John Buffalo and Norman Mailer: What Took Us Into Iraq?

Norman Mailer was a great writer, with an unrivaled gift of observation and a sharp perception of the motives of power that lie hidden in plain view. Midway through a recent book of interviews with his son, John Buffalo Mailer, he spoke of the calculations that went into a war the Bush administration always knew to be unjustified by any actual threat to the United States. Mailer had written in 2003 that the U.S. "went to war because we very much needed a successful war as a species of psychic rejuvenation." He offers here a more searching answer that looks at the characters of the men involved, and their quest for extraordinary powers, and the way the war could be counted on to assist their drive for power whether it went well or badly. --DB.

Norman and John Buffalo Mailer, from The Big Empty (Nation Books, New York, 2006).

What Took Us Into Iraq?

JBM: I know you've answered this question in a number of ways, but it just can't be asked enough. Why are we in Iraq? I cannot believe that Bush and Company are a gaggle of fools, not by a long shot. They are the most calculating administration I've encountered in my life.

NM: I like that. The most calculating administration. Yes. Lots of know-how, and no honorable ethic.

JBM: Given their intelligence, how could this administration not have anticipated the long haul of this war? By now, they have changed their reasons for the invasion so many times, Americans are getting hip to the fact that, at the very least, Saddam Hussein posed no significant threat to our national security. This war is developing into an extraordinary political cost for the administration. Why was it worth it to them? It can't just be the oil. Oil prices are up. How does this supposedly Christian administration justify hordes of innocent people killed--

NM: Come on, man, save time. These administration honchos are very, very intelligent with what they are intelligent at, but they're stupid as sludge when they are stupid. I will say this characterizes almost all political regimes. Take Camelot. As open and bright and quick as the Kennedy administration proved to be, look at how wrong they were on the Bay of Pigs. Why? Because they didn't know a lot about Cuba when they came into office, so they listened to Allen Dulles and the CIA. It was a very painful lesson, but they learned that the CIA wasn't always right.

OK, all I'm getting at is the Bushies in the wake of the 2000 election had a host of problems for which war could be a pro-tem solution. The novelist in me would even warrant that the cynics among the Bush honchos loved the idea of selling America on bringing democracy to Iraq. They may even have known they were not going to succeed on any real level. But they did have great faith in the stupidity of the American people. So, they assumed they could carry it off one way or another. With our mighty military, how could they not find something they could paint as a positive?

JBM: I was twenty-four years old at the time, a writer/actor in LA, and I saw what was going to happen if we invaded. How could they not have seen it? It's hard for me to believe that they didn't know Iraq would turn into a quagmire.

NM: Listen, these are men who have been successful all their lives. They've gone through many crises. Their feeling is, "Yes, there's going to be trouble. A lot of shit will hit the fan, a good deal is probably going to go wrong. But we will handle it." Not Bush, but Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld. Take a guy like Cheney. His whole attitude is: "Can do. Will do." I would say their honcho feeling goes like this: "We'll take the sludge that comes our way, but it will be a lot better than chasing bin Laden all over Afghanistan and Pakistan. That won't do it. The Democrats will be too ready to carp about everything that's going wrong in America. So let's shift the war to Iraq. This country is so patriotic. 9/11 brought us back again to operating speed and now we can coast on that patriotism." You have to understand the depth and breadth of the cynical optimism these guys possess. They are able to live with very bad odors, spiritual stinks most of us can't endure. Their strength is in their ability to avoid bad conscience. Immoral is not even a word to apply to these guys. Amoral is no better. They have a God-given or diabolically driven capacity to live with bad conscience. They really don't give a damn. "Hey," goes their credo, "I'm tough. So I can live with this. Others couldn't, but I can take it. I will endure. And even if it doesn't work, it will work anyway, because we will always be able to find a new slew of spokesmen, even intelligent people, who will claim that democracy is beginning to work in Iraq. All those neocons. They keep saying that the Middle East is ready for democracy. Well, I think they are a bunch of Israel-serving, self-serving sons of bitches myself, but if they are right, then we get the oil, and if they're wrong, we'll yet be able to blame them for the consequences." So, yes, John, to speak for myself again, I take them seriously. As they saw it in 2001, the country was in bad shape and they needed a tool big-time to clear it up, especially when they were bound and determined to send all that tax money upstairs to the rich.

JBM: So, instead, they send the poor to die in Iraq.

NM: Don't you think that is one of the themes of history, which repeats itself over and over?

JBM: My question is, Why is the chain never broken?

NM: The reason may be that there are too many strong and skilled people who spend their lives working to keep the chain intact. They labor at it reverently. So they succeed in keeping the majority stupid, even if in a democracy it's just fifty-two percent of the voting populace. They know so well that stupidity is their greatest asset, their political mojo. They work, systematically, to enhance it. They take pride in generating more and more stupidity even as advertising men take pride in selling a piece of crap. After all, anyone can market a Rolls Royce. But try palming off sleaze on a big scale. Hell, yeah! "Bring 'em on."

Comments

[CharlesMac]

(snip)"They have a God-given or diabolically driven capacity to live with bad conscience. They really don't give a damn. "Hey," goes their credo, "I'm tough. So I can live with this. Others couldn't, but I can take it. I will endure. And even if it doesn't work, it will work anyway," (snip)

This is a timeless description of the psyche of the "thug". Just because someone has the big office, it doesn't provide them absolution from the judgment of being a street thug. And not the garden variety mindless hoodlum. The clear of thought and intention. The most dangerous and the very worst.

As history is retold, here is hoping it eventually puts Dick Cheney under the proper light of day. All of the others had some qualities which helped them fulfill their part in this production. But it was Cheney who had complete command of the soul of a thug.

Bush hungered for Cheney's effortless hardness. Bush already knew how to not "give a damn", but it was developed from dysfunctional adaptations. It was not the pristine callousness for which Cheney should be known.

Probably Cheney mentored Bush. Perhaps Bush just learned from example. He did very well. Pathetically, there are still moments when Bush appears just the head mafioso's son. Stretching to fill his father's shoes, looking the part, yet fumbling, or excessive for the weight of the moment. He lacks the cold, dismissive finesse. It is difficult to say whether he falls short of a full mind or a completely empty soul.

Thank you for the post.

Norman Mailer had a wonderful mind and soul for the representation of thought through word.

[ljsfolly]

We will never find justice with Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice etc because like Ford with Nixon, the claim of secrets and National security will be the "decider" in the end. Too many things will still be buried when they leave office and too many cover up induced rulings as they have gone through and protected themselves from jail. We all feel a need for justice and being American it is a strong need but I for one think not much will be given us. That the one piece not really mentioned bothers me, it is the media who is also guilty. The many times that the truth and honesty could have been loudly spoken and written it just did not happen. Books we got with what truth we could read but bush and co played those well and those who wrote went away.

[AcitizenNJ]

David.....

Thanks for this post with NM & NBM. Should be the basis of an American war cry on Washington letting them know enough is enough. It says a lot about how he viewed our elected officials but even more about the people behind them.

[bknott]

Thank you so much. Norman Mailer was brilliant. He so clearly distills the essence of what people generally understand about the administration. I will never stop being amazed by people who can do that.

[ElkoJohn]

"But they did have great faith in the stupidity of the American people."

(AND they have been proven correct)
,

[knowhelpnow]

There are still people that believe what this Administration tells them. I don't believe a thing any more that the government says "I always have to think what is behind this"?
I think that after Vietnam there would be more of us who question and I can hardly believe that the CIA couldn't see what was happening, they were probably in the loop.

My only hope is that once we vote in someone who will take us out of Iraq NOW (and it is not any of the leading candidates), that these people are prosecuted to the full extent of the laws.

[bagelmaven]

Two former military men on radio said recently they supported the Iraq war because they it was for "truth, justice and the American way." I wonder why the American public is so easily duped when the consequences are so distinct and dire.

We are in Iraq because of empire. We have always been interested in using the military for accumulation of wealth and extending our influence. I wish we would just say that instead of couching rationales in elementary school lies. Spreading so called truth, justice and the American way mean absolutely 100% nothing and are just platitudes.If the public understood the real reasons they would not volunteer to put their blood on the line. If they knew that the war, in part, meant $3.00 plus a gallon for oil and that the immense profits go into just a very few coffers they would not be so quick to commit their sons and daughters so that CEO's of oil companies and wealthy Arab dictators would become very very very rich. We have supported and still support dictatorships all over the world without expending two thoughts about it.

One true rationale for Iraq, as Alan Greenspan aptly said in his book "Age of Turbulence", is oil. We also wanted revenge for 9/11. The money for 9/11 though was gleaned through Pakistan. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi in origin and Whabbi in spirit so why invade Iraq? We did because we could.

Bush NEVER calculated on the fracturing of Iraq because in his ignorance, he knew nothing and cared nothing about Iraq's history or its people. We have paid a heavy price in blood and treasure for the miscalculations of the Iraq War.

Norman Mailer recently said he was not at all surprised by what has happened in the history of his time. He believed most people were really fascists at heart. It is a sad commentary on who we are made even sadder because we as Americans claim to be much better than that.

Natalie Rosen
Framingham, MA

[Globers123]

I think we should all just go to Canada.

[jimmyaj]

The Bushies will all end their days in prison. And the one who don't will have their mobility restricted to nations without extradititon treaties to the rest of the world.

Maybe The Chimp will have to move to central Asia, a few hilltops away from Osama... They'd be neighbors!

[peterg76]

I would say these are not people who have consistently enjoyed success, so much as people, Little George in particular, who have been sheltered from the consequences of failure. Even now, the worst they've faced is humiliation, and sociopaths don't feel shame.

Voter stupidity helps, but the media, by not pointing out even the most painfully obvious lies, contributed a lot. They also relied on the stupidity (whether real or feigned) of the Democratic Party.

[longislandlol]

R.I.P. Norman dear- you're son John Buffalo Mailer is as brilliant as you ---- when the stark horrors were brought to our beloved New York City's doorstep on that fatal day in Sept.-what immediate choice did we have-- any thoughts to the contrary were automatically deemed "unpatriotic"-- the greatest salesmen --not statesmen were talked into the war by those who talked them into the war, who inturn, talked the "stupid American public" into the war-- stupid is the wrong word here- the operative word is "naive."

[The Collinbrandt]

The Collinbrandt wants to feed his people now because they are starving The enimies of The Collinbrandt, like the Bush family, spend more money to destroy The Collinbrandt than can be raised by charities to feed the poor. These are truly evil entities and God will punish their supporters in the end.

[outnow]

Very revealing! I love the faith in the stupidity of the American people. Norman Mailer did not see any honorable ethic in this administration. Whether it was a "Christian" administration did not merit a response. I suppose that "not being honorable" should take care of that question, depending upon which brand of Christianity one subscribes to, or more appropriately, whether religion and honorable should even be related or compared.

Allen Dulles and the CIA left a big mark on foreign policy, a legacy of ashes. So much for the American dream. "Camelot" was a fantasy, also.

The chain is unbroken, Lord, bye and bye. May we continue to go to war to be "patriotic" - just so long as someone else does the dying and the fighting. The tax money was all sent "upstairs" to the rich. Support the troops? Mailer says it's all about warbucks. History repeats itself, it seems. When you have been around for a couple of these wars of choice, one must agree - following the money leads to the right answer more than geopolitics. War insures re-election and extraordinary powers, too. It's a win-win. Where is the downside to this war-mongering behavior for those in charge?