January 16, 2007 -- 4:02 PM EST // //
PUNDIT HEAD IN THE SAND DEPARTMENT -- RICHARD COHEN EDITION.
If something happens and a pundit decides not to see it because it doesn't affirm his chosen world view of the moment, did it happen at all?
As noted below, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes today that things might have been different in Iraq if we'd noticed that some of the locals weren't too thrilled when an American flag was draped on the toppled Saddam statue in 2003. If we had noticed this, Cohen says, we might have had an inkling of the disaster that awaited us:
Similarly, we did not notice that in all the hoopla just before Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square came down in 2003, the crowd went silent after an American flag was draped over it. The crowd came to life only when the Iraqi flag replaced it. Had we noticed that, we might have learned something about Iraqi nationalism and the fleeting gratitude awarded to liberators. One minute you're a liberator, the next an occupier.
Maybe "we" -- that is, Cohen and his pundit colleagues -- didn't notice the hostility to this gesture because they didn't want to notice it. Reporters told us about it, after all -- here's what the Associated Press reported on April 9, 2003 (via Nexis):
Many said they were disturbed by "provocative" images of U.S. troops lounging in Saddam's palaces or draping the U.S. flag around the head of Saddam statue."Liberation is nobler than that," said Walid Abdul-Rahman, one of the three Saudis. "They should not be so provocative."
That same day, ABC News reported:
There was also, briefly, an American flag atop the statue, which was quickly replaced by . . .a flag, pre-Gulf, first Gulf War Iraqi flag. And when that flag went up in comparison to when the American flag went up, there were a lot of cheers around the square, and clapping and cheering from Iraqi citizens.
From another AP story the same day:
On Wednesday, there were signs of mixed emotion toward U.S. forces. Marines briefly covered Saddam's face with an American flag, and were greeted with silence. They quickly replaced it with the Iraqi flag, to cheers from the crowd.
But now Cohen is basically conceding that "we" -- again, he and his pundit colleagues -- didn't allow themselves to notice the ominous significance of such things amid the "hoopla" of the American victory. Why not?
Look, I understand that Cohen's using this example to make a larger conciliatory point, but still, could you ask for a more perfect expression of the willful self-delusion and refusal to see the obvious that's gripped so many pundits throughout this whole catastrophe?
After all, there was no shortage of other signs that this whole adventure was both unnecessary and headed for disaster. These signs were right in front of "our" faces -- but "we" decided not to notice them. So "we" didn't.