Yeah, I understand why he’s making it, and it does work in a very limited sense, but ultimatly I think the analogy is self-defeating. Drawing an analogy between LotR and Iraq does more to highlight the similarities between the US and Sauron than it does the similarities between Sauron and the terrorists, which ultimatly defeats the position he’s trying to argue. It’s a bad analogy because it’s more likely to call to mind precisely the opposite of the point he’s trying to make.
Or at least, that’s how I reacted to it. Admittedly, I’m pretty well disposed to assume the opposite of just about anything Santorum says, so maybe that has more to do with it than anything else.
It’s probably never a good idea to use LotR as an analogy, since it’s so broad in its sweep that it can be manipulated almost any way one wants-- including to turn it around as you’ve done. Or a newspaper (see the link in the OP) can use it to give you a little jab:
It never fails; sooner or later, someone gets compared to The Eye of Mordor. Gollum’s Law strikes again.
This makes me sort of wonder what Senator Santorum thinks we should do if, God forbid, the Iraqi government ever did manage to restore order. If a terrorist-plagued Iraq makes America safer, then logically, America would be in greater danger if Iraq drew fewer terrorists. For our own safety, the U.S. must prevent peace in Iraq at all costs! Even now, our intelligence agencies have uncovered alarming reports of peaceful negotiations being carried out in secret locations across the country. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, north, and south somewhat…
Yes, as long as you equate the US government with the Eye, and America with Mordor. They wanted us to attack Iraq, and we’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted; in fact, it’s worked better on us than it did on Sauron, probably because Sauron was smarter than Bush. The terrorists would be more like Saruman than the Fellowship, however ( now I have an image of Osama screaming in Arabic “You know no pain, you know no fear . . . YOU WILL TASTE MAN-FLESH ! !” )
True, but I think that this particular analogy is really quite weak. Yes, I see the basic point about how the key element in each case is distraction, but the two situations are overall so dissimilar that I think the analogy confuses more than it clarifies. (Which, IMO, is precisely Santorum’s intention: just throw a rhetorical cloud of fuzzy positive associations at the Iraq situation and hope that some of them will stick in the minds of the audience, irrespective of how well they correspond to what’s actually happening.)
Moreover, the moral equivalence the analogy shamelessly attempts to imply between the last stand of Gondor and the “fight 'em over there instead of over here” policy makes it absolutely inexcusable, IMO. If Santorum wants to defend a policy of callously treating Iraq and Iraqis as nothing but a convenient battlefield to keep terrorists busy far from our own sacred soil, let him defend it on its own merits, if it has any. Not by dishonestly equating it with a strategy of genuine heroism. Santorum’s War of the Rings analogy is bad both descriptively and morally.
I believe the appropriate response to Santorum is to ask, “So, Mr. Senator, are you saying that we have intentionally turned Iraq into a terrorist-infested anarchic hellhole where hundreds of civilians die violently every day, and that we don’t want the situation there to improve lest the terrorists cease being distracted?”
I’m reminded of a comment a while back on another board. Someone asked “What would Sauron do in the modern world ?” A poster answered, "He’d go from world leader to world leader, seducing and corrupting them, until he got to Bush. Then upon meeting Bush, he’d say ‘Master ! You have returned !’ "
I will absolutely agree that the more one analyzes this analogy, the more it falls apart. But that true of most analogies.
I agree 100%. That’s exactly what I meant when I said I don’t support his strategy. It’s morally repugnant to think that we drew al Qaeda into Iraq to fight them there. Iraq = bait? :eek:
If Bush is the manifestation of pure evil…well, good is going to have to be dumber than usual not to win easily. looks at “opposition” party Nevermind…
It would actually be more accurate to say that Al Qaeda drew us to Iraq, at least in the sense that they wanted us there and what to keep us there where it’s easy and fun to kill Americans. According to the CIA, Osama wanted Bush to win in 2004 and that’s why he released his video at the time. So the reverse LOTR analogy actually fits a LOT better with the facts. The Races basically worked as hard they could to empty Mordor of all its defenses so a smaller operation could sneak in and inflict massive damage.
