Betrayal

It may not be his best known play, but Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" is by far my favorite, and the 1983 film version starring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge has stuck with me like few others. The play moves backward in time, starting with a reunion of sorts between two lovers, Jerry and Emma, and ending a decade earlier at the party where they first meet. Jerry is the best friend of Robert; Emma is Robert's wife. And as the play unwinds (or rewinds,) we learn that Robert has perhaps betrayed his friend and wife as much as they have him.

The play is sad, funny, a bit of a mystery, and brilliantly written -- and its simple, one word title turns out to be as much a question as it is a statement. Who is betraying whom? Are they betraying each other? Their families? Themselves? And what is the nature of betrayal itself?

Man is a social animal; we crave personal relationships and the positive reinforcement of society at large. We even rely on social institutions to physically survive. All our interactions with our fellow humans are at some level built on trust, and that is what makes "betrayal" one of the most powerfully evocative words in the English language. There is no wrong greater than an act of betrayal, and nearly every wrong has an act of betrayal at its core. It is not murder that is the original sin, but betrayal; it was Adam and Eve's betrayal of God's trust that got man evicted from the Garden of Eden.

This I think explains the tempest in a DC teapot over what is, after all, only an ad. Moveon did not even accuse anybody of betrayal, but merely asked the question: "Will Gen. Petraeus betray us?"

And I, for one, am glad they did.

Not because I have any reason to believe that Gen. Petraeus himself is not a man of honor, or because I believe him capable of treason in any way. But because it raises the question of what the word "betrayal" means in the context of this war, this White House and our current political climate.

Indeed for years Republicans have cheapened the word, brandishing it against anybody who would oppose their policies at home or abroad. Karl Rove and his cohorts have constructed a monochromatic political discourse in which you are either with us or against us, in which you either support the President, his war of aggression, and his unconstitutional assault on our civil liberties, or you are as much a threat as the terrorists themselves. How many times over the past few years have politicians and pundits on the right accused those of us on the left of being traitors? And why should the right maintain exclusive ownership over this powerful meme?

For all the heat Moveon is taking from the political class, the ad was both obvious and effective, and the more Republicans desperately attempt to turn the debate from their ill-conceived and disastrously executed war to, well, just an ad, the more they help us establish our frame. "Petraeus"... "betray us"... it is more than just a rhyme or silly pun, it is an unavoidable verbal linkage that inevitably asks the question every time somebody mentions the general's name.

What is the nature of betrayal? Is it using the tragedy of 9/11 to push through tax cuts for the very wealthy? Is it lying about weapons of mass destruction to justify a war? Is it violating FISA while publicly claiming you are adhering to FISA? Is it leaving New Orleans to drown in its own toxic floodwaters? Is it spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight in Iraq, and then nickel and diming our permanently disabled veterans at home? Is it running as a fiscal conservative but creating record federal budget deficits? Is it politicizing the Justice Department and the federal bench? Is it presiding over the greatest foreign policy blunder in US history, but defiantly leaving the consequences to the next administration?

Or is it an ad?

The American people aren't dumb, and if constantly reminded of the word "betrayal," they'll sort this one out for themselves. It's not Moveon who has betrayed the trust of the American people. It's not the Democrats. It's not liberal bloggers like me.

If, like in Pinter's masterpiece, we run the past six years backward to the emotional days following 9/11, when the American people first embraced this president, the true scope of Bush's betrayal becomes all the more apparent. It is a sad story, sometimes funny, even a bit of a mystery. And in hindsight, just as inevitable.

[David Goldstein blogs on WA state politics at HorsesAss.org]

Comments

[AnotherMcIntosh]

"Amendment I
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."

"SA 2934. Mr. CORNYN proposed an amendment to amendment SA 2011 proposed by Mr. NELSON of Nebraska (for Mr. LEVIN) to the bill H.R. 1585, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; as follows:"

"SEC. 1070. SENSE OF SENATE ON GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS.
"(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--
...
"(2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces; and
"(3) to specifically repudiate the unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org. "

From http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/20/371381.aspx:
"Democrats voting yes for the GOP-backed measure were Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Cardin (MD), Carper (DE), Casey (PA), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Feinstein (CA), Johnson (SD), Klobuchar (MN), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Leahy (VT), Lincoln (AR), McCaskill (MO), Mikulski (MD), Nelson (NE), Nelson (FL), Pryor (AR), Salazar (CO), Tester (MT), and Webb (VA)."

[The Collinbrandt]

George Bush most aggregious betrayal of the American People happened when he decided to use the attack of 9-11 for personal political capital.

As the former head of the Federal Reserve has stated we went to war over oil. George Bush said it was over "weapons of mass destruction" but, when that was proven to be a lie, George Bush said it was to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. I am afraid betrayal is too soft a word for this adimistration. Treason is the more appropriate word since George Bush and his evil coherts sold our courtry out for good old money. A judas in the white house.

[bethinCary]

The fake indignation is just another attempt by the GOP to have anyone focus on thier own complicity in this fiasco that is Iraq.

It's more throwing sand-to deflect anyone from getting close to the truth.

[SamThornton]

David, you raise some really interesting points here that go beyond even the debate over Iraq.

For example, focusing on the social dimension, cultural anthropology tells us that one human advantage over other species consists in our ability to adapt our behavior quickly to radically changing circumstances through the medium of our culture rather than slowly through physically evolutionary adaptations.

The late Marvin Harris, one of the early proponents of this view, explained wars as a cultural adaptation to the interplay between population, available resources and the technology available to exploit needed resources, usually in ways not immediately obvious.

He and others also point out that not all human cultural adaptations are successful. One of the obvious changes we've made in our culture with regard to wars is a shift from what Washington described in his farewell address as avoidance of foreign entanglements, to our current norm of preemptive war in pursuit of foreign engagement.

The question: is this particular adaptation one that will lead to our continued prosperity or our downfall as a successful society?

[Dap]

Dear Mr. Goldstein,

I've been reading your essays/posts for quite sometime now, they are all well done and I enjoy them. Yet, his one seems to really standout in its eloquence. Agape.

[babylonandon]

Actaully, most of the commentary I have heard on the right is only minimally about the Ad itself but far more outrage is being directed at the NYT for giving Moveon a special rate to run the Ad - a rate they have utterly refused thus far to give to anyone else under the same conditions.

[BillZBubb]

Actually, as usual the right is wrong. The Times gives that rate to other non-profits.

[grendl]

It is Bush's betrayal of these United States we should be concentrating on.
So a play on the general's name, a respected individual and proven soldier called in, like a relief pitcher in the bottom of the ninth, in a game we're losing 15-1, is sloppy and misguided wordplay.
Insinuating he's some kind of snake oil salesman for the war, trying to sell a product he knows is a sham would take a lot more proof than what's currently being offered by anyone.
Citing statistical errors, isn't enough. Someone has to prove he willingly and with malice of forethought attempted to deceive that committee in order to attain some internecine agenda.
Not everyone working under the Bush administration is evil, although it might be a fun game to try to paint them as such. Many are just misguided, well meaning people. Some probably themselves would admit to feeling duped by the pack of jackals, the cavalcade of Batman villains who have tried to pass themselves off as well meaning representratives of the American people lo these past seven years.
The crime of Move On's ad was one of aim. Don't shoot the messenger next time. It makes you look petty, just like your adversaries.

[dadw5boys]

Bush made the General the Adminstrations Pitchman for the war. It is Bush who placed him into the political arena. The Gerneral knows better than to cross that line between Military and Politics.

[BillZBubb]

One can betray others without intending to do so. You are assuming Petraeus is being accused of being totally dishonest--a snake-oil salesman.

Petraeus wrote and Op/Ed piece just before the 2004 elections that was, to put it nicely, overly optimistic. Not so nicely, it was rosey scenario bullshit. Did Petraeus learn anything from that overtly political and patently erroneous episode? Given his latest "effort", the answer is clearly NO.

So, Petraeus has betrayed not only the American citizens, but himself as well. MoveOns aim was right on target--one Petraeus put on himself in 2004.

[grendl]

It's a stretch, only made to rationalize a silly pun.

He may have failed us, he didn't betray us. Of course there are several definitions of the term betray, and given the parameters of one you're correct, another one, I am.

I saw Move On's ad as an insinuation of some sort of duplicity on General Petraeus's part. But in listening to his testimony and subsequent interviews I heard no such thing. Did they mean his intellect betrayed him? His instincts? This is someone who's seen a lot of war in his life, you think he would willingly put his men in harm's way simple to satisfy a politician?

It was a stupid ad, that any third grader could've thought up, its biggest fault being its gross inaccuracy.

.