Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

In Our Faces

In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility … it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

I suppose it’s a waste of breath to try to convince the media and the rightwingers that Bush is the biggest bald faced liar in history, but still, the internet is such a nice repository of documentary proof of this that it seems a worthy exercise, nonetheless, if only for the history books.

I had the sad experience of accidentally deleting one of my own posts over the week-end, one on which I spent a great deal of time. (I can only assume that my subconscious was trying to tell me something.) However, in the course of researching that post, I happened upon a very nice resource that handily catalogues all the president’s speeches (as well as other politicians’) and I came to realize something quite astounding. During the campaign Bush repeatedly lied about the reasons for the Iraq war, even based upon the irrefutable public record, and as best I can tell the travelling press corp never bothered to comment upon it.

I recall a slight kerfluffle a while back about Bush saying that Saddam refused to allow the inspectors into Iraq, which those of us in the blogosphere noted with stunned surprise, but which was pooh-poohed by the press as being just another Bushism. But he actually continued to say it; he just said it more artfully. It was still an outright lie. And the only people who paid any attention to these words were voters who hadn’t followed the lead up to the war in all its subterfuge and Machiavellian detail — many of whom undoubtedly believed the president.

As I was searching through the archives of Bush’s speeches, I found that these lies were part of his stump speech until just before the election in October of 2004 at which point he suddenly switched gears and started talking about “freedom on the march.” Up until then, however, he had consistently said something virtually every single day on the stump that was a lie.

More than one actually, and they are all doozies:

6/27/03

In Afghanistan and Iraq, we gave ultimatums to terror regimes. Those regimes chose defiance, and those regimes are no more. (Applause.)

8/26/03

We gave a clear ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that he must disarm. He chose to defy us, and Saddam Hussein is no more. (Applause.)

09/12/2003

And we have pursued the war on terror in Iraq. Our coalition enforced the demands of the U.N. Security Council, in one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history. Because of our military, catastrophic weapons will no longer be in the hands of a reckless dictator. (Applause.)(Applause.)

10/18/2003

But it wasn’t just us who recognized a threat. Free nations recognized the threat. The United Nations passed resolution after resolution after resolution calling upon Mr. Saddam Hussein to disclose his weapons and to disarm. And finally, in Security Council resolution 1441, led by the United States, he was told that he had one, final chance to disarm — disclose what he had and disarm, or there would be serious consequences. The world spoke, he chose defiance, and Saddam Hussein is no more. (Applause.)

10/22/03

Since the liberation of Iraq, we have discovered Saddam’s clandestine network of biological laboratories, the design work on prohibited long-range missiles, his elaborate campaign to hide illegal weapons programs. Saddam Hussein spent years frustrating U.N. inspections, for a simple reason — because he was violating U.N. demands. And in the end, rather than surrender his programs and abandon his lies, he chose defiance, and his own undoing.

1/15/04

Terrorists declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got. We’ve captured or killed many of the key leaders of the al Qaeda network, and the rest of them know we’re on their trail. In Afghanistan, and in Iraq, we gave ultimatums to terror regimes. Those regimes chose defiance, and those regimes are no more. (Applause.)

2/24/04

September the 11th affected my way of thinking when it came to the security of the country. We saw a danger, and so I gave him an ultimatum-the world really gave him an ultimatum. And he refused. (Applause.)

3/4/04

In 2002, the U.N. Security Council yet again demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs. As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. (Applause.)

5/3/04

Now, anytime an American President says, disarm, or face serious consequences, the American President better mean it. When the Commander-in-Chief speaks for the country, I believe the person ought to speak clearly and mean what he says. And so I acted on those sentiments, as well. I said, Mr. Saddam Hussein, disarm, or face serious consequences. He chose not to. He defied the world again.

5/13/04

My administration looked at the facts and the history and looked at the intelligence in Iraq, and we saw a threat. Members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a threat. In 2002, the United Nations Security Council yet again demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs. They did so because they saw a threat. And as he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. He deceived the inspectors. He did everything he can to deny access to the truth.

7/14/04

The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in.

8/29/04

Because the use of force should be the last option of the Commander-in-Chief, the very last option, I went to the United Nations in the hopes that diplomacy would solve the threat. You might remember, the debate went on, and after consideration, the U.N. Security Council voted 15 to nothing to say to Saddam Hussein, disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. So the world spoke.

As he had for over a decade, he defied the demands of the free world. This wasn’t the only U.N. resolution he ignored. We then sent inspectors in-or the world sent inspectors in, and he systematically deceived the inspectors.(Applause.)

9/27/04

Before the Commander-in-Chief commits troops into harm’s way, he must try everything possible to prevent war. And so I went to the United Nations hoping that diplomacy would finally work with Saddam Hussein. That’s why I went there. I have a duty to the moms and dads and husbands and wives of those who wear the uniform to try everything to protect our country without the use of the military. And so I stood in front of the United Nations and made the case. They looked at the same intelligence I did, they remembered the same history, and they voted 15 to nothing to say to Saddam Hussein: disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. I believe when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. (Applause.)

Saddam Hussein didn’t believe it. He didn’t believe it. Last year — after all, for 16 years, he had ignored the United Nations — excuse me, 10 years, 16 resolutions. That’s resolution, after resolution, after resolution. As a matter of fact, when they sent inspectors into his country, he systematically deceived them. Diplomacy wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t about to listen to our demands. So we gave him a last chance; he ignored the last chance. And then I had a choice to make: take the word of a madman, forget the lessons of September the 11th, or do what’s necessary to defend this country. Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)

At about this time in the last month of the campaign, his stump speech changed:

October 6, 2004

I understand some Americans have strong concerns about our role in Iraq. I respect the fact that they take this issue seriously. It’s a serious matter. I assure them we’re in Iraq because I deeply believe it is necessary and right and critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and critical for long-term peace for our children and grandchildren. (Applause.)

If another terror regime were allowed to emerge in Iraq, the terrorists would find a home and a source of funding and a source of support, and they would correctly conclude that free nations do not have the will to defend themselves. If Iraq becomes a free society at the heart of the Middle East, an ally in the war on terror, a model for hopeful reform in that region, the terrorists will suffer a crushing defeat. (Applause.) And that is why Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman calls Iraq “a crucial battle in the global war on terrorism.” And that is why Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the struggle in Iraq “the crucible in which the future of global terrorism will be determined.” That is why the terrorists are fighting with desperate cruelty — they know their future is at stake. Iraq is no diversion. It’s a place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror, and we must not waver. (Applause.)

(That is particularly interesting in light of the recently revived and ever popular “flypaper” excuse. Bush just said on Saturday that it’s a good thing that terrorists are flocking to Iraq so that we could fight them over there — presumably so that useless wogs will be killed instead of innocent Americans.)

Bush slipped up again, however, as he got closer to the election and gave this speech on 10/12/04:

Before I ever commit troops into harm’s way, or any President, we must try all means to deal with the threat. No President ever wants to send our young into harm’s way. No President ever wants to have to do that. So I went to the United Nations, in hopes that diplomacy would work. That was my hope. I hoped that the free world would come together and make its voice clear, which it did. The Security Council voted 15-to- nothing, and said to Saddam Hussein, disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. Now, I believe that when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. (Applause.) And that goes for the President, as well. (Applause.)

Saddam Hussein had no intention of listening to the demands of the free world. He ignored the resolution. He deceived the inspectors that were trying to get into — that were in his country.[I think he really came to believe that Saddam wouldn’t let inspectors into the country. ed] Why should he change? This is resolution number 17. Resolution after resolution after resolution had been passed, and nothing happened. He wasn’t about to listen. As a matter of fact, when we gave him the final chance, he continued to deceive and evade. So I have a choice to make at this point in our history: Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend this country? Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)

We did not find — we did not find the stockpiles that we all thought were there. But I want to remind you what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein retained the intent, the knowledge, and therefore, the capability to rebuild his weapons programs. Now, think about that.

The sheer chutzpah of that entire statement is actually quite dazzling. He was very sneaky all along saying that the security council voted unanimously for Saddam to disarm or face “serious consequence,” while leaving the impression that the security council also agreed that this was all that was required for the US to invade. As we know, they didn’t agree at all. With the exception of the US and Britain, the security council believed the inspections were working and that 1441 did not give any automatic authorization to invade. The security council did not authorize the US and Britain to go to war under 1441, yet Bush repeatedly implied that they did all through the campaign and nobody called him on it.

But that was slick spin that the press was too lazy to unwind. What is stunning is that all through the campaign, almost until election eve, Bush continued to say that Saddam refused to disarm, defying the world and the UN. The truth was that even at the time the consensus was that Saddam was giving the inspectors unprecedented cooperation. And more importantly,by the fall of 2004, for at least a year we had known definitively that Saddam had no arms. Therefore, Bush’s reasonsing, quite artfully put together I admit, is nonetheless adsurd — so much so, I suspect, that people couldn’t quite figure out a way to approach it. It truly is the best example I’ve seen of “The Big Lie.” It’s almost as if Bush was daring people to refute him, knowing full well that it was such an illogical claim that it would make people uncomfortable to call him on it. (Indeed, he had ample reason to think so — nobody had called him on his earlier assertion that Saddam refused to let the inspectors in at all, which is simply delusional.)

Today the media are yawning and telling us that Bush making an irrevocable decision to go to war almost immediately after 9/11 is old news. “Everybody already knew that,” they say. And yet the president of the United States, time after time after time, lied directly to Americans in his campaign speeches, in addresses to fundraisers and, by extension, on the local news throughout the country by saying that the United Nations backed his decision to invade on the basis of the fact that Saddam refused to disarm. Everything about that statement is false. And yet even though he said it hundreds of times, and the press also now says they knew that Bush had decided tyo go to war as early as 2001, nobody said a word.

I didn’t either. I’ll be honest. I didn’t because I couldn’t bear to listen to Bush’s stump speech so I didn’t realize that he said this every day. However, the campaign press corpse, if they could hear the speech over the cacophany of piped in applause and the sound of their own drooling over all that delicious campaign food, never bothered to report this glaring lie. Neither, for some reason, did the Democrats. It’s almost as if everybody just accepted the fact that the Big Lie was unstoppable and assumed that there was nothing they could do about it.

But there is really no excuse for the press to let this lie go unaddressed. He was saying this constantly all over the country and it was being picked up by local news and newspapers and repeated verbatim. I know it’s hard to believe, but not everybody reads the NY Times and the Washington Post. A hell of a lot of Americans heard, without refutation, that Bush had the backing of the UN for the invasion and that he invaded as a last resort because a defiant Saddam refused to disarm. Again, that entire premise is false.

This is another reason why the Downing Street Memos mean something. It’s not just that Bush and his cadre decided to go to war long before they admitted it — they also lied repeatedly after the fact about their reasons and legal basis for doing it. It may be the most baldfaced lie a president has ever made to the American public — even eclipsing “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” which Clinton only said on television once (and was repeated as evidence of his lying, thousands of times by the news media.)

As Juan Cole points out here(noticing as well that he’s lying about the UN) Bush said it again just the other day:

“And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a — put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.”

It is shocking journalistic malpractice not to point out every single time he says this that the security council does not agree that 1441 authorized the president to go to war, and in fact Britain tried mightily to get authorization and couldn’t do it. It is also malpractice to continue to allow Bush to say that Saddam “defied,” “ignored” or otherwise thwarted the inspections leaving us no choice. HE WAS COMPLYING. WE PULLED THE INSPECTORS OUT OF THERE. AND THERE WERE NO WMD.

In this very interesting TOM Dispatch, Mark Danner, who wrote the first real expose of the DMSs in The NYRB, of all places, responds to critics who say that this is old news. (Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is relevant to my point:

The memo, moreover, is not an anonymous statement to reporters but a record of what Britain’s highest security officials actually said. It tells us much about how the decision was made, and shows decisively that, as I wrote in my article, “the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible.”

And as I have illustrated above, even after the facts on the ground were well known, Bush continued to use Saddam’s non-existent defiance of UN weapons inspections as his cassus belli throughout the presidential campaign — and the press allowed him to do it.

For the record,
this was the situation on March 7, two weeks before the invasion:

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said what he heard from the chief inspectors’ reports Friday morning was a “catalogue still of noncooperation” and that what cooperation Iraq gave came grudgingly and “primarily under the threat of force.” He also said that he expected a vote next week because “I don’t think this can just continue on and on and on.”

Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told the council that inspectors have been given prompt access to Iraqi sites and have faced “relatively few difficulties.” He said Iraq’s cooperation could be a result of strong outside pressure.

ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the council that inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program.

[…]

Blix said Iraq has not resolved all of the remaining issues regarding its weapons programs. He said that verifying Baghdad’s disarmament would take time and that inspectors would need to remain once it was completed.

Blix also said that he hoped Iraq would be more forthcoming with documents and other evidence. And he said Iraq has given inspectors names of people who helped destroy biological and chemical weapons in 1991. The availability of names indicates that Iraq should have records, he said.

Blix said inspectors have not found any evidence of mobile or underground weapons facilities. He said Iraq is making a serious effort to quantify biological and chemical weapons destroyed in 1991, unearthing several complete bombs from a re-excavated site.

Blix added that Baghdad also must account for how much of the weapons were produced.

ElBaradei said inspectors have found no evidence that high-strength aluminum tubes and powerful magnets Iraq has purchased were intended to produce nuclear weapons.

ElBaradei also said accusations that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger are “unfounded.”

He said Iraqi scientists have agreed to be interviewed without escorts or recording devices, and that inspectors were still seeking to have those interviews conducted outside the country.

Here was the state of play a week later, just five days before the invasion:

President Bush will meet the leaders of Britain and Spain in the Azores Islands on Sunday for a “final pursuit” of a U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, the White House announced this morning.

“In an effort to pursue every last bit of diplomacy the president will depart Sunday morning for the Azores to Meet Prime Minister [Tony] Blair and Prime Minister [Jose] Aznar to discuss prospects for resolving the situation peacefully with diplomacy in final pursuit of a United Nations resolution,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. The Azores, part of Portugal, are in the Atlantic Ocean about 900 miles west of Lisbon.

The three countries are sponsors of a proposed resolution that would open the door to military action against Iraq if President Saddam Hussein failed to meet specific disarmament requirements within a very short time frame, probably less than a week. The resolution has been blocked by strong opposition from France, Russia, China and Germany. All four are members of the Security Council; France, Russia and China are permanent members with power to veto any resolution.

Nothing changed. The UN refused to back to use of force. Three days later Bush gave this amazing speech [Read it. I’d forgotten what he said. ed] to the nation telling Saddam Hussein to leave within 48 hours. Ari Fleisher verified the very next day that we were invading whether Saddam left or not:

Q So the bottom line is, Americans are going to occupy Iraq, no matter what, at this point?

MR. FLEISCHER: The bottom line is, a coalition of the willing will disarm Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, no matter what.

Even if they haven’t any arms to dis.

While the press may find all this as hilarious as George W. Bush does, the DSMs show that Bush knew a year before the war that Saddam didn’t present a threat — and the public record shows that he knew for sure a month before the war that the inspectors hadn’t found any evidence of WMD and that Saddam had been cooperating. Indeed, one could easily conclude that he rushed to war to prevent the inspectors from making that conclusive.

And then he continued to lie with impunity for the next two years, up to this very minute, when he says he went to war as a last resort, with the support of the UN, because Saddam refused to disarm — despite the fact that we know definitively he didn’t have any arms. The press is evidently so insular and so cynical that they simply accepted that Bush was lying day in and day out to the American public in the presidential campaign. And now all we hear from the them is caterwalling about “old news.” That really is astonishing.

If you want to see Bush clumsily spinning like a top about Iraq, treat yourself to a re-reading of this debate transcript. Perhaps if the press had done its job during the campaign, or devoted even a fraction of the energy they devoted to Gore’s mother’s dog prescriptions, or Hillary donning a Yankee cap, this utter gibberish coming from the leader of the world would have been the death knell of his presidency as it should have been. Instead, it was just a “bad performance.” What a tragedy.

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Father Tim and The Flyboy

I don’t know how many of you bothered to sit through the Padre’s eyelash batting McCainiac flirtathon on Press The Meat this morning, but Arianna did and she homes in on one of Russert’s most annoying traits — indeed, it’s one of the most annoying traits I see across the TV wasteland. I don’t know if it’s that these people are getting so much direction in their ear pieces that they can’t hear what their subject is saying or if it’s that they are too self-absorbed to listen to anything but the sound of their own voices, but whatever the reason, they simply don’t seem to hear the answers to their questions. If they did, their shows wouldn’t become a sort of bizarre kabuki when things like this happen. From Arianna:

# McCAIN: Too often…the American people have been told that we’re at a turning point, whether it be the capture of Saddam Hussein, or Uday and Qusay, or the elections…

# McCAIN: It’s a hard slog, Tim. And we’ve made serious mistakes. And we’re paying a price for those mistakes.

# McCAIN: What I think we should do, Tim, is wait until we achieve the successes, then celebrate them, rather than predict them. Because too often that prediction has not proven to be true.

# McCAIN: The biggest mistake I think we made after September 11 was not calling on Americans to serve. We shouldn’t have just told them to go shopping or take a trip.

# McCAIN: The weight of evidence [in Guantanamo] has got to be that we’ve got to adjudicate these people’s cases, and…if it means releasing some of them, you’ll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial.

So after McCain ran down this laundry list of failures (and is there a more serious area for a president to fail than in war?), one would assume Russert would have asked him a question that would draw a conclusion of accountability for these mistakes. After all, these “mistakes” didn’t just happen. Shouldn’t Russert have pointed out, with all due respect to the senator, that “we” didn’t make these mistakes. That they were made, with not a small amount of hubris and incompetence, by specific people. And shouldn’t he have asked the “Straight Talk” senator to name these people?

And after that shouldn’t he have asked him if he agreed with his good friend and colleague Chuck Hagel, who is quoted in tomorrow’s US News and World Report saying: “the reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.”

But no, instead, he allowed him to say without a challenge:

McCAIN: On the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. … And I’m particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline…

I heard the same thing and I shook my head in wonder. Monsignor Tim gave a delicious little shudder when he heard that, I swear he did. But he didn’t seem to find it curious in the least.

Oh, and one other thing. After Dick Durbin does what JJ orders him to do and prostrates himself before the US Senate begging forgiveness for even thinking that we are treating prisoners in ways that might be compared to repressive totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, I expect JJ to apologize for implying that we are treating the prisoners in Guanatanano worse that we treated the Nazis. After all, he said: “Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial.”

Of course, what Mccain said is true. Just as what Dick Durbin said was true. We did treat captured Nazis better than we are treating captured cab drivers and assorted losers in Guantanamo. But then, I guess the Nazis weren’t the “transcendent” threat that “terror” is. The GWOT is unprecedented in its horror and requires that we forswear all trappings of civilization that might get in the way at any given moment. Good thing we citizens of today have a lot of TV and shopping malls to distract us, or we’d really be freaked out.

Still and all, if McCain runs, lets hope that Grover and the boys succeed in skuttling his candidacy. He’s a phony who doesn’t come across as one and that’s a very valuable trait. The beltway boys choir still loves the guy and they’ll help him any way they can. His problem is that he’s unacceptable to the theocrats and ideologues. But he’s just as unacceptable to us. He might not openly condone torture, but he said today that he’s open to confronting Syria. And he said a lot of other nonsense too. The guy is just as myopic about modern global threats as the rest of them.

Father Tim and his marching band love him because he’s the man they see looking back at them in the mirror when they blow dry what’s left of their hair. And maverick JJ loves the adulation just a little bit more than any authentic Real American should. But he hides it well, I’ll give him that. He’s the best actor they’ve got.

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Lil’ Blogger Sleuths

This is just adorable.

The lil’est blogger sleuths are all excited again about their biggest and bestest scoop in the whole wide world! First the lil fellas found out that icky ole Dan Rather was a bad man who couldn’t validate those funny looking Killian memos. And they won a great big prize, too, and everybody tol’ them what good boys they were.

So they put their little noggins together and thought really, really hard and figured out that the mean Democrats musta made up those dumb Martinez talking points about that dead girl cuzit couldn’t be true. It turned out that some dumb guy in Senator Martinez’s office wrote ’em, but he coulda been a mean Democrat anyway cuz he was so dumb.

And now they put on their lil’ thinkin’ caps and figured out all by themselves that the Downing Street memos are fakes too — all the icky memos just have to be fakes even when people who wrote ’em and read ’em say they aren’t! Cuz the lil’est blogger sleuths are on the case, an’ they know when memos are good and bad, so be good for goodness sakes!

Don’t tell anybody, but they look like Batman and Superman an’ the Flash, too and they can drive really fast cars and they can see through walls and beat up Democrats allthetime cuz … they’re the lil’ blogger sleuths of America! Yea! All the bad memos are fake, fake, fake!

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We CAN All Get Along

People talk a lot about cultural decay and declining values and the blame is usually placed on evil liberals. I suspect it is something much more simple than that. It’s because we are dumb as posts. If you don’t believe me, read this:

A recent Gallup survey shows that just about three in four Americans hold some paranormal belief — in at least one of the following: extra sensory perception (ESP), haunted houses, ghosts, mental telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, communicating with the dead, witches, reincarnation, and channeling. There are no significant differences in belief by age, gender, education, or region of the country.

Now, since we all know that a vast, vast majority of Americans are Christians and huge numbers of them are flocking to church pretty much seven days a week veritably drenching themselves in sanctimony, these numbers would seem to show that a good many of the pious Christians also believe in reincarnation or ghosts or astrology. I’m not sure how that works, but then I don’t find a whole lot of difference, personally, between any of it. But that’s just me.

However, it’s now obvious that we should be prepared to teach astrology, clairvoyance, witches and channelling alongside creationsim in the science classroom. After all, a lot of people “believe” in those things — and these beliefs have been around for millenia — so it isn’t right not to have them be part of any comprehensive science curriculum.

I expect, by the way, to see this movment come out of Un-Real America, in places like my own town, where “psychics” form a rather large part of the local new age belief systems. (People around here talk about psychics as if they are professionals.) But hey, if the Bible can be taught in science class, I see no reason to exclude the works of Shirley McClain or John Edwards (the ugly one.) And according to this poll it doesn’t sound as if most people would have a problem with that, even in Kansas.

Since more than three quarters of the public believe these things, then it’s possible that Real America has more in common with Un-Real America than we think. Maybe this is a Kumbaya moment in which we can all join hands and celebrate our common tradition, across all regional, gender, ethnic and religious lines, of believing in utter bullshit. Let the healing begin.

Thanks to Lindsay for the link.
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Why oh Y

Matt Yglesias took up the “why did we invade Iraq?” meme on Tuesday and others have followed. Matt says:.

… there’s a difference between observing that the United States went into war without a plan — without a realistic assessment of what we could accomplish, how it could be accomplished, and whether the costs of such a course of action would outweigh the benefits — and the news that our main ally in the conflict made that observation long before the war happened. Yet the Brits joined up anyway. Why?

To this day, no one really knows. The impression one gets from the British memos is that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s assessment was that the United Kingdom is well served by a policy of standing by the United States under virtually any conceivable circumstances, no matter how ill-advised any particular venture may happen to be. That’s not the kind of thing you tell your voters, but I think a surprisingly strong case can be made in its favor.

But what was the White House after? Why did they do it? We have plenty of evidence that not only were the specific claims the administration made about WMD false (often knowingly so), but also that all of this was basically irrelevant to their actual thinking about why we should go to war.

But what were they thinking?

Maybe someone will someday be in a position to press a high ranking Bush official on this. It is doubtful that it will ever happen in the normal course of events, but perhaps “Woody” can catch Junior and the Retreads at a Crawford bar-b-que one of these days and get them to tell him on the q-t.

It’s quite interesting that in the responses to my post below on the subject, there are as many possible answers as there are lawyers on Larry King, which only proves my point. Meanwhile, the rightwingers are all screeching about liberal conspiracy theories as if we were talking about alien abduction instead of having a quite reasonable curiosity as to the real reason we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, showing our intelligence services to the world as incompetent boobs, and weakening our military to the point of real risk.

Let me be clear. Nobody saying that there was a conspiracy. What we are wondering is why, in light of the information that they knew Saddam wasn’t a threat to US national security and knew that there were no terrorist ties, did they really want to invade — particularly after 9/11 when it had been made very clear that a real threat existed that needed our full attention?

For all I know they had a perfectly reasonable rationale. But whatever it was, it was not the one they said it was. We had just suffered a massive terrorist attack and the entire country was prepared to do whatever was necessary to prevent it happening again. Yet the governments of the US (colluding with Britain) decided very soon after 9/11 that invasion of Iraq was essential, a decision that has not been adequately explained. It is not conspiracy mongering to want to know why they did what they did.

Just as a reminder of what the legal rationale for the invasion was as it was presented to the congress, here is the text of the joint resolution that authorized the president to take military action:

JOINT RESOLUTION:

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq’s war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations’ and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations’;

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq; Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677′;

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),’ that Iraq’s repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,’ and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688′;

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge’ posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,’ while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable’; Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq’s ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002′.

SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS. The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to–

(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and
(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to–
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that–
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
(c) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS. (a) REPORTS- The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338).
(b) SINGLE CONSOLIDATED REPORT- To the extent that the submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress pursuant to the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), all such reports may be submitted as a single consolidated report to the Congress.
(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- To the extent that the information required by section 3 of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) is included in the report required by this section, such report shall be considered as meeting the requirements of section 3 of such resolution.

I defy anyone to read that and not admit that subsequent events and information raise serious questions about this invasion. The only offenses cited in that resolution that turned out to be true are:

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population … by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq … and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait

Now, I don’t know what the real reasons were. But of the reasons they cited to get legal authorization (although they would never admit they even needed legal authorization) these are the only ones that are still operative. Out of all that mumbo jumbo about threats to the United States and to the region and WMD and terrorism, this is all that’s left. And if that’s all we need, get ready, because there are a few dozen countries we are going to have to invade. Quite a few of them are our allies — especially Britain. (Talk about failing to return items unlawfully seized. Anybody been to the British Museum lately?) In fact, if this holds up as a legal basis for war, we’re going to have to invade ourselves.

It is not just cynical “told you so” partisan sniping to question the motives of those who took us to war based upon the reasons stated above. That resolution reminds us that the primary justifications have simply not been born out in fact and the Downing St Memos now show that they were aware they would not be borne out in fact before they submitted to the congress for authorization. The taxpayers of this country are shelling out a billion fucking dollars a week on an inscrutable action in a very dangerous part of the world and so far, they have nothing to show for it. The evidence that formed the legal bases for action as stated in that resolution has been shown to be false. We have a a right to know what in the hell they were really thinking.

As Matt points out in his article:

… we can’t even begin to formulate an Iraq policy without confidence that the policymakers are telling us something resembling the truth about what they’re trying to do and why.

Nor can we conduct any kind of reasonable diplomacy related to the situation as long as the nature of the situation remains shrouded in mystery and transparent deceptions. The issues are inextricably linked. The British memos have given us a tantalizing glimpse but don’t get to the heart of the matter. The recent right-wing assault on the character of Mark Felt can be read as an effort to encourage everyone to keep the American people in the dark, but the truth is bound to come out sooner or later. Better that it be done in time for it to do some good.

Yes, that would be nice.

Update: Fafnir offers what I think is the best analysis I’ve read:

…just as America’s enemies would love to know every American troop movement and battle plan, so would the jihadist foe also like to know why the United States is in Iraq at all. Is it a secret plan to lull the enemy into a false sense of winning? A grand plan to spread freedom in the form of militant Islamism? Is it all a massive fake out, a “look at Iraaaa… whooops, got yer Syria”? Is the entire War On Terror merely a front for a larger, grander, even nobler War On Something Else (War On Tyranny, War On Evil, War On War, War On Stuff)?

Only the Medium Lobster knows, and he refuses to compromise the safety and strategy of spin doctors in the field. Until victory is assured, Americans must trust that the plan is working – and that it exists.

I’m pretty sure this sums up the thinking of the 101st fighting keyboarders anyway. Trust, don’t verify. All hail the Emperor.

Update II: Liberal Oasis has a very cogent post on this topic as well.

I understand that many of us as individuals believe that we know why the administration took us to war. I have my pet theories. But the fact that these answers differ proves my point. The official rationale is clearly false and there is no consensus on the real rationale. This is absurd. We live in the United States of America, not the Soviet Union circa 1956 or Nazi Germany circa 1938. It is, dare I say it, unamerican for the “greatest country in the world” to invade and occupy another country for reasons that are not crystal clear. If I recall correctly, “moral clarity” was their mantra for over two years.

We may know that there were reasons for this operation that had nothing to do with the reasons they stated — but in order for us to properly proceed from here, they HAVE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. This means that we must relentlessly press them in whatever way we can on this subject.

Jesus, sorry for the typos. I’m in an inconvenient place for blogging.

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More Entertainment

Freepers on Schiavo:

“Just because the vision center of her brain was blind doesn’t mean her brain couldn’t have compensated somewhere else.”

“Considering that she died of intentionally inflicted starvation and DEHYDRATION, is it any wonder that her brain was half the size of a normal brain?”

“We have to remember that this is from the WaPo, not a credible news organization, so they might find it convenient to omit certain, necessary facts.”

Well we do know that Michael owns the County Sherriff so how hard would it be for him to buy the Medical Examiner. The only way I would have trusted the autopsy is if it was done by the FBI….”

And the wingnuts lecture left wing bloggers for being conspiracy nuts when we wonder why we invaded Iraq.

What is really interesting about this thread is that there are just as many Freepers who are calling out the nutballs as there are nutballs. This issue seriously divides the right. We should flog it mercilessly. That’s what they’d do to us if the shoe were on the other foot.

Every time a Christian right lunatic starts sanctimoniously pontificating about a “culture of life” we should talk about Terri. She is the symbol, in every way you can think of, of where this nation is headed if these radicals get what they are after.

Hat tip to BCF for the link.

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Support Guaranteed Health Insurance, Support Osama bin Laden

From my wingnut e-mailer, for your entertainment:

MORE DEMOCRATIC TREASON

Ronald Reagan expressed it most famously when he said , “why do they always blame American first?” Ann Coulter recently wrote an entire book called “Treason” about the Democrats. I recently turned on Air America, the new liberal radio network, to hear Al Frankin pretending to shed real tears about how much he loved our troops in Iraq but two minutes later his patriotism seemed to fade instantly as he made fun of the troops in Afghanistan for not finding Osama Bin Laden. Yesterday, Paul Krugman’s ultra liberal column in the Times dismissed the American free market, which is 100% responsibly for giving us the highest standard of living in the history of the world, in favor of single payer socialist healthcare.

So why do liberals hate America? The answer is simple: America, since the Revolution, has been mostly about freedom from gov’t and therefore about freedom from Democrats. Throughout American History the Democrats have always been for less and less freedom from gov’t despite the hundred million or so dead bodies gov’t has caused during that period. One has to consider that their philosophical illegitimacy is what makes their loyalty so questionable and their style so nasty and seemingly treasonous. They want to belong here but the facts always paint them as anti-American. In a way you have to feel sorry for the painful position in which they find themselves, but you also have to wonder why it is that they seem to have an absolute inability to learn to think?

The latest liberal treason award should probably go to The New York Times. We are at war in Iraq against Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party. By almost any standard we are the most noble country in the history of the world while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is among the most ignoble. Today, in fact, there is a story out of Iraq about an enemy soldier who blew up a bomb in a public square killing about 20 people many of who turned out to be orphan children peddling groceries in the street. Their idea of acceptable collateral damage extends to any man woman or child who might be near anyone who might be vaguely associated, if only by geographic default, with the war against them, and this is when they cannot behead a living, fully conscious, captured soldier or hostage, and all this is in support of a regime that is arguably more grotesque and has less electoral legitimacy than even Adolph Hitler’s.

So in the last year how many times did the vaunted TIMES (the so called newspaper of “record”) run front page headlines about how perhaps the scummiest, most illegitimate regime on earth conducts war: zero! How many times did they run front page headlines about how America conducts war? There have been 49 front page headlines about our so called conduct at Abu Ghraib alone. It wasn’t that we were blowing up innocent children in the street or slowly cutting off the heads of fully conscious prisoners as the insurgents do, it was that a few Americans, later found to be criminals, were making the prisoners get in human pyramids while naked or in women’s underwear.

Why is it that the liberal Times wants you to know more and care more about the way America is conducting the war than the way Saddam’s Hussein’s Nazi Baathists are conducting the war? The answer is simple: the liberals hate America and always have. In Vietnam they shouted, “Ho Ho, Ho Chi Minh.” They are not yet shouting, “Saddam Saddam ,Saddam Hussein” but the effect is exactly the same. They are seeking to undermine America; not America’s evil enemy. So what does that make a liberal? Our troops, many of them kids, are on the battlefield with the simple moral clarity to fight against pure evil. When they get wounded they heal, when possible, and then heroically and voluntarily return to fight again along side their fellow soldiers. Don’t we owe them more than the treasonous, undermining liberal commentary we get on the front page of the Times? Don’t the liberals know that once the war is on, and there is no way out, we’re all supposed to be on the same team? Are they so alienated from the soul of America that they would rather see its children die on the battlefield than prevail against evil?

Imagine what the morale of the Nazi Baathists would be if the world’s liberal press were united against their evil, instead of united against America? Imagine what the morale of our troops would be if the most significant and influential newspaper in the world at least tried to be loyal to the truth, instead of, in effect, the enemy? Imagine what the state of the world would be if the world’s liberal press organized the world’s citizenry against evil, instead of the American freedom that they blindly see, to the exclusion of everything else, as insensitive and uncaring. But if that happened it wouldn’t be a liberal Democratic press would it?

No comment. It speaks for itself.

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My Peeps

Schwarzenegger Jeered at Graduation Speech:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to his alma mater turned into an exercise in perseverance when virtually his every word was accompanied by catcalls, howls and piercing whistles from the crowd.

Schwarzenegger’s face appeared to redden during his 15-minute commencement address Tuesday to 600 graduates at Santa Monica College, but he ignored the shouting as he recalled his days as a student and, later, his work as a bodybuilder and actor.

“Always go all out and overcome your fears,” he told the graduates. “Work, work, work. Study, study, study.”

Inside the stadium, the drone from hundreds of rowdy protesters threatened to drown out the governor’s voice at times. Many in the crowd erupted in boos when a police officer pulled down a banner criticizing the estimated $45 million cost of the Nov. 8 special election that Schwarzenegger proposed Monday.

The governor is backing three ballot initiatives that call for imposing a cap on state spending, stripping lawmakers of the power to draw their own districts and increasing the time it takes teachers to gain tenure.

At times during Schwarzenegger’s speech, cheers and boos mingled, and the graduates themselves appeared eager to hear the governor. Many applauded at one point when the noise from the bleachers briefly subsided.

“It didn’t matter. I just ignored them,” graduate Ray Lewis, 21, of Los Angeles, said when asked about the racket from protesters. Schwarzenegger’s “political views and all that had nothing to do with the graduation,” Lewis said.

Schwarzenegger has been feuding for months with groups he calls “special interests” – teachers, nurses and other public employee unions who accuse him of selling out to big business while shortchanging education, health care and other programs. Those groups have hounded Schwarzenegger at his public appearances.

The special election “is a waste of money that you could be using for education, hospital care. He’s wasting it on his vanity election,” said Sue Cannon, a nurse who was among the crowd outside the stadium.

About two dozen Schwarzenegger supporters also rallied outside the stadium. One of them, Ben Eisenberg, who heads the Santa Monica College Republicans, said the ceremony “should be about the students.”

Schwarzenegger left the stage almost immediately after his speech, speeding across the infield in a golf cart surrounded by sprinting security guards. Across the field, he pulled up toward a waiting SUV and a large steel gate was closed behind him.

Schwarzenegger took general studies classes at the two-year community college between 1970 and 1974. He later took correspondence courses through the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he earned a degree in 1979. “

There’s more:

The protest included a group of faculty members on stage who turned their backs on Arnold during the speech and constant booing from students throughout his remarks. At the same time, Air Arnold – a plane pulling a banner with the message: “Real Governors Don’t Steal From Students” – was forced to fly above the clouds, hiding the message to Arnold in apparent violation of federal aviation law, and forcing the pilot to bring the plane down.

A Santa Monica College student attended the graduation in a chicken suit to make the point that Arnold was too chicken to face criticism from students, after the school banned them from wearing pins and t-shirts of protest or displaying posters. Even though Arnold got the school to ban any signs of dissent (even those flown above the graduation!), he couldn’t silence the voices of students and teachers, who don’t like what they’ve been hearing.

That’s how it’s done, my friends. Movie stars and fratboy heiresses are used to being treated with deference and awe. They get all flustered when people fail to worship at their feet. Here in Soviet Monica,however, movie stars are a dime a dozen. They don’t turn heads. Rich Republican phonies, however, get our attention.

And whoever told Schwarzenneger that it was a good idea to say that teachers, nurses and firefighters were sell-outs to big business must have been drunk. (Mike Murphy, perhaps?) That kind of statement doesn’t exactly ring true, especially coming from multi-millionaire Republican movie stars. He has managed to radicalize the middle class.

Since Schwarzenneger wants to hold a special election this fall come hell or high water, maybe we need to start talking about making it a recall.

Update: To clarify, when I say above that Arnold Schwarzennegger says nurses teachers and firefighters are special interest sell-outs to big business, I’m operating from an out of date lexicon. For all of history, “special interests” referred to business interests. The Frank Luntz American Heritage Book (The FLAHB) has changed that phrase to mean middle class people who work for the public good. I forgot. My bad.

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Apple Corp

Isn’t it interesting that the bad apples who were just having some kicks on the night shift at Abu Ghraib came up with similar kinky sexual humiliation “hijinks” to those the interrogators down at Gitmo were using on orders:

Over the next month, the interrogators experiment with other tactics. They strip-search him and briefly make him stand nude. They tell him to bark like a dog and growl at pictures of terrorists. They hang pictures of scantily clad women around his neck. A female interrogator so annoys al-Qahtani that he tells his captors he wants to commit suicide and asks for a crayon to write a will.

How odd that little Lynde Englund came up with the idea all on her own of putting a leash and dog collar on prisoners like that. Is life full of coincidences, or what?

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The Elephant

I honestly don’t know why there is any question that the Downing St Memo is the most important historical document to emerge showing that Bush and company took us into Iraq on false pretenses. It’s true that there have been many hints — the biggest of which is that, uh, there weren’t any fucking WMD — but this is clear proof that they lied prior to that. I’m not sure what Michael Kinsley is saying here, but I agree with Kevin that it’s absurd to think that the meeting minutes of the highest levels of our closest military ally were simple impressions of Bush’s body language or something. It is a full-on game plan for obfuscation and “rolling out the product” that proves they knew that Iraq wasn’t a threat.

Now, it’s true that many of us knew that already. I wrote back in September of 2002 over on Eschaton:

I don’t object to going into Iraq because I think Saddam doesn’t want nukes. Of course he does. So do a lot of people, including al Qaeda. And a lot of unstable regimes already have them, like the countries of the former Soviet Union and Pakistan. I object because I don’t believe there is any new evidence that he’s on the verge of getting them or that he had anything to do with 9/11, or that he’s crazy because he gassed his own people (without our objection at the time), or that he’s just plain so evil that we simply must invade without delay — all of which have been presented as reasons over the past few weeks. There are reasons why we are planning to invade Iraq, but they have nothing to do with the reasons stated and are based upon political and ideological not security goals.

I particularly object because I deeply mistrust the people who are insisting that Saddam presents an urgent danger because they have been agitating for invasion and regime change, offering a variety of rationales, for 11 years. Pardon me for being skeptical but there is an entire cottage industry in the GOP devoted to the destruction of Saddam for a variety of reasons, none of which have anything to do with an imminent threat to the US. Until they concocted this bogus 9/11 connection, even they never claimed that the threat was to the US, but to Israel, moderate Arabs and the oil reserves.

I very much object because among these obsessives are the authors of the Bush Doctrine, which is nothing more than a warmed over version of the PNAC defense policy document that was based upon Cheney’s 1992 defense dept. draft laying out the neocon case for ensuring the continued status of the US as the only superpower after the cold war. They did not take the threat of terrorism into account when they formulated this strategy and have made no adjustments since the threat emerged. Instead they are cynically using the fear created by 9/11 to advance goals that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism and in fact will make another attack more likely. We will not be able to protect ourselves against another 9/11 by asserting a doctrine of unilateral preventive war in Iraq or anywhere else.

I’m not an insider at the pentagon nor do I have any connections with the intelligence establishment. But I’m a political junkie who obsessively follows this stuff — and who had made it my business to investigate the writings of the neocon faction of the Republican establishment. Most Americans in September of 2002 were still in a state of shock, or felt that we couldn’t take any chances, or believed that Bush and company must know something that a broken down nobody blogger in Santa Monica California couldn’t possibly know. I was told by more than one Democratic friend of mine that I was being ridiculously arrogant to be so sure that they weren’t holding back important information for security reasons.

But, you know, I grew up in a period in which the government repeatedly and blatantly lied about a war in which friends of mine died and that tore the country in two in ways that I’m seeing mirrored today. I have not had the illusion that one should “trust” the government in these things since I was in high school. And this group made McNamara and his best and the brightest pals look like open books. If there was ever a case to be made for open government and transparency it was with the neocons.

It is obvious that the political media had access to the same information I did, and much much more. Bob “muckraker” Woodward was inside the planning rooms in late 2001 when the administration was agitating for the war. Wolf Blitzer could get anyone he wanted on the phone. They knew. But I wrote about what I could see and discern and they didn’t. As Atrios says in his post today, blogs did their best, but we all knew we had slightly less influence than a lone protestor on a freeway off ramp. Millions of people in the streets all over the world could barely get the press to look up from their safari suit fittings — and the bosses all told the kewl kidz that this was not a story they wanted flogged.

The fact of the matter is that the media are part of the political establishment, as as such, had as much of a stake in making the case for the war as the administration did, despite the fact that many of them knew very well there was no threat. They couldn’t wait to go to war. They were intoxicated by bloodlust and they sold that bloodlust like it was the best reality show in history — “9/11: America’s Revenge” and they were right. It was a hell of a show.

All of this we know and have known for some time. But that doesn’t mean that there is no story now. Indeed, the Downing Street Memo presents a chance for the press to redeem itself; this isn’t the end of the story. So far, it has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even broaching the subject of what this administration has done and their own complicity in it. They may never be able to admit all that. But in that it officially documents the fact that the administration knew there was no threat and knew there was no connection to terrorism, the Downing Street Memo gives the press the chance to ask, finally, why we really invaded Iraq.

Have any of you been at a social gathering in which this question comes up? Have you felt the palpable discomfort? Nobody really knows. Those that adhere to the “CIA fucked up” rationale can’t explain Downing Street. Those who think you had to back the government in a time of war, are visibly discomfitted by the fact that we never found any WMD. Flypaper is crap. The amount of money we are spedning is becoming salient. The project looks endless.

I speculated back in September of 2002 that the neocon faction was pushing its American Empire wet dream and using 9/11 as an excuse. Others believe that in the grand sweep of things we invaded to place permanent military bases to protect the oil fields.(Ann Coulter says “why shouldn’t we invade for oil? We need oil.”) Still others think we needed to show some muscle and Afghanistan just wasn’t sexy enough. Was it Israel? I wrote the other day that it now appears that Bush may have bribed Blair into invading Iraq by promising that he’d hold back just long enough to cripple al Qaeda and keep them from blowing up London — something which the evidence suggests that Bush and his cronies really had no interest in. And then there’s the racist and revenge motives.

We really don’t know, do we? Perhaps it was all those things. Which would then raise another important question. How is it possible for the United States of America in 2003 to invade and occupy another country for a handful of different, unstated reasons? What kind of fucked up process could have the president with one reason for invading, the vice president another, the Secretary of Defense yet another — and the congress and the press simply signing off on official lies?

These are the big questions that the Downing St Memo has opened up. Yes, we already knew the intelligence was fixed, we knew they understood that Saddam was no threat, we knew they lied to the American people and we knew that they intended to go to war no matter what. But we still don’t know for sure why they did all that. Until we do, I don’t think we will be able to figure out how to deal with it.

Update: To answer Atrios’ question, and in keeping with this post, I would submit that the pithy way to frame this is by asking the question: “Why did we invade Iraq?”

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