Just out of curiosity, how can I recognize ‘infinite stupidity’ (and no, a film clip edited by Michael Moore is not an acceptable answer)?

Bacevich writes, “think George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11,” and then merrily skips off as if the date is of no especial importance, as if there was in Bush’s mind no other motivation, no other precipitant to the Iraq War than that “we are good, they are evil.” So let’s roll.

Theology and an awareness of good and evil are always somewhere in men’s minds; here they were definitely towards the back. As Richard Perle put it, the question of Baathist Iraq was primarily a question of “how to manage a risk.” Before 9/11, the risk to be managed was somewhat abstract, its seriousness underestimated and inadequately imagined. Afterwards, the potential of what could happen were terrorists to get their hands on weapons more destructive by far than a Boeing 747 simply had to be faced honestly – and I’m not speaking here only about a stray nuclear weapon.

If someone plays Russian Roulette the odds are five-to-one in his favor. The macabre to one side, those are not bad odds actually, not bad at all. Yet very few people play this game, and for one very simple reason that game theorists identified long ago: You cannot cover the bet if you lose (and remain “you,” that is). In Russian Roulette, you know the hazards to a mathematical certainty. Was anyone, Mr. Bacevich included, in a position to tell George Bush what were the risks to the United States of leaving Saddam Hussein in power? Was it one chance in six? In 10? In 100? The plain fact is that after 12 years of wheedling and meddling and sanctioning no one had any idea what were Saddam’s capabalities. They knew, of course, that he was in fact an inordinately evil and vengeful man and also that he had good reason to harbor a murderous resentment against this country. So perhaps good and evil did enter into it, after all, but not in remotely the way Bacevich fantasizes.

Bush acted. Because it was his Constitutional responsibility act. It was not the responsibility of a nonentity like Bacevich to do anything whatsoever. What on earth does, did or could it matter how Bacevich assessed those risks?

None of that matters to Bacevich, though, and he WILL drag Graham Greene’s FICTION into his indictment of George Bush’s very real dilemma. What a blowhard.

I know you meant well in posting this article, but it’s flights of fury like this one that taint everything Bacevich and his kindred spirits touch. I’ve no doubt could benefit greatly from a disinterested examination of the perils of innocence through the lens of Greene’s canon. Maybe someday some disinterested person will write one.

“Vietnam once laid waste to Washington’s claim of innocence, until Ronald Reagan helped restore that claim. Every indication suggests that American innocence will survive Iraq as well, this time with Barack Obama as chief enabler helping to sanitize or erase all that we do not wish to remember. A people famous for their self-professed religiosity won’t even bother to look for someone to whom they can express contrition.”

We need no contrition; we’re American Protestants, for God’s sake. We don’t have no bleeping SACRAMENTS. We can do no wrong, because we SAY SO. We are now reaping what Reagan began to sow in the 80s: near-depression. Nothing stands at the base of our economy except asset bubbles and cheap credit and CEO and consumer greed. We don’t know how to make a damn thing and we can’t innovate our way out of a paper bag. We have no idea how to create decent jobs for people anymore (remember the 50s and 60s, when we could?)

Mr. “Deco”: it was the Right who lionized the infinitely stupid and inept “W” and declared him innocent and a “leader” (just have a look at that passage in Michael Moore’s movie when he gets the 9/11 news and tell me with a straight face that the man was a leader). Bacevich has been pretty clear-sighted through our recent domestic and foreign catastrophes. This journal was of course one of W’s big enablers and apologists. So much for Catholic wisdom.