LONDON, 14 April 2003 — Of all the tedious people one runs into these days, those who shriek triumphantly “what have the anti-war lot got to say now?” are perhaps most deserving of being permanently blacklisted by amusing society. “See,” they said as Saddam’s statue belly-flopped. “You guys have been defeated too.”
Perhaps it was inevitable that, with the first phase almost over, armchair and media commentators alike would descend into bitter infighting in the hope of achieving the catharsis the war has predictably not brought. Still, irksome as it is to be faced with hawkish gloating, it does have the edge over being gassed on the underground.
So, as Syrians tut over pictures of Baghdad craters, we’ll forgo the unseemly descent into we-told-you-sos. Instead, let’s simply state what we didn’t tell you, as defense against having our arguments misrepresented for ease of demolition — against weapons of crass deduction, if you will.
We said victory was not assured. Now, my memory may be dodgy, but I can’t recall the headline “Why Iraq will win” appearing anywhere (the dear old information minister’s briefings excepted). Frankly, news that 250,000 members of the most sophisticated armed forces of all time were massing in the Gulf, in the weeks prior to the conflict, gave even us halfwits who didn’t think that going to war was a top idea a clue that the coalition just might prevail. Only in the movies do rebels triumph against Death Stars. If anything, most doves underestimated the war’s duration — in the matter of bunker bombs versus handguns, handguns did surprisingly well.
We said it would last decades. Well, let’s not trouble the ubiquitous Graham Sharpe of William Hill for backdated shows of betting, as I’m fairly confident he wasn’t offering short odds on us still being there when Jeb or Jenna Bush takes over the family business.
We said it would be another Vietnam. Wherever this mysterious commentator is who said it would last 10 years, bleed the youth out of America and Britain, and end in humiliating withdrawal, I’m sure we’d all be obliged if they could be produced so we can join in the pillorying.
There wasn’t a sense that the Hollywood movie industry would be sustained for decades to come on this fare, as with the Vietnam conflict which fired up the best and brightest filmmakers of a generation.
Coppola, Cimino, Scorsese: all would return to its horrors again and again. Today, Saving Private Jessica has yet to be assigned a director, but I think we can rule out Spike Jonze or the Coen brothers becoming madly interested in the project.
For most TV spectators of this cultural mismatch, this one was always going to be more of a Carry On (a Baghdad waiter called Haider Kamel even found his way into news reports), with the information minister reprising Bernard Bresslaw’s Bungdit Din (“Infidels!”).
No, even had there been no civilian deaths, had it lasted 40 minutes, had bunting clogged the streets of Baghdad, it was always the threat of future US imperialism and the bitter fallout from those who’d feel alienated by it that concerned most people opposed to this war.
Some damaged statuary and looters playing Saddamarket Sweep do little to allay those fears. “As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination,” wrote Wilde in The Critic as Artist. “When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”
Alas, with Rumsfeld on a roll, that day seems somewhat distant, but in the interim perhaps we might agree it’s rather vulgar for hawks to affect to occupy doves’ viewpoints to score a few cheap points. You’re not occupiers, chaps, you’re liberators — so get on with freeing us Cassandras from our silly fears.
