Paranoid or Perceptive?

It is difficult to know what possessed The New Yorker to publish Nicholas Lemann’s article, “The Wayward Press: Paranoid Style” (October 16, 2006). http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060327fa_fact

His thesis is the simplistic notion that international political policy and events can never be the product of the ideological actions of a finite number of powerful and well placed individuals since human behavior is just too irrational, and paranoid induced plots are always just too rationale. Things happen by accident, not plan. Why is he wrong?

Let us take for a paradigm case the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran’s prime minister in 1953. According to Lemann’s thesis it would be paranoid to think that a relatively small group of persons or “group think agencies” were responsible. It was just “people screwing up”. We know better. The individuals involved were Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Foster Dulles, Donald Wilber, Kermit Roosevelt and agencies like the CIA, British Intelligence, U.S. State Department, and corporations like British Petroliam and U.S. counterparts. This is a lot of folks and many boards and high level committees. But it is still a finite number. Historians sooner or later can sort it all out. Most critical was the kind of momentum of “group think” that took place over a short period of time among this finite number of persons and groups. It is probably impossible to document those who objected in meetings, since they were most likely left behind.

Now why is it not rationale to assume that this same kind of model can be applied to other issues of foreign policy? The Iraq War I stuck in the craw of many neo-liberals (neo-cons) who were eager to complete a war that was never properly ended in their view. 9-11 was a logical rationale for Iraq II. It was only a matter of building the rationale, and the only obstacle was Colin Powell and the U.N.

Isn’t it contradictory to assume that while other states (rogue or actual) are capable of carefully planned international terrorist activities that we are just befuddled by the irrationality and complexity of human events? Perhaps it is part of the neo beltway brainwashing to label as “paranoid” anyone who seeks the truth about how our policies are formulated.

So please, Mr. Lemann, don’t tell us that we are paranoid if we believe that things get done by individuals working through relatively small groups with power and influence. It is called Democracy.

Merle