The people who keep calling for victory are the cowards, the losers. They are afraid to face and accept the reality that the US-- George Bush and Dick Cheney and all their enablers-- engaged in one of the most horrific judgment errors, the most bungled and poorly planned military actions in human history. They want the people of the US to pay, with trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, tens of thousands of maimings hundreds of thousands of hurt families, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, millions of displaced Iraqi families, the price for them to keep striving to turn this monument to epic failure into something salvageable. They seek a victory that General Petraeus could not or would not describe.
I mentioned this op-ed, in the middle of writing it, to a psychologist who described a technique described as the "So what" technique." A patient talks about something. The therapist explains that he is doing an intervention, then asks, "so what?" The patient then talks about what it means, what will happen, how he feels, how he will react. The goal is to go from feeling mistreated or abused to resolving the issue, by coming up with some response to take or making peace with the situation.
Now, imagine I could engage one of these cowards who are prolonging the war to maintain their positive self image and the image of their party, their history, their record.
"So," McCain replies, "It would be a shameful disaster if we irresponsibly withdraw."
"So?" I ask again.
"So, Hundreds of thousands of innocent victims would die and our allies wouldn't trust us."
He's hitting the standard right wing keep the war going, hold the course talking points.
But let's think about this. Obama hit the nail on the head with his question yesterday, and I'm paraphrasing him, "What if the situation we have NOW in Iraq could be sustained, even with pulling out the troops in an orderly, planned manner?"
General Petraeus didn't have an answer, as is so often the case. The problem is that these right wing, hundred-year-war addicts, who are terrified of letting go of the war before it can be positively spun, they talk about victory that even Patraeus can't define. They talk about horror stories if we leave before they are ready.
This kind of catastrophic thinking is, in cognitive psychology, is called catastrophization. It's dysfunctional, even an indication of pathology, of irratioinal thinking that can lead to anxiety, stress, depression, obsession.
So maybe, just maybe, the "So what? therapy" can work with these folks too. Or, since they honor and revere Cheney, we can use the abbreviated, "So?" to tap that Cheney energy. So? what if there is a disaster? What if there isn't? What if there will be a disaster if we stay or if we go? Should we stay or should we go?
Two thirds of Americans and a majority of Iraqis want us to go. And then, we have Cheney and his adherents, all saying, by word or deed, the same reply. "So?"
Our answer must be, as the psychologist advises- to work this out. And that means refusing to accept things as they are and to MAKE the changes happen.
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