Being Right For the Wrong Reasons
W.J. Astore
Were you against the Afghan War? The Iraq War? Events proved you right, of course, but for the wrong reasons. And if you were pro-war in both cases, you were of course wrong but for the right reasons. Therefore you will still be celebrated and featured on mainstream media outlets, whereas those "right" people will still be ignored because, again, they may have been right about those disastrous wars, but their reasons were all wrong.
I think I heard this formulation first in Jeremy Scahill's book "Dirty Wars." An official said opponents of the war on terror had been "right for the wrong reasons," but that proponents of war, the Kristols and Krauthammers of the necon world, had been "wrong for the right reasons."
Nick Turse picks up on this theme in his latest for TomDispatch.com. In 2010, Turse edited a book of essays: "The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan." In his latest essay, and with tongue firmly in cheek, Turse asks why he's not being invited to speak on the mainstream media networks, why he's not being celebrated for his prescience, why he's not being lauded for being right. And of course Turse knows the answer: he was right -- but for the wrong reasons.
If you're confused, allow me to translate. It's OK, even laudable, to argue that the Pentagon will win; that wars should be fought; and that U.S. generals are so many reincarnations of Napoleon and Alexander and Caesar. Because being "wrong" here means that the Pentagon grows ever more powerful; that the U.S. always looks tough (if perhaps dumb); and that America's generals are celebrated as the "finest" while never being called to account. Again, all these things are "right," even when, indeed especially when, they're so obviously wrong.
But it's not OK, indeed it's deplorable, to suggest the Pentagon will lose; that wars should not be fought; that U.S. generals are mostly time-serving mediocrities. Because being "right" here means a weaker Pentagon; it means America fights fewer wars, an obvious sign of national weakness and a calamity to the military-industrial complex; it means holding generals responsible for their self-serving lies and obfuscations.
Being right about all this weakens militarism in America and could lead to lower "defense" budgets and fewer wars. And we can't have that in America!
So, remember, in America it's better to be wrong and thus feed the military-industrial complex than to be right and thus possibly to chart a wiser and less bellicose course. To paraphrase Mister Spock, it is not logical, but it is often true.