Magical anti-realism

Reading Tim Dunlop‘s exegesis of the new Clarke book, I was struck by this passage he quotes:

CIA was explicit now that al Qaeda was guilty of the attacks, but Paul Wolfowitzwas not persuaded. It was too sophisticated and complicated an operation, he said, for a terrorist group to have pulled it off by itself, without a state sponsor—Iraq must have been helping them. (Tim’s ellipsis)

Paul Wolfowitz obviously thinks much of himself and his intellect. And he may be smart. But as demonstrated here, whatever raw power his brain may have, it is used in the service of an irrational and pre-scientific mind.

Against the empirical evidence presented (which as Clarke notes already included the names of the hijackers), Wolfowitz balances nothing but mystical assertions.

He makes a classically irrational argument. Untestable premise: “Too sophisticated” (how do you measure that? Is there some magic scale that we can use to measure a heap of sophistication, a platinum sophistication weight stored under glass that is the largest amount of sophistication that a group can muster without calling themselves a government?)—magically produces the very conclusion you wanted anyway: they “must have” had support from Iraq. (Because as well all know, Iraq is the only country in the world capable of helping out a bunch of terrorists when their plans exceed the international non-governmental sophistication standard.) What was the mechanism for the exhange of help? Where is the evidence of it? Never mind the facts: they don’t fit the framework. Why bother looking when you already know what you’ll find? Why bother with proof when you already have a pretty story that explains everything so very, very well?

Wolfowitz, in other words, is no different from any weather-worshipping cave man, tinfoil-hat conspiracy nut, UFO enthusiast, or physics grad student who thinks the CIA is making him crap his pants to keep him from meeting girls. Except that he has the power and will to arrange for wars based on his lunacy. I guess that whole Enlightment thing just hasn’t quite caught on yet. Maybe in a few more centuries.

Filed under: politics/war