A Lethal Dose of Patriotism

As this is written, the congressional hearings on the Iran-contra scandal have just reached the end of phase one, dealing mostly with the secret support operation for the Nicaraguan contras. By the time you read this, the second phase on the illegal diversion of funds from the Iran arms sales to the contras will be well under way.

In fact the mute Marine, Lt. Col. Oliver North, is scheduled to break his monkish silence about the time this issue reaches our subscribers. One of the perils of monthly journalism is that a lot can happen in a month, perhaps even the discovery of that well-known "smoking gun."

But so far the story of the Iran-contra investigation has at least as much to do with what hasn't happened as what has. And there are patterns both to what's happening and what isn't that make an interim assessment worth the risk.

As many of us feared, the Iran-contra investigation is focusing almost exclusively on the finer points of bookkeeping and bureaucratic procedure and mostly ignoring the larger questions of political morality. Even the shady-to-barbarous character of the Nicaraguan contra leadership has gone unexamined.

When contra chieftain Adolfo Calero appeared before the committee, little was said about his organization's systematic atrocities against Nicaraguan civilians or even about the persistent reports of contra drug-running. To most committee members, the existence of a U.S.-funded and -directed terrorist war waged in direct violation of U.S. and international law seems less scandalous than the profit that retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, et al. took on their contra weapons sales. It's as if Congress had called in a notorious Mafia leader but only questioned him about the use of loaded dice in one of his casinos.

That's not to say the hearings have been devoid of ideological content. Most Republican members of the panel have delivered frequent and lengthy defenses of the contras' virtue and blamed illegal contra funding not on officials who broke the law but on the legislators who blocked legal funds. The Republicans have stacked their side of the joint committee with militant, voluble, and occasionally articulate adherents of the Reagan Doctrine. The right wingers clearly hope that by focusing on the folly and corruption of covert contra aid while defending the contras themselves they can eventually rally support for a more overt--"clean and legal"--intervention in Nicaragua.

That's a long-shot strategy. But it demonstrates again that the Republican Right at least has the courage of its cold-blooded convictions, while the Democratic leadership lacks either courage or convictions of any kind. That is evident even in the appointment by the House and Senate leaders of Democratic members to sit on the special committee. The committee includes notorious pro-contra Democrats such as Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma and Rep. Les Aspin of Wisconsin (who, by the way, has yet to attend a committee session) but has a dearth of committed and articulate contra opponents. That imbalance could have been easily addressed by simultaneously breaking up the panel's race and gender exclusivity (one black and no women).

The Democrats obviously hope that the Iran-contra scandal will allow them to win the White House without going through the brain-taxing (and status quo-disturbing) process of devising an alternative, non-interventionist foreign policy. One lesson to be drawn from the hearings thus far is that grassroots opponents of the contra war will still have to wage a vigorous fight to defeat the new contra aid proposal coming before Congress this fall.

BUT THE MOST DISTURBING revelation to come from the first round of hearings had little to do with Democratic cowardice and nothing to do with Richard Secord's Porsche or Ollie North's snow tires. It was the worldview of the people who planned and executed a secret and illegal foreign policy.

Without fail--from Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams on down to contra courier Robert Owen--they all came before the committee proclaiming their patriotism. They recited the litany of duty, honor, and country as if it contained the magic words to absolve any sin (or crime). This is of course the traditional last refuge of scoundrels.

But the content of the Reaganauts' "patriotism," as it emerged under questioning, was bone-chilling. It had nothing to do with devotion to a system of democratic accountability or pride in our country's freedom and diversity, much less notions of the public interest or the common good. It consisted instead of blind devotion to hierarchy ("only following orders"), a visceral attraction to military power, contempt for democratic institutions, and (at least for Secord) the right to turn a fast buck.

The cornerstone of this worldview is, of course, the assumption that falsehood, thievery, and murder are all justified under any circumstances by the simple invocation of the anticommunist crusade. In other parts of the world, this brand of patriotism is called the ideology of the national security state. It is the patriotism of Chilean generals and Salvadoran death squads, and, in the absence of a truly democratic alternative, it appears to be the reigning ethos of American foreign policy.

Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.