All For The Greater Good
Here's some interesting reading---and with the renewed focus on Gannon-redux paid propaganda over the past few days, it's timely as well---on the behind-the-scenes spinmeisters and enablers of the faulty prewar intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq (ten more U.S. troops killed today in pacified Fallujah, by the way). It also provides some insight into the type of people for whom war is a very profitable business.
You know, in a perverse sort of way, the more that's revealed about the massive effort that went into the prewar intelligence-shaping and media-spinning, the more I think the Bush administration believed WMD's actually existed. I mean, would the administration really have gone to all that trouble to convince everyone of Saddam's imminent threat knowing that eventually the fraud would be revealed? Wouldn't some of the more ethically challenged ones---whose names we're quite familiar with right now---have taken it upon themselves to make sure WMD's were "found" if that was deemed necessary? Or was a shadowy Heckuva Job type in charge of that effort and it got botched?
You know, in a perverse sort of way, the more that's revealed about the massive effort that went into the prewar intelligence-shaping and media-spinning, the more I think the Bush administration believed WMD's actually existed. I mean, would the administration really have gone to all that trouble to convince everyone of Saddam's imminent threat knowing that eventually the fraud would be revealed? Wouldn't some of the more ethically challenged ones---whose names we're quite familiar with right now---have taken it upon themselves to make sure WMD's were "found" if that was deemed necessary? Or was a shadowy Heckuva Job type in charge of that effort and it got botched?
posted by The Cunning Realist at Friday, December 02, 2005
16 Comments:
If there's enough money to be made the risks are secondary considerations - especially to financial cowboys. They have always played us for chumps. And in 2004 we delivered.
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Well, yeah, I think they did believe Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Or at least he probably did. He had them at one time and, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I have never supported this war nor this president, but I thought Hussein probably had weapons too! It was the idea that he could threaten us with them that I always found ridiculous. So the lying and spinning was needed to convince us that he could threaten us. When the weapons didn't show up, we just looked that much stupider.
I was also surprised that weapons were not planted and then "found". But I guess since they were so sure that there would be weapons there, there was no plan in case there were none. Just as there was no plan in case we weren't greeted as liberators (jeez, what another transparent crock!).
Nah, you don't understand the post-modern orientation of the White House image-meisters. There was no need to produce WMD---all it took was enough articles stating they had been found to create a permanent belief in a gullible minority. Many people believe we actually found nuclear weapons in Iraq, ready to use.
I believe that they did NOT think there were WMDs there, but rather that such wild success would result after the war that the impetus would be forgotten/forgiven in the face of such progress. An analogue would be the way the Enrons and Worldcoms of the late '90s started fudging data - everyone would eventually be so rich, they perhaps believed, that people wouldn't delve into past financial transactions or reports.
What I think they (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, et al) really did believe was that it would be easy to radically change Iraq and thus the Middle East - they (wishfully) bought into Chalabi's idea of being greeted as liberators. And when they felt that that was a high-odds outcome, anything could be justified to set the whole thing into motion.
Great blog - I enjoy reading it.
Well, one report has it that Brewster-Jennings intercepted a shipment of WMDs in the form of binary VX nerve gas from Turkey meant to be delivered, and one presumes subsequently 'salted', into Iraq in late 2002. So, perhaps like everything else the Bush administration has touched, they TRIED to plant WMDs, but they f'ed this one up too.
Hmmmm. Turkey. Yeah, that was the place from whence we THOUGHT we'd be able to invade Iraq, until they suddenly said, uh, no thanks.
Hmmmmm. Remember what happened to Brewster Jennings? Yeah, their entire operation was shut down when they were outed by the White House in 2003. Hmmmmmm.
I think if Bush was ever serious about WMD, he lost all credibility when he made fun about not finding WMD; That mentality is too sick, too perverse. When our men and women are fighting, dying, losing limbs because they were sent to find WMD, you don't go and make a comedy sketch out of it.
I bought 2 magazines in March of 2003 to help figure out what was going on - I understood the fight on terrorism and getting Bin Ladden; but preemptive strikes on questionable/manipulated information - that was a huge step. I've watched Frontline and heard Buffett and Turner talk about nuclear proliferation. It is very serious business and was a war on this country the longterm fix? The Iraq war was being jammed down our throats, and most media was absent or complicit. Mother Jones basically said it was oil and went into a lot of history. Time magazine said it was a fight between Cheney and Powell. Originally Blair wanted to concentrate on terrorism, Bin Ladden, Afghanistan, and working internationally in an ongoing basis. When we were being told war was a last option, everything was being done, and we were talking before the UN, Time reported "diplomacy was suspiciously lacking". They decided on war very early on, and they were trying to build a case. Wolfowitz said it was a "matter of emphasis". Cheney goes behind Powell's back, and Bush comes out of his office and says "F* Saddam", we're taking him out." Cheney has been caught in too many lies or call them convenient exaggerations, he likes secrecy and I don't think he can be trusted to tell the American public the truth, ever. He's a master manipulator.
Why did the admin go into attack-mode on anyone that just wanted to ask questions about why and how? We had representatives changing the name of fries; radio stations boycotting country western singers. We are a Democracy, and they were talking preemptive strikes. No, there is much, much more to this.
The inspectors were allowed back in and weren't finding anything. Plus lets not forget about PNAC and their plans. And what's up with this Chalabi?
Nightline, on Fri, was very interesting talking to people in Iraq (make sure to watch the video). It just makes one sick, this terrible situation, for us and the Iraqi people; when perhaps it didn't have to be.
Richard Clarke was on the Daily Show, and made an interesting comment (goto commedy central and look for Richard Clarke's video).
He made an interesting point. It's like looking at a world solution, rather than a pinhole solution. The question should be: WMD, so what; he had WMD 20 years ago; in the first Iraq war he didn't use WMD against us in 1991. I think it goes back to Wolfowitz's, "matter of emphasis". Isn't it interesting that Wolfowitz, like McNamara, went onto run the world bank. But if the reasons were so right, that we were going to war, where men, women, and children die, shouldn't that reason be enough? Here we were going to war, and they didn't have the strength in character to stand in front of the American people and be straight with us. That's akin, no it's much worse, than Clinton waving his finger at us.
Why did the administration feel they had to exchange reasons to go to war? Should we ever go to war on a lie? We need to fix Iraq, the best we can, and our imagine throughout the world...
Have you been following this Cunningham situation? Early this year Cunningham gave the "I am not a crook - how dare you" speech. But during his resignation and his guilty plea to bribery (he was on the house defense appropriation sub committee and house intelligence committee - and sold his position to defense contracts) he said this: "I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth. So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public -- even myself."
I wonder how many other people continue down the same destructive path because they aren't strong enough. I hope we didn't go to war because someone was not strong enough to admit an error. I hope this adminsitration becomes more tolerant, inclusive, and listens to diverse people.
I agree with ser, Bush et al figured all their sins would be swept under the blanket of a quick and total victory. I doubt they thought Iraq had WMDs. What commander in chief in his right mind (ok, well, he did have some sane people around him) would dare risk sending American troops into a madman's nest if he thought there was a chance said madman would unleash such weapons when cornered and threatened with his survival? It was all a sham, as I believe any sentient, non-partisan person readily and repeatedly discerned in the run up to the war.
You know, I actually don't think they cared if there were WMD's. That was just a convienent reason to invade Iraq and throw out Hussein. It was a perfect storm. Bush, the ninny, wanted to avenge his dad, and the PNAC crowd wanted to remake the Middle East into a democratic mecca. OOPS, both reasons were wrong.
That explains the never ending invention of reasons/excuses/explanations for why we invaded. Tell it to the over 2000 dead soldiers families or the over 15,000 injured soldiers.
“European wars are caused by diplomats lying to journalists and then believing what they read in the newspapers” -- Karl Kraus
I'm willing, for the sake of kindness, to allow that they were fooled by their own echo-chamber. I'm not, however, going to forgive them until they admit it and apologize.
Hypothesis: In the 1991 Gulf War, after ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, the United States was determined to invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein from power, and pursue the same goals it is pursuing in Iraq today. It was "deterred" from doing so only because Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons then, deployed and ready to be used against U.S. troops if they had proceeded towards Baghdad.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8206
Hypothesis: In the 1991 Gulf War, after ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, the United States was determined to invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein from power, and pursue the same goals it is pursuing in Iraq today. It was "deterred" from doing so only because Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons then, deployed and ready to be used against U.S. troops if they had proceeded towards Baghdad.
You don't think maybe George Bush senior was smart enough to realize what a clusterfuck an invasion of Iraq would turn into? He said as much. Jeez, get a grip. Oh, and chemical weapons- Give me a break. If they were a serious strategic weapon, you'd see a hell of a lot more of them. CW are a nuisance weapon. They have no place being even remotely considered in the same class as nuclear weapons.
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