Norman Mailer's Burden/Or: how to tell an America hater.

I’ve been studying America haters (as opposed to America’s critics) for some time now. In the midst of a war, it is especially important to distinguish between genuine dissenters from American policies and those who despise America as such (or what they prefer to call the American “system” – as though the two are separable). The latter wouldn’t mind at all the prospect of America’s defeat; would think, in fact, that there might be something beneficial in it.

America’s wars against the oppressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have been especially useful for making this distinction, because both our adversaries have lacked redeeming characteristics. There was nothing in either to inspire sympathy for the defeated, nothing to confuse the issue. There was no “George Washington” of Afghanistan or Iraq, or nationalist movement as once alleged in Vietnam. No illusion that either government was a force for “social justice” – an illusion that created sympathy for our enemies in the past.

When America goes to war against opponents who are clearly monsters, immoderate criticism of America should be suspect. Of course there can be honest critics even of these wars -- critics whose considerations are tactical and prudential. The critics I’m interested in, however, are those who are immoderate, who do not regard us as making mistakes, but who are convinced that we are the enemy.

Here are three rules for identifying the America haters. They are “critics” for whom,

As it happens a perfect example of this type of thinking is readily available in the current issue of The New York Review of Books. It appears in an article about the Iraq war by Norman Mailer, which he calls, “The White Man Unburdened.” This is enough of a clue already, reflecting the author’s view that America is a racist, imperialist power -- and therefore can do no right.

Mailer’s article asks the question, “Why did we go to war?” and sets up his answer by taking on the evidence from which some might conclude that we have indeed done right. The discoveries of Saddam’s mass graves – Mailer observes -- appears to show that “we have relieved the world of a monster who killed untold numbers, mega-numbers of victims.” But, of course, even the right deeds that a racist and imperialist power appears to do must be wrong.

Some piece of the puzzle is undoubtedly missing: “Nowhere is any emphasis put upon the fact that many of the bodies were of the Shiites of southern Iraq who have been decimated repeatedly in the last twelve years for daring to rebel against Saddam in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War. Of course, we were the ones who encouraged them to revolt in the first place, and then failed to help them. Why?”

Mailer provides an answer to his own question. A successful Shiite rebellion, “could result in a host of Iraqi imams who might make common cause with the Iranian ayatollahs. Shiites joining with Shiites!” Of course racists and imperialists will want none of that. Nor does the prospect cause Mailer himself any concern. Perhaps he forgets that Iran’s ayatollahs are the avatars of the Islamo-fascist world movement, and that under their influence the crowds in Teheran not too long ago were chanting “Death to America.” Perhaps he is unimpressed by the fact that in addition to hating America and having imperialist Islamic ambitions, Iran has long-range missiles and probably nuclear warheads, and is the sponsor and host to the largest terrorist army in the world (Hizbollah).

There is another equally obvious answer to Mailer’s question which he does not even consider. The reason we halted our military operation once Kuwait was liberated and did not proceed to reshape the political landscape of this volatile region was that there was no regional support for such an adventure, and indeed there was opposition from the Arab states. And from Democrats too. Although he proceeded in impeccable multi-lateral fashion, the first George Bush barely got the congressional authorization he needed to reverse Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait. Although he assembled an international coalition of 40 nations, only ten Democratic senators voted to authorize the use of force – even for the limited goal of liberating Kuwait! Moreover, three of those senators, Al Gore among them, did so reluctantly and at the last minute. Norman Mailer and the political left he speaks for was not exactly enthusiastic about the Gulf War in the first place, let alone any additional extrusion of American power into the Middle East. In fact Mailer and his friends could be counted on to oppose it. What is Mailer’s own accountability for that?

Despite his bad faith, Mailer doesn’t hesitate to make America responsible for Saddam Hussein’s killing fields: “Today [the Shiites]... may look upon the graves that we congratulate ourselves for having liberated as sepulchral voices calling out from their tombs – asking us to take a share of the blame. Which of course we will not.” In other words, in addition to being mass murderers, we’re hypocrites too.

But Mailer is only getting started. In addition to being damned for what we don’t do, we must be damned for what we do (or are alleged to). In particular, Mailer damns us for what we allegedly did before the first Gulf War: “Yes, our guilt for a great part of those bodies remains a large subtext and Saddam was creating mass graves all through the 1970s and 1980s. He killed Communists en masse in the 1970s, which didn’t bother us a bit.” And why should it? This was a power struggle between fascists and Communists who both wanted our deaths. What is Mailer suggesting? That we should have intervened in a Soviet sphere of influence and risked nuclear war to rescue the foot soldiers of the Communist international?

After settling his domestic scores, Saddam invaded Iran, and – according to Mailer – we followed right behind. “Then he slaughtered tens of thousands of Iraqis during the war with Iran – a time when we supported him.” Actually there were hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and even more Iranians killed in this war. Before examining our intervention, let us point out once again that Iran was the home of the Ayatollahs for whom Islam is a supranational concept, who had sworn “death to America,” who presided over a state three times the size of Iraq and who had designs not only on Iraq’s oil fields but those of the Gulf states beyond. If Iran had prevailed in the war, as it looked to be doing at the moment we tilted to the Iraqi side, it would have found itself in control of the majority the world’s oil sources. The empire of radical Islam– with all its little terrorist armies and apocalyptic intentions -- would have become a global power.

Therefore, keeping a secular Iraq – war-wounded and weak, but in place -- seemed merely prudent at the time. It is a malicious lie to say, “we supported [Saddam]” and to leave the phrase hanging in unqualified suspension. The military equipment we supplied to Saddam was to balance the arms Iran received from the Soviet empire (which would have been in a position to benefit nicely from an Iranian victory). What would Mailer have had us do? If we had failed to do anything he would have blamed us for the deaths Iran inflicted, and for the vast consequences of an Iraqi defeat. Instead, our arms contributed to a military stalemate and a peace, which saved hundreds of thousands of lives that Mailer doesn’t consider worth mentioning.

Mailer adds it all up: “A horde of those newly discovered graves go back to that period [before the second Gulf War]. Of course, real killers never look back.”

Real killers. That’s us. We can do no right. Even the right that we do is wrong. And the wrongs we do are monstrous.

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"...Of course, real killers never look back.”

Neither does Mailer regarding Jack Henry Abbott. When Abbott (an incarcerated killer) came up for parole Mailer wrote a strong letter on his behalf, not only saying he was fit for release but that Mailer could guarantee him gainful employment in New York. Abbott was transferred to a New York halfway house in early in June 1981. While Abbott was at the halfway house he was the darling of New York literary society. He was on "Good Morning, America," and went to fancy parties. If Abbott had stayed out of trouble for eight weeks, he would have gone on parole. He didn't make it. Six weeks after he got to New York, he stabbed to death an aspiring actor working as a waiter, named Richard Adan.

Has Mailer written a book about Richard Adan? No, a life ended because this dirt of a human being, Abbott, was allowed out on the streets has no attraction for Mailer.

No Mailer, Real Killers obviously Don't Look Back.

May Mailer rot in the worst hell he can imagine for an eternity far longer than he has ever suspected, hopefully as a cellmate to his pet Abbott!

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