[CLUE-Talk] a new note in the usa/iraq tune

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:18:01 -0800
Randy Arabie <randy at arabie.org> wrote:

> Quoting Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb at dissociatedpress.net>:
> > 
> > Well, we'll get a lot of "it doesn't really matter that the
> > administration [was totally lying about WMD being the rationale for 
> > war | was completely incompetent] because Saddam was a bad, bad, bad 
> > man."
> 

> After years of sanctions and inspections we were left with:

Note that the "sanctions" were U.N. sanctions. Note that the U.N. did
not approve of the use of force against Iraq. 

The administration continually sold the war with Iraq as something that
had to be done to protect the U.S. -- right now! That assertion is being
proven wrong -- there was no immediate threat from Iraq. 

> 1. A very incomplete picture of what was going on in Iraq;

Wait -- I thought we *had* a complete picture -- that's what all that
intelligence was that they sold us, right? A complete picture that was
convincing to the Bush administration that Iraq was pursuing WMD. You
can't have it both ways, Randy -- either we *knew* that they had WMD and
that justified the war, or we had an incomplete picture and went to war
on a hunch. First the story was one way, now you want it the other way. 
Powell stood up before the U.N. to say that we had this convincing
picture of Iraq's WMD production and we know this and we know that and
so on and so forth. All the sudden it's now an "incomplete" picture. We
wanted the world to believe we were the experts on Iraqi WMD programs
last year, now we're supposed to convince people that we really had a
fuzzy picture of what was going on, but that it was compelling enough to
invade another country over? 

> 2. Continued deceptions from the Iraqi Regime; and
> 3. Continued non-compliance from the Iraqi Regime.
>
> Yes, it does appear that Iraq didn't have massive stockpiles of WMD of any
> sort.
>  But, there were still active WMD programs.  

"Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" is what Bush said this
year. Not "programs" -- "related program activities." In short -- there
weren't even full-fledged programs to create WMD, much less actual WMD
in Iraq.

> Given that, I still believe the war
> was justifiable.  

Of course you do. Better than admitting you were wrong. 

But I don't think it was justifiable. I don't think it's justifiable
that we've spent tens of billions of dollars on a course of action that
has made the U.S. internationally-hated and that has cost the lives of
hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis. War should be a last
resort, and only to protect the safety of the U.S. -- that's not what
happened here. 

> I don't think any other course of action would have prevented
> the continued redevelopment and production of WMD by the Iraqi regime.

Obviously, the course of action we were taking *had* prevented Iraq from
actually developing WMD. Again, the urgency to do something *right now*
was artificial. 

> I think the Administration needs to 'fess-up.  Explain why the intelligence
> analysts came to the conclusions they did.  Come up with a plan for making our
> intelligence agencies better.

Oh, nice way to toe the party line. Shift the blame to the intelligence
agencies.  

I think they need to 'fess up as well -- but not for the same reasons.
The administration cherry-picked intelligence reports to make a case for
a war they'd already decided on. Our intelligence could be better, but
the Bush administration ignored any evidence that did not support the
conclusion they had already reached -- that we were going to invade
Iraq.  

> I don't buy the notion that this news proves that the Bush Administration was
> lying about WMD in Iraq.  Why would they lie about such a thing, knowing full
> well that everyone would be chomping at the bit to see these stockpiles of WMD
> at the conclusion of the war?

Ever heard the expression "it's better to ask forgiveness than
permission"? 

They lied about it because they had already decided they wanted to go to
war with Iraq -- what the hell could we do afterwards when it's proved
that they're wrong? Un-invade Iraq? I don't think so. 

Randy -- you seem like a person who knows a bit about world history and
U.S. politics. That being the case, you should be well-aware that it's
standard operating procedure to lie to the public about what the
government is doing. Why you seem to think this is any different is
beyond me -- except that you don't want to admit to being wrong about
supporting the war in the first place. 

Worst-case scenario for the Bush administration, they get voted out of
office and go back to the public sector for a few years and draw
multi-million dollar salaries. The public's memory is fairly short --
why else would Donald Rumsfeld hold a position in the Bush
administration after being so cozy with Saddam back in the day before
the Kuwait invasion?

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm

So, yeah, I do believe that the administration would lie about the evidence in
order to support a course of action they'd already decided on. This is nothing
unusual in American politics or in the history of the world. What would be
unusual is if the administration had actually been telling the full and
unvarnished truth. That would be something new. 

Put the pieces together Randy. The Bush administration has been the most
secretive and anti-rights administration since Nixon. They don't seem to care
much for the will of the people (Bush has said as much, when saying that it
didn't matter how many people protested the war with Iraq). The administration
is full of people who subscribe to the ideology that we have to establish a
presence in the middle east -- what better place, then, than Iraq? It was the
most logical country to pick a fight with. 

> Even the most ardent Bush haters can't possibly believe he and his cronies are
> that dumb.

They didn't have to hold the lie forever, Randy -- just long enough to actually 
go through with invading Iraq. 

"Dumb" doesn't enter into it. I believe the administration knew full
well that the truth would come out eventually -- but the results are the
same, we've invaded Iraq and it's done with. We're more or less locked
into a course of action that was only supported by most people because
the administration went out with a full-scale misinformation campaign to
convince people that Iraq was this huge threat to the U.S. Turns out,
that's wrong. I wonder how many people would have supported the war if
the administration had presented their case as "Iraq hasn't been fully
compliant, and they might be trying to start up programs to create WMD.
They don't have any yet, and there are no WMD -- and there are no ties
between Iraq and al Qaeda, but We'd like to put thousands of Americans 
at risk to invade the country, and spent about $100 billion on removing 
Saddam from power." 

Zonker