[Peace-discuss] Letter to Editor- Psychopathic Personalities

[Ryan A. Rogers]

After stomaching several months of intimidation and physical threats, due 
primarily to my outspoken disapproval of current foreign policy and the 
deceitful war in Iraq, I was glad to read that someone has finally made a 
reasonable attempt to describe the madness consuming our nation and our 
community.

In a recent UTNE article, Kurt Vonnegut clearly articulates the dementia 
overwhelming the pro-war camp. "Psychopathic Personality" is a term to 
clinically define personable people of adequate intelligence who suffer 
from lack of conscience. "P.P.'s", as Kurt elaborates, "are fully aware of 
how much suffering their actions will inflict on others but do not care. 
They cannot care." The strategy (or lack of strategy) in the pro-war camp 
bears out nicely that Neo-Cons suffer acutely from this affliction. Recent 
editorials in various papers throughout our community attempt to justify 
the murderous war in Iraq with a "my daddy can whip your daddy" rationale.

Various hawk apologists are now defending their erroneous pre-war 
assumptions regarding WMDs simply by saying (as Powell did recently) "So 
what? We went on erroneous information, so what?" A recent D.I. opinion 
echoed this sentiment when one writer decried a supposed leftist agenda 
with "Yes, it was about oil ... so what?" The "I don't care" School of 
Persuasion and lack of arguable positions in the pro-war camp is itself 
their primary source of frustration with the Peace Movement. "No one cares! 
Why don't you just shut up and go home?" they retort.

The arguments posed by some pro-war cronies (as hostilities reportedly 
taper) were enigmatic to me at first. "We won!" one guy yelled to me. Was 
he unsure of the US military's might?  Did he actually think they would 
have been challenged by the half-starved Iraqi children that make up the 
majority of Iraq's population? What does it mean when one yells "We won!" 
while you are holding the image of a dead Iraqi child? Vonnegut's comments 
have made this exchange chillingly lucid. As with most retorts and vacuous 
Neo-Con arguments, the gentleman was not defending America's democratic 
traditions or military prowess so much as he was championing the cavalier 
attitudes and diplomatic failures that led to that child's demise. "I don't 
care" apparently makes it easier to reject the sorrow that images of dead 
children should rightfully elicit.

Nationally, the implications of "I don't care" policy are frightening. Is 
it any wonder that America has exhausted her international credibility 
since September 11, while democracy, decency and diplomacy are being 
sacrificed on the Neo-Con altar by psychopathic personalities? Where is the 
Compassionate Conservatism that became the mainstay of Republican stumps 
during the past two election cycles? Where are the Conservatives with the 
moral compass to admit when wrong is wrong? Have you been forced into 
exile, or is it that you just don't care?

-Ryan A. Rogers