmly believe that this is the only way this whole thing could have transpired. The architects of this particular Alternate Reality Game knew what they were doing. They would never have allowed a picture of a good-looking person to be “leaked” to the media in relation to this scandal.

I honestly feel bad for Lynndie England. She is sitting in prison right now for the oh-so-heinous crime of pointing at a man’s dick. The country needed a bad guy (someone other than George Bush) and they got one. It’s like the old Hebrew ritual of the “scapegoat” (and actually where the modern term originated from) where once a year the priest would place the sins of all the people onto a spotless goat and then banish it to the wilderness so the nation could once again become blameless in God’s eyes. Lynndie England was our scapegoat in every sense of the word. We put our own sins onto her. Everything that we didn’t like about ourselves when it came to this war manifested itself in her smirking, cigarette smoking face. We put our willingness to go to war, our eagerness to go to war onto her. Our own righteous justifications for war – terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, taking down an evil dictator, liberating a people – weren’t enough. Even for those of us who were in support of the war, there was still an unspoken well of guilt for the sins we were committing to accomplish what we genuinely believed to be worthwhile goals. We needed to put that guilt onto somebody else and send them away lest we (God forbid) blame ourselves. The architects gave us Lynndie England as a worthy sacrifice. And we accepted her eagerly.

And that sickens me. That’s why I don’t understand people that are currently against the war who were once in favor of it. What made you change your mind? The media’s reports? People claim that the war is being run badly. That very well may be so, but my question is: How the hell would you know? Because the media says so? Because some politicians say so? Do we seriously still trust these two disparate but irreversibly interlinked groups for our Truths? What is it going to take for us to stop believing every freakin’ word that comes out of their mouths? When will the dog finally start wagging the tail for once? Or better yet, when will the dog realize that its tail has become incurably infected and simply gnaw it the fuck off?