I read Lawrence Lessig ‘s REMIX: MAKING ART AND COMMERCE THRIVE IN THE HYBRID ECONOMY to learn something about copyright law and what constitutes “fair use” of material. I am specifically interested in what this means for blogging, though probably the issue of biggest concern in our society is the file sharing of movies and music done by so many today because the Internet has made it so easy to do. Not being much of a consumer of contemporary media, my interest in Lessig is certainly not mainstream.
I really did enjoy his book and learned a great deal about the issues and problems which the electronic age has caused regarding copyright and fair use. Lessig’s thoughts on how to reform law and culture in the electronic age made sense to me. His use of the metaphor comparing a RO culture (read only) to a RW culture (read write – taking cues from modern electronic equipment) shed a lot of light on the topic.
I intend in this blog and the next to do a bit of amateur creative remixing – taking from his book an idea that was not his main purpose but which intrigued me to ask a rhetorical question about America’s war in Iraq. Lessig is writing about the limits of government regulation in dealing with many issues and specifically as it might apply to government efforts to regulate the copying and creative use of copyrighted material (Lessig favors regulation on the use of copy but not so much on the copying itself). He draws an example from America’s war in Iraq, which is what got me thinking about how Bush led us to war. What follows is related to what became a mantra for conservatives in advocating smaller government and the deregulation of so many aspects of the economy. On 20 January 1981, Ronald Reagan said:
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”
The anti-government attitude was in some ways a mix of 1960’s anti-establisment thinking with laissez-faire capitalism and conservative small government thinking. It gets embraced in varying ways by Americans of all political stripes (from government should stay out of our bedrooms and leave sexual and reproductive decisions to individuals to government should not run the health care industry thereby socializing 17% of the economy (GDP); and on the other hand from both sides wanting government – legislative and judicial – to support and champion their causes and issues).
Lessig’s rhetorical question, which is not the main subject of his book (“This is not a book about Iraq.” p 282), made me wonder about what was the supposedly conservative Bush administration thinking when it invaded Iraq? Lessig asks:
What reason was there to think that government power could succeed in occupying and remaking Iraqi society?
… I’m talking about everything that would obviously have to be done after the invasion – from security, to electric power, to food supplies, to education. It was as if those at the very top simply assumed that the government could do all those things, without ever asking whether that assumption made any sense. (p 281)
The very philosophy supposedly influencing the conservatives was a distrust of the government to do anything right. So why did they believe they could remake and run a whole society? If government was not the solution to America’s problems why did they believe that the U.S. government could readily make right Iraqi society?
Of course the question might be faulty. It is possible that they actually never thought much at all about rebuilding the country they were about to destroy because they saw themselves as only destroying “the government” and didn’t take 
into consideration that the whole Iraqi society would be the “collateral damage” in such a war. Or perhaps they assumed in their Reaganesque thinking that since only the government is the problem, eliminate the government and the society will do just fine on its own – vastly underestimating that the total removal of government would push the people toward nihilistic chaos. (One need only think about the scenes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina once it was apparent that the government had vacated the city leaving only flood waters to check people’s activities).
“A parent, an army, a government: they all must be certain that their devotion to truth does not blind them to the consequences of their actions. There’s only so much a government can do. Where we find that limit, we must then find other means to the legitimate end.” (p 287)
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I don’t think it at all unreasonable for the Bush administration to think that it could start the Iraq society off on a new track:
1. The majority of the population had been repressed under the Saddam regime.
2. The USA and its allies had successfully rehabilitated societies that had received far worse destructive punishment than the Iraqis; namely Germany, Italy and Japan after WWII.
Now, what I believe was woefully inadequate in the Iraq conflict was the planning for post-invasion rehabilitation of the society. Disarming and disbursement of the military elements not part of the Imperial Guard level was a mistake. It is my thinking that is where the majority of the Sunni dissidents came from. Anyway, there is no doubt but what we botched the rehabilitation. Not enough time to plan the afterwards leading up to the invasion.
We could have and should have done better.
I think your comments in fact give support to Lessig’s ponderings. The Bush Administration proved in its lack of planning that it was not capable of doing the task. In numerous reports I’ve read they were warned and advised to do more for and be more prepared for the aftermath. They failed to listen to this advice and thus failed miserably. The U.S. military actually did a stellar job in thrashing the Iraqi army and ousting Hussein. The trouble of course was that it was neither the military’s duty, nor had the Bush administration prepared them for rebuilding the Iraqi society. It still reminds me of the saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer every problem ends up looking like a nail. The only tool the Bush administration believed it had was the military. It thus saw a military problem, but in this proved its inadequacy as a government to fully analyze, comprehand and prepare for what was needed in Iraq. Had the Bush administration considered the nation rebuilding after WWII they would have realized what a massive project that was.
After WWII America was aided in its desire to rebuild nations by the looming threat of the Soviet Union. But in Iraq they seemed to have failed to realize the hatred and dissent which were going to be the next threat.
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Well, in and at the end of WWII the army had a great deal to do with the follow-up. My father was assigned to Montgomery’s D-Day Invasion Planning Group and after the invasion took charge of a group gathering up German war materiel as the allies advanced. After the surrender he spent 6 month’s in Germany with occupation forces in administration of several city areas.
He then returned to the Pentagon where between late ’45-’48 he was the pentagon liason to the military government in Trieste and Fiume (between Italy and Serbia). I remember him remarking once that he was involved in getting them coal for the winter, probably with some difficulty.
So, I would say that the military were quite involved in the aftermath of WWII but I guess you can say that when it came to Iraq. I recall that there was quite a bit of conflict when the State Department took over the lead role in the governance of Iraq early after the conquest. Both the civilians and the Army botched it, then. We shall see if Obama can learn from the past when it comes to Afghanistan – assuming the military is able to quiet things there.
From what I understand, the forces in Afghanistan have taken a new approach: working with the populace instead of trying to police it. Getting to know the local tribes and inhabitants has lead to marked improvement. I think one of the generals stationed there put out a book on this, but I can’t recall the title.
Oops, in last paragraph of my last comment please change the 1st sentence to “So, I would say that the military were quite involved in the aftermath of WWII but I guess you can’t say that when it comes to Iraq.”