Norman Mailer Sounds Off On Iraq

Even two years later his critique still resonates. The thing about Mailer is that he doesn't pull any punches. His langauge is brutal hisare scathing. He asks, "why did we go to war?" And answers, in terms not like those used to justify the zeal with which young European men joined ht efighting in the First World War:

And there were other factors for using our military skills, minor but significant these reasons return us to the ongoing malaise of the white American male. He had been taking a daily drubbing over the last thirty years. For better or worse, th women's movement has had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white mal ego has withered in the glare. Even the consolation of rooting for his team on TV ha been skewed. For many, there was now measurably less reward in watching sport than there used to be, a clear and declarable loss. The great white stars of yesteryear were for the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and half gone in baseball. Black genius now prevailed in all these sports (and the Hispanics were coming up fast; even the Asians were beginning to make their mark). We white men were now left with half of tennis (at least its male half), and might also point to ice hockey, skiing, soccer, golf (with the notable exception of the Tiger), as well as lacrosse, track, swimming, and the World Wrestling Federation—remnants of a once great and glorious white athletic centrality.