Et Tu, Jeeves?
Scott Ritter just won't leave "awful enough" alone. Lest we subjects of the New Amerikan Dynasty forget, we were not wholly alone in promulgating an unprovoked war because we felt impelled to rid the world of yet another lousy unscrupulous human-rights-abusing dictator. (Wait a minute - that sounds like home - and some might ask why we chose this particular despot versus the others we have continued to subsidize and shore up.) But we had the Tony Team backing us from the get-go, helping out no doubt with forgeries and otherwise quacked-up "intelligence," in this context a one-word non-sequitur. Ritter ponders today in the Independent whether the upcoming British election might reveal some actual morals-based voting in contrast to the ideology and self-delusion that left our AWOL war criminal still happily ensconced in the former house of white.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has secured his place in history, not as a great American military leader, national security advisor, or diplomatic representative of his country, but rather the dupe who peddled false intelligence data to the Security Council of the United Nations on that fateful day on 5 February 2003, sealing the US case for war with Iraq. Powell, once revered as an American hero, will be remembered as Bush's shill for a sham case for war, waxing eloquently: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" for ever fixed in the minds of the more than 150 million people who watched him that day.
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In the end, it is the policymakers - British and American alike - who must shoulder the responsibility for the Iraqi WMD fiasco. This was very much an elective war, not a conflict of necessity. In their headlong rush to get rid of Saddam Hussein, George Bush and Tony Blair violated not only international law and the moral character of their own respective democratic constituencies, but also the intellectual integrity of the very intelligence services the citizens they are responsible for depend on to help guide them through a dangerous world.
The Presidential Commission says that the CIA was "dead wrong" when it came to assessing Iraqi WMD capabilities, but the fact of the matter is that it is George Bush and Tony Blair who were dead wrong, to the tune of over 1,500 American, nearly 90 British, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives lost, in pursuing a war on such blatantly false premises.
The American people have already shown themselves to be culpable in legitimizing this tragedy by re-electing George Bush, the chief architect of this disaster, as president of the United States. In the weeks to come, the citizens of Great Britain will have a chance to carve their names in the annals of history, either slavishly repeating the same mistake of their American cousins by re-electing a man who is responsible for a massive violation of international law, or establishing the viability of British democracy as a lasting bastion of the rule of law by voting out Tony Blair. This will send a clear and lasting signal to those on the Presidential Commission and the Butler Commission that illegal wars of aggression are the responsibility of the politicians who order them, not the intelligence officials who justify them.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has secured his place in history, not as a great American military leader, national security advisor, or diplomatic representative of his country, but rather the dupe who peddled false intelligence data to the Security Council of the United Nations on that fateful day on 5 February 2003, sealing the US case for war with Iraq. Powell, once revered as an American hero, will be remembered as Bush's shill for a sham case for war, waxing eloquently: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" for ever fixed in the minds of the more than 150 million people who watched him that day.
[clip]
In the end, it is the policymakers - British and American alike - who must shoulder the responsibility for the Iraqi WMD fiasco. This was very much an elective war, not a conflict of necessity. In their headlong rush to get rid of Saddam Hussein, George Bush and Tony Blair violated not only international law and the moral character of their own respective democratic constituencies, but also the intellectual integrity of the very intelligence services the citizens they are responsible for depend on to help guide them through a dangerous world.
The Presidential Commission says that the CIA was "dead wrong" when it came to assessing Iraqi WMD capabilities, but the fact of the matter is that it is George Bush and Tony Blair who were dead wrong, to the tune of over 1,500 American, nearly 90 British, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives lost, in pursuing a war on such blatantly false premises.
The American people have already shown themselves to be culpable in legitimizing this tragedy by re-electing George Bush, the chief architect of this disaster, as president of the United States. In the weeks to come, the citizens of Great Britain will have a chance to carve their names in the annals of history, either slavishly repeating the same mistake of their American cousins by re-electing a man who is responsible for a massive violation of international law, or establishing the viability of British democracy as a lasting bastion of the rule of law by voting out Tony Blair. This will send a clear and lasting signal to those on the Presidential Commission and the Butler Commission that illegal wars of aggression are the responsibility of the politicians who order them, not the intelligence officials who justify them.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:25 PM
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