Last Wednesday, about 100 UW students, faculty and other phenomenally, irredeemably arrogant observers had the good fortune to view a presentation by Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute, on the status of the global War on Terror. Having advanced a well-supported strategy that advocated moderation, Mr. Benjamin was lucky enough to be able to play the role of an audience member as his former listeners assaulted him with their own half-baked schemes for “justice” in the Middle East.
The cause of Mr. Benjamin’s woe stemmed from his conclusion that although U.S. tactical efforts against radical Islamist groups have to a large degree succeeded, the overall strategic outlook of the United States is becoming rapidly worse. He, therefore, recommended that the United States withdraw from Iraq.
Thank the pro-life, pro-gun heavens above — in which Terry Schiavo and Jerry Falwell are undoubtedly prancing on celestial beaches and chomping on Triscuits — that there were enough degenerates in the audience to chastise him, the deluded and unpatriotic bastard.
You see, according to a great many members of Mr. Benjamin’s illustrious audience, withdrawing from Iraq and attempting to create a more manageable strategic situation overall are appeasements, much like withdrawing your arm from a meat grinder in order to save blood could be construed by your fellow meat plant workers as dereliction of duty.
Although Mr. Benjamin managed to present enough objective facts to support his case that exuded an aura of boring officialdom, which often indicates a person knows what he is talking about, we were treated to innumerable admonitions indicating that Mr. Benjamin’s advocacy of withdrawal from Iraq in favor of a greater investment in diplomatic efforts was, in fact, a rambling admission that the Statue of Liberty should perform one good, long act of fellatio on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before sinking into the ocean.
Mr. Benjamin was asked numerous times how he would propose to deal with that vague nonentity, immortal boon of fearmongers everywhere, known as the terrorists, if he proposed withdrawing from Iraq, and several times, he responded by stating that he would prefer drawing regional powers into the peace process, while at the same time maintaining a strong presence in the region that would discourage any tomfoolery on the part of Iran.
Sadly, at this point no one was listening because diplomacy is, of course, boring.
To make the spectacle even more absurd, one of the last interrogators declared that Mr. Benjamin had used the words “Islam” and “Radical Islam” interchangeably. Did that mean that he equated all Islam with radicalism? Huh. An appeaser of terrorists getting attacked for being anti-Muslim?
Get back in that meat grinder, Mr. Benjamin!
At this point, our speaker, who by the way had to catch a flight home later so he could testify before Congress, simply apologized for any mistake he may or may not have made and continued taking more punishment, which he much too kindly described as “challenges” to his position.
Daniel Benjamin and David Horowitz, both of whom were recent guests to Madison, could have become old chums by virtue of the ludicrous attacks they received from their audiences. The only problem was that Mr. Horowitz actually merited some of it.
And perhaps the abuse Mr. Benjamin received, most of which I will admit had at least vague semblance of questions within it, is indicative in a larger way of all the dialogue in this country regarding that rapidly sinking blunderbuss of an abortion called “U.S. Middle East Policy.” When our arm gets stuck in the figurative meat grinder, the advice we crave most is not that of our fellow meat plant workers, but the doctors. But when the doctors are called “appeasers” and implied to be “anti-Islam” in the same hour, there is only so much medicine they can administer before we push them away or drown them in articulate, but ultimately uneducated, counterarguments.
And any doctor, no matter how loud you yell to drown out his voice, will tell you that the first thing you need to do is get out of that damned meat grinder.
Sam Clegg ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in English.
