“Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous lie! Callow! Calley!”
He chortled in his joy.

File this under: Folie imposée.*

* "...subtype A of folie a deux, is the most common form in which the dominant person imposes a delusion into a person who was not previously mentally ill. Separation of the two results in improvement of the non-dominant person."

Cross reference under: You and what army?

I was trying to remember where I had last heard the kind of negligent, delusional gibbering that has been emanating from Bill Kristol’s bilge-nozzle of late. Well, him and other leading lights of a certain Party of God that impeaches for indiscrete fellatio, and ballyhoos reckless escallatio.

You know, the smirky, bloodless academician touting the dumping a couple of thousand metric tons of napalm on a wildfire from the deep-cover of his Fox Hole?

A war junkie who fears that Cheney has let Dubya’s leash slip from his paws, and now feels the sudden, desperate need to try and continue the frantic folie imposée of the Neocon Dogma of Forever War on the Bicycle Chief?

The who one who writes this kind of piffle (emphasis added)

(print-friendly version; the ASP version makes my screen hurt.)

…
For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.
…

So, folie imposée?

Or is it, perhaps, Ganser's syndrome?

Although this disorder was previously classified as a factitious disorder, the American Psychiatric Association has redefined Ganser's syndrome and placed it in the category called "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified." Sometimes called "the syndrome of approximate answers," Ganser's syndrome is most often seen in male prisoners. In the past, this was so much the case that early clinicians called the syndrome "prison psychosis," despite the fact that it is not a true psychosis. (Psychosis is characterized by a radical change in personality and a distorted sense of reality.) The disorder has also been referred to as hysterical pseudodementia…

Ganser's syndrome is usually sudden in onset and, like malingering, seems to arise in response to an opportunity for personal gain or the avoidance of some responsibility. The patient will offer nearly correct replies when asked questions about facts of common knowledge, such as the number of days in a year, the number of months in a year, subtracting seven from 100, the product of four times five, etc. To such questions, the patient may respond by stating that there are 360 days in a year, 11 months in a year, 94 for the result of subtracting seven from 100, and that 21 is the product of four times five. These persons appear to have no difficulty in understanding questions asked, but appear to provide incorrect answers deliberately.

Such as suggesting that we should go out of our way to beat the Mideast hornet’s nest even harder with a flaming stick? And actually tell the world that we are doing it to deliberately and publicly trigger an all-out, regional war with nary a functional military, actual coalition, budget or exit strategy in sight -- and everyone knows it, so no SDI busted-flush bluff is possible -- and that the “repercussions” ”would be healthy ones.”?

Or could it be Vorbeireden?

In vorbeigehen or vorbeireden, a patient will answer a question in such a way that one can tell the patient understood the question, although the answer itself may be very obviously wrong. This condition occurs in Ganser's syndrome and has been observed in prisoners awaiting trial. Vorbeigehen (giving approximate answers) was the original term used by Ganser but Vorbeireden (talking past the point) is the term generally in use (Goldin 1955).

I dunno, and I’m no professional, but it seemed so familiar.

And then I remembered this...

Fail Safe.

The opening scene, where Professor Groeteschele [Walter Matthau] is entertaining jaded party guests with his tales of thermonuclear war, which he delivers with a bit of a leer, and a side of relish...

MR. FOSTER: 60 million?

PROFESSOR: I say 60 million is perhaps the highest price we should be prepared to pay in a war.

MR. FOSTER: What's the difference between 60 million dead and a hundred million?

PROFESSOR: 40 million.

MR. FOSTER: Some difference.

PROFESSOR: Are you prepared to say the saving of 40 million lives is of no importance?

MR. FOSTER: You miss the point, professor. The saving of those 60 million lives is what's important.

PROFESSOR: Fact facts, Mr. Foster, we're talking about war. I say every war, including thermonuclear war, must have a winner and a looser. Which would you rather be?

MR. FOSTER: In a nuclear war, everyone looses. War isn't what it used to be.

PROFESSOR: Still a resolution of economic and political conflict.

MR. FOSTER: Well, what kind of resolution with 100 million dead?

PROFESSOR: It doesn't have to be 100 million.

MR. FOSTER: Even 60?

PROFESSOR: Same as a thousand years ago, sir, when you also had wars that whipped out whole peoples. The point is who wins and who looses: the survival of a culture.

MR. FOSTER: A culture, with most of its people dead, the rest dying, the food poisoned, the air unfit to breathe. You call that a culture.

PROFESSOR: Yes I do. I am not a poet; I am a political scientist, who would rather have an American culture survive than a Russian one.

WOMAN: Yes, but what would it be like really? What would it be like? Who would survive?

PROFESSOR: Who would survive? Interesting question. I would predict convicts and file clerks. The worst convicts, those deep down in solitary confinement, and the most ordinary file clerks, probably for large insurance companies. Because, they would be in fireproof rooms, protected by tons of the best insulator in the world, paper. And imagine what will happen: A small group of vicious criminals will fight the army of file clerks for the remaining means of life. The convicts will know violence; but he file clerks will know organization. Who do you think will win?

Ha Ha. All hypothesis of course, but fun to play around with. And time to go home. I didn't mean to hold court so long. I don't usually come to a supper party and talk right through until breakfast.

HOST: How's that professor, we were fascinated. I just hope we didn't keep you from your work.

PROFESSOR: Not at all. I have a ten o'clock meeting at the Pentagon. I still have time to go home and change.

While driving Ilsa Wolfe home from the party, and hearing her thinly-veiled erotic pleasure at flirting with the idea of nuclear war and mass death, Professor Groeteschele sizes her -- and himself -- up.

PROFESSOR: I make death into a game for people like you to get excited about. I watched you tonight. You'd love making it possible.

You'd love pressing that button. What a thrill that would be.

Knowing you have to die...to have the power to take everyone else with you...the mob of them with their plans, their little hopes, born to be murdered and turning away from it, closing their eyes to it.

You could be the one to make it true, do it to them. But you're afraid, so you look for the thrill someplace else.

And who better than a man who isn't afraid?

Shit. Might as well be Charles Krauthammer driving Coultergeist back from a particularly exhilarating Two Minutes Hate.

Later, the Professor addresses a wargaming seminar at the Pentagon…

BLACK: We're talking about the wrong subject. You've got to stop war, not limit it.

PROFESSOR: That, that is not up to us General Black.

BLACK: We're the ones who know most about it.

GENERAL: You're a soldier Blacky, you carry out policy.

BLACK: Don't kid yourself. The way we say a war can be fought is making policy. If we say we can fight a limited war with nuclear weapons, all we do is let everyone off the hook. That's what they want to hear. We can just keep on doing what we're doing and nobody really gets hurt. Well you can't fight a limited war and you know it.

PROFESSOR: For my part, I'm not so sure.

BLACK: There's no such thing as a limited war anymore. Not with hydrogen bombs there isn't. Once those bombs start to drop you won't be able to limit a damn thing.

PROFESSOR: Are you advocating disarmament, General Black?

BLACK: I don't know.

PROFESSOR: It's the logic of your position. Peculiar reversal, the press would be interested. The military man who is the dove and the civilian who is the hawk.

BLACK: We're going too fast. Things are getting out of hand.

SECRETARY: Can you be more specific, General?

BLACK: We all try to make war more efficient.

GENERAL: That's our job.

BLACK: And we're succeeding; we now have the capacity to blow up the whole world.

PROFESSOR: Which does not mean we must do it.

BLACK: We won't be able to stop from doing it. That's the logic of your position, Groeteschele. We are setting up a war machine that acts faster than the ability of men to control it. We are putting men into positions that are getting too tough for them to handle.

PROFESSOR: Then we must toughen the men.

GENERAL: Suppose they launch a first strike against us?

BLACK: Then we retaliate, and we're all finished.

PROFESSOR: Oh, would you prefer that only we were finished?

GENERAL II: We have to prepare.

BLACK: We're preparing. We've got to slow down.

PROFESSOR: I disagree; we've got to speed up! Naturally, that means taking risks. But our intention is always to minimize those risks. Of course, we can only control our own actions. Our concept of limited war is based on equal rationality on the part of the Russians. It also presupposes there will be no accidents on either side. But, suppose for an example that unidentified flying object was one of their 50-megaton missiles that had gotten loose by mistake. What could be done? How could they prove it was really an accident? Would it make any difference if they could? Even if we believe them, should we still think in terms of limiting our response, or should we hit them back with everything we have?

(Spoiler Alert, sort of. Although if you actually haven’t seen “Fail Safe” in the 42 years since it was shot, well, shame on you)

And after an accident has inadvertently committed American bombers to a nuclear strike on Moscow -- after WWIII seems imminent and everyone is working feverishly to stop the world from exploding -- what advice does the Professor offer to help understand and deal with the enemy?

--

PROFESSOR: In my opinion, they will take no action at all.

GENERAL: They won't just sit there.

PROFESSOR: I think if our bombers get through, the Russians will surrender.

SECRETARY: Will you explain your statement, Professor?

PROFESSOR: The Russian aim is to dominate the world. They think that Communism must succeed eventually...if the Soviet Union is left reasonably intact. They know that a war would leave the Soviet Union utterly destroyed. Therefore, they would surrender.
…

PROFESSOR: These are Marxist fanatics, not normal people. They do not reason the way you reason, General Black. They're not motivated by human emotion such as rage and pity. They are calculating machines. They will look at the balance sheet, and they will see they cannot win.

SECRETARY: Then you suggest doing what?

PROFESSOR: Nothing.

SECRETARY: Nothing?

PROFESSOR: The Russians will surrender...and the threat of Communism will be over forever.…

PROFESSOR: Mr. Secretary, I am convinced when the Russians know bombs will fall on Moscow, they will surrender. They know that whatever they do then, they cannot escape destruction. Don't you see, sir? This is our chance.

We never would have made the first move deliberately...but Group Six has made it for us by accident. We must take advantage of it. History demands it. We must advise the President not to recall those planes.
…

A bloodthirsty call for a sneak attack.

A rationale for preemptive war, based not a specific threat but on a radically dehumanized perception of the enemy’s “real” nature as filtered through an extreme, right-wing ideology.

And at the moment of maximum chaos and crisis, when any false move could set the Earth on fire, a shrill council to pump up the volume

Sound familiar?

And then finally we must come inevitably to “Dr. Strangelove” for the final detailing, from whence the opening photo for this post was snatched.

(Note: This is from the original script, which was changed quite a bit by Kubrick during production. For instance, General Buck Turdigson [George C. Scott] was originally called “Buck Schmuck”, and quite a lot of the lines that were originally allocated to Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper [Sterling Hayden] were reassigned or recut for Turgidson. So if the who-said-what of this doesn’t quite jib with your memory, well, there you go. That, or maybe you’re just losing your mind.)


We pick up the completely unhinged General Ripper and the increasingly alarmed Major Mandrake talking about the horrors of a nuclear war and we hear the Proto-Neocon’s flatly affected disregard for human life…

GENERAL RIPPER
You're absolutely right. You forgot to mention
their nuclear subs. But it wouldn't matter.
Sure we wouldn't get off without getting our
hair mussed, but we'd prevail. I don't think
we'd lose more than fifty million people, tops.

MAJOR MANDRAKE
(hesitatingly)
But if you just let things alone, we wouldn't
lose anyone.

...their certainty that is you do not agree with them, you must be dangerously naïve...

GENERAL RIPPER
Major Mandrake, I guess you don't follow what's
going on too closely, do you?

MAJOR MANDRAKE
Where, sir?

GENERAL RIPPER
(smiles patronisingly)
Where? Everywhere, Major. Everywhere.
...

GENERAL RIPPER
(the prosecutor makes
his point)
Then don't you realize the Bomb gives us
Peace not War? And, if that's the case, I
ask you again: Why do they want disarmament?

MAJOR MANDRAKE
(despairing)
Well, sir, like I said, for the same reasons
we do. I mean, all the experts say the most
likely way for War to start nowadays is by
an accident, or a mistake, or by some mentally
unbalanced person --
(lets his voice trail off)

MANDRAKE's discretion was unnecessary for it would never occur
to GENERAL RIPPER that anyone would think him mentally unbalanced.

GENERAL RIPPER
Go on, Major.

MAJOR MANDRAKE
(gaining confidence)
I was just going to say, as long as the
weapons exist, sooner or later something's
going to happen -- and that'll be it for
both countries.

GENERAL RIPPER
I've heard the arguments. Like Napoleon's
quote, "There's one thing you can't do with
a bayonet, and that's - sit on it."

MAJOR MANDRAKE
That's right, sir. And don't forget in a
few years a lot of other countries will have
the bomb. What if they start something?

GENERAL RIPPER
Go on, Major. You fascinate me.

MAJOR MANDRAKE
Well, sir, I remember an example that pointed
out that if a system was safe on 99.99% of the
days of the year, given average luck it would
fail in thirty years.

Their perfect, ideological faith that “the enemy” is, in toto, so utterly irrational and alien that none of them can even be trusted to act in the interests of their own survival…

GENERAL RIPPER
I still ask, why do they want disarmament?

MAJOR MANDRAKE
Well, for the same reasons we do, sir.
Don't you see?

GENERAL RIPPER
No, Major, I don't. They have no regard
for human life. They wouldn't care if
they lost their whole country as long as
they won.

MAJOR MANDRAKE
Gee, sir, that last remark doesn't exactly
make all the sense in the world.

And their unshakeable belief that if you disagree with them to any degree, you must be a traitor or a fool or a dupe of the crafty and all-powerful Enemy Other…

GENERAL RIPPER
(angrily)
Major, you're talking like one of them!

MAJOR MANDRAKE
(shook)
Well, I'm not, sir. Honestly, sir.

GENERAL RIPPER
Don't be offended, Major. Our President
holds the same views.

…

MAJOR MANDRAKE
Look, sir. I'm no expert on the subject,
but I've read some pretty sharp ideas the
big boys have. Like, say, both countries
agreeing to a million dollar reward and
international protection for anyone who
gives evidence of cheating to the inspectors.
You can't hide those things without a lot of
people knowing about it. And if I were
going to try and hide a few, I wouldn't want
to depend on the fact that some poor slob
isn't going to run and blab for a million
bucks. We're as smart as they are, and if
they cheat, or even hold back information,
we'd pull right out.

GENERAL RIPPER
(shaking his head)
Major, I hate to say this, but I think you've
been enemy indoctrinated, and you don't even
know it.

The Kristols of the world have been with us since the beginning.

And because their ideological bacilli can only flourish in the flesh wounds on the body of Democracy – in a that very particular and febrile Petri dish of fear, paranoia, constant external and internal threat and xenophobia – this is the world they seek to create, expand and defend.