Digital Thinking in an Analog World

Juan Cole has a post today on the divide between "liberals" and "conservatives" on the Iraq insurgency and the storming of Falluja. As he correctly observes the difference is whether one sees the world in terms of shades of gray or black and white. We all know too well that George W. Bush is a good V evil digital kind of guy as are the people he surrounds himself with. Digital thinking is what we see in the "new conservative" movement with George W. Bush as their messianic leader. One old time conservative who has fallen from grace, Paul Craig Roberts has gone as far as to compare the new conservatives with the Hitler brownshirts and suggests that their is nothing "conservative" about them.

....To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.

Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."

What the new conservatives and Hitler's brown shirts have in common in delusional digital thinking. As both Dr. Cole and Mr Roberts observe this delusional digital thinking is responsible for the complete mess we are in Iraq. Paul Craig Roberts says:

It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?

Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 US Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more US troops.

And Dr Cole explains the reality:

The US military seems strangely unaware of the realities of insurgencies. It seems to think there are a limited number of "bad guys," who can all be killed or captured. The possibility that virtually all able-bodied men in Fallujah supported the insurgency, and that many are weekend warriors, does not seem to occur to them. In fact, as Mao noted, guerrillas swim in a sea of supportive civilians. The US military slides suggest that now that the bad guys have been taken care of, the civilians can be won over. That this outcome is highly unlikely does not seem to occur to them.

The Bush administration has shown it is unable to admit it was wrong anymore than religious leaders can admit that their dogma might be flawed. Digital thinking by it's nature becomes religious and the religious are not easily un-converted. I fear it will take many more deaths before the tragedy in Iraq will end but end it will like the Vietnam war over 30 years ago.