by CKR
Scarecrow at Firedoglake was dismayed at the Richard Perle segment of PBS’s America at a Crossroads series. There’s nothing wrong with that review, but I think that there is more to say about Perle’s pearl than that.
Much of the segment consists of Richard Perle sitting and riding or sitting and talking: fine metaphors for his role in government. He sits and talks with Simon Jenkins, forced onto a couch that both look like they’d like to escape; he rides in a car in Dubai, where he later sits and talks with an Iranian dissident; he rides to Pat Buchanan’s house and sits and talks with him, but Buchanan has chosen the more dominant seat as Perle sinks into the upholstery; he rides through the market in Kabul; he sits and watches a newsreel of John Kennedy’s inaugural address. A hand occasionally manipulates a steering wheel, perhaps trying to indicate that Perle is in command of the vehicle, but it lacks credibility. He manages to stand up when confronting demonstrators against the war or chatting with Natan Sharansky near Lefortovo Prison, but it looks like it’s only because no overstuffed armchairs were available.
Although he accuses Buchanan of passivity for not wanting more wars, the entire shape of Perle’s argument is passive. He mischaracterizes the arguments of others and smugly stomps strawmen or leads on agreeable interviewees, particularly if they agree in a language other than English. He praises a girls’ school in Kabul, but manages not to notice the sky-blue burkhas bobbing through the market. Women are being freed in Afghanistan, you know. When he actually is confronted by the vigorous disagreement of Abdel Bari Atwan, he looks aghast. “If the acts of terror stopped, you know and I know that you would see stability and order in Iraq more or less instantly.” Yes, and if manna fell from heaven, everyone would have enough to eat more or less instantly. And then there’s the ever-popular “mistakes were made,” in a few variations.
Perle’s isolation in his car, viewing the world of Kabul cleanshaven with a suit and tie or gliding down a Washington freeway, is the perfect metaphor for the world of the neocons. Things aren’t working in Iraq? Hey, we should have glided out right away, before that suit and tie got dirty. It’s up to the Iraqis now, you know, which seems to be the latest of the neocon excuses. His arguments and presentation of them are tired and rather too well rehearsed; all looking out from his protected place.
Almost nobody he interviews agrees with him, even his friend Haris Silajdzic in Bosnia, who is glad for the NATO intervention Perle takes credit for. Silajdzic strongly emphasizes the dangers of having a single nation make decisions for the world, but Perle brushes it off out of Silajdzic’s company. We can give Perle credit for including criticism, but we must, with Scarecrow, ask what his editing has done to the dialog.
So I thought his segment made a lot of points nicely. I’m sure he didn’t intend for it to turn out that way, but give them enough rope, they say, and they’ll hang themselves. Or maybe it’s video memory bytes these days.