Spit-Roasted by Satan

By Crispin Sartwell

War - so they tell me - is hell. And they also tell me that war is politics, carried on by other means. Together, these two assertions entail that politics is hell.

And the fact that politics is hell in turn calls up a lovely image to my mind: the image of a chamber in the netherworld reserved for politicians, in which they are being spit-roasted by Satan.

Let's say that you are a Democrat who, deep inside, opposes the idea of attacking Iraq. But let's also say that, facing re-election, you were not willing to pay the political price of voting against the resolution authorizing Bush to use force. You held your nose and voted yes.

You have just won re-election by declaring your support for killing actual people, in a cause you yourself do not regard as just, in a conflict you yourself do not regard as justified. My friend, you just peddled your immortal soul to Satan.

Or let us consider the point of view of a French politician. He's aware, let us say, that Saddam is culturing Ebola, in quantities sufficient to kill half a continent. And yet he's fairly sure that that half a continent does not include France, and he's interested in continuing the lucrative commercial arrangements of his countrymen with Saddam's regime.

And so this politician starts issuing anti-American diatribes, which in turn gain him attention and popularity. Again, in his own head, if he's honest, he knows he's bartering other people's lives for his own power. Out back, Lucifer is firing up the grill in anticipation of our Frenchman's arrival at the picnic.

Now let us ponder a hypothetical high-level American diplomat, attempting to "create an international partnership against terror," i.e. to twist arms and make deals so as to garner unanimous support for a UN Security Council resolution authorizing war against Iraq.

Let's say that such a diplomat, talking to the Russians, says something like this: vote for us on Iraq and we will refrain in the future from condemning your actions in Chechnya. Meanwhile, in Chechnya, the Russian repression, pillaging, and murder continue, as the American diplomat watches, his face registering benevolent approval. Welcome, son, to Satan's barbecue.

Now I don't know whether Saddam is stockpiling diseases or not, in part because my government is more interested in manipulating my opinion than in telling me plainly what it knows. If he is, he must be stopped.

But I'm not asking, today, what the best policy is toward Iraq. I'm asking who we are.

Perhaps, if you recognize yourself as a person whom I'm addressing, you are comforting yourself with the idea that Satan isn't actual, and that as a matter of fact there's no such thing as eternal hellfire.

But Satan, we might say, is a metaphor, and I am asking you whether you want to be deeply evil, though in a thoroughly mediocre way. Sacrificing lives to re-election or to cash might seem to be the easy way out. But in fact they represent self-betrayals so entire that afterwards you can never get yourself back, never again be coherent, never look in the mirror without a rationalization. That's close enough to hell for my money.

It doesn't matter, in your relation to yourself, whether the measure would have passed anyway, whether war was inevitable, how other people are going to vote or what is going to happen in the future. Whatever happens, you're a murderous coward if you do not do what you believe you should.

I realize that politics is an art of compromise and an art of coalition-building. I realize that the Iraq situation is complicated. But if you're wondering what kind of monsters helped Hitler with the Holocaust or Pol Pot with the Killing Fields, the answer is: practical, pragmatic, essentially decent people like you.

Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that "the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves," because the people would choose representatives "whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations."

At the moment, Madison is in his mansion in heaven (which is, it turns out, a lot like Orange County, Virginia). He's watching as the damned govern his country, and sobbing.