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The Trap of the "'Stab in the Back' Trap"


Friday, Truthout published a piece that starts this way:

The Democrats and the peace movement are walking into a trap.
The Republicans are preparing with Rovian cunning to focus the mind of the public on the question: Who lost Iraq?
And they are already giving the answer: The Democrats and the peace movement.
Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by blaming the failure of the Iraq war on those who "sent a signal" that the US would not "stay the course" whatever the cost. President Bush and Vice President Cheney have already begun to project such a "stab in the back" myth.

In fairness to the article, they are using a rhetorical technique in opening this way, and I have absolutely no problem with how it ends. But there are a lot of people who, by trying to avoid the "Stab in the Back Trap", walk right into it.

Continued after the jump.

A lot of "centrists" think the Dems shouldn't be messing with Iraq. "It's Bush's war. Let him own it" they say[1]. Leaving aside the dreadful moral implications of this argument, it has a deeper flaw. They'll blame you anyway.

Last August, Cambridge University Press published Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Mark Moyar. The book claims that Diem was a wise and effective leader, that Halberstam and Sheehan were vile, lying traitors, that LBJ was insufficiently forceful and that the Domino Theory was correct.

Two years ago, Crown Forum published Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II in which Jim Powell blames Wilson for a whole lot more than he could squeeze into the title.

It doesn't really matter if Publisher's Weekly was pretty harsh on both these books (though Booklist's review of Triumph calls it "valuable"). They are "scholarly", footnoted works. Talking heads will cite them to prove that their moronic positions have intellectual substance, (reducing the load on poor Newt, who's credentials as a college professor denied tenure have been sorely overburdened). Of course they won't actually read the book - Glenn Reynold's blurb on Triumph's website was clearly written without ever having opened the book. They don't need to read it. They just need it to be there.

The "Stab in the Back" trap isn't that they'll blame you, it's that the threat of being blamed will stop you from doing what needs to be done.

1] Unattributed position. OK, that's a cheap rhetorical trick. My father says this.


Gordon April 28, 2007 - 12:09pm
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( categories: MSM Criticism | USA: Congress )

Yep Gordon. You've nailed it.

I wouldn't even say that planting the meme of "we'll be accusing you of stabbing America in the back" is a "trap" (it's a great big flailing windmilling punch you can see a mile out) - telegraphing that punch in advance in order to discourage a course of action threatening to them is more plausibly one, although hardly rising to the level of subtle.

Policy can't be dictated by what grounds the Republicans will eventually attack on. They'll attack anyway, and if there's nothing to attack they'll make something up. Attack is what they do.

I wish more Democratic strategists studied judo or aikido (not that those were ever areas of speciality for me). Practitioners of those disciplines live for overly aggressive opponents who telegraph their intent. They're the opponents that will do all their own work defeating themselves; you just have to gently guide them from their positions of instability to a more stable prone position.

You just need to figure how to lay a trap for their trap. Personally, if it were me, there'd be a trap for the overly aggressive built into every other issue. They need to be taught a more cautious and healthy discretion that kicks in every time they're tempted to stick their dukes more than twenty centimeters from their own centers of body mass.

Or "all limbs offered to us as gifts gratefully received".

Escher Sketch April 28, 2007 - 1:29pm
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Aikido is a great model.

Karl Rove (among others) is great at zingers which leave your typical Dem crying "unfair! unfair!" and sounding like a whiny-ass crybaby. The whole point of a zinger is that it has some truth to it. Find the truth in it, embrace it, own it and then beat the crap out of... oops, aikido is defensive only... put him on the ground with it.

Rove said: “Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers, [while conservatives] saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.”

Someone should have said: "Rove got it almost right. Liberals would like to know who attacked and why, then go after them. Conservatives just want to grab a gun and shoot someone."

(Well, I did say that, to a number of people. Got one reply - Helen Thomas told me "good point".)

Gordon April 28, 2007 - 1:50pm
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I dpn't think the ploy will work

I think the American people are smarter than this. I don't think they will fall for it.

Bucksouth April 28, 2007 - 2:07pm
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Stab in the back will happen

Stab in the back will happen anyway. It's inevitable. The narrative is that great nations only ever lose due to betrayal.

Ian Welsh April 28, 2007 - 3:00pm
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And under Nixon

the repukes lost Vietnam,
where there, they actually had allies and friends.
I don't think america has any friends in the middle east, not since Bush tha Latter.

Jelco Cathlon April 28, 2007 - 4:33pm
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Well

if we take into account that the neo-cons murdered 3000 of their own citizens on 911 and people are waking up the the galactic retardation of not only the talking points of Faux but all of MSM as well then maybe they will stab themselves.

Lasthorseman April 28, 2007 - 5:49pm
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oh bull

you have no proof to that. There is enough to nail on this administration and minions without repeating unproven stories.

Tina April 28, 2007 - 5:59pm
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Please get out of the trap they've already set

Anyone who claims there is a war in Iraq and not an OCCUPATION is and has been already lost.
Please stop letting them frame Iraq in terms of losing and winning a "war". Please stop doing it yourself.

Simply state: "We are withdrawing our occupying forces from Iraq." period.

As well, GWOT? what the hell is that? there is no "Global War on Terror" or any "war".
it's about using police action as they do in the UK to find and stop acts of terrorism.
it's about creating justice to stop the reasons for it.
it's about getting out of Iraq, NOW and justice for Palestinians, NOW.
it's about making Israel own up to it's horrible practices and being a real actor for peace, and stopping support for Israel in every instance.

BTW, I've been saying these 2 things for, uhmmm, about 4 years now. The latter, actually since W first used the term the day after the WTC fell.
_____________________________
1700: "Abolish slavery!"
1800: Woman's Suffrage!"
2007:"World Peace!"

bernadene April 29, 2007 - 2:59pm
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