How their big lie came to be

Post-9/11 Era Forum

http://www.workingforchange.com/art...fm?ItemID=15089
How their big lie came to be
Hawks came to consensus that WMD myth was best tool for manufacturing urgency


Leave it to a Marine to be blunt. When Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was asked Friday why his Marines failed to encounter or uncover any of the weapons of mass destruction that U.S. intelligence had warned them about, his honesty put the White House to shame.
"We were simply wrong," Conway said. "It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered [nuclear, chemical or biological] weapons" in Iraq. And, he added, "believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwait border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

Now that the "imminent threat" posed by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons has turned out not to be so imminent, the question is: Did our gazillion-dollar spy operations blow the call, or was the dope they developed distorted or exaggerated by our political leaders?

Either way, heads should roll.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is feeling real political heat for arguing before the allied invasion that Saddam Hussein "has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes," a terrifying claim apparently now proved false.

Yet the White House seems to believe nobody cares that its war was based on the same distortions pushed by our president.

Paul Wolfowitz, one of the general's top civilian bosses in the Pentagon and a key proponent of invading Iraq, certainly seems unconcerned with the implications of making arguments for war based on convenience rather than facts. In a Vanity Fair interview released last week, the neoconservative Wolfowitz said, "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason."

He listed two others: to fight terrorism and Hussein's criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. However, Wolfowitz dismissed the last reason, saying "the third one, by itself is a reason to help the Iraqis but it is not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale [that] we did it."

Of course, the marketing of policy — spin — is an established, albeit unfortunate, part of politics. However, it is unacceptable to misinform your troops going into battle or mislead your citizens about why you are putting their sons and daughters in harm's way.

Bush and his band of hawks seem to believe the ends justify the means. Thus, the terror of 9/11 and the boogeyman of Iraq's supposed WMD stash became the key to pushing an ambitious plan to redraw the map of the Middle East. That was the pet project of a band of neocon missionaries who had failed to convince either the first Bush administration or the Clinton administration that such a campaign was plausible or desirable.

For Wolfowitz and friends, the 9/11 attacks were almost a gift, an opportunity to play God. "If you had to pick the 10 most important foreign policy things for the United States over the last 100 years, [Sept. 11] would surely rank in the top 10 if not No. 1," he told Vanity Fair.

Knocking Al Qaeda's Taliban friends out of Kabul became only a warm-up for dethroning Hussein as part of the broader neocon agenda. In marketing this war, however, there was a little problem: Hussein, as loathsome as he was, didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Or, as Wolfowitz put it tactfully in his interview: "That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy."

But they didn't let that stop them. They kept hyping the Al Qaeda connection and turning up the volume on the WMD alarm. After all, we knew Hussein had some scary biological and chemical weapons in the '80s because he was our ally in the war against Iran, and we supplied him with some of them.

And though United Nations inspectors found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon hawks found some Iraqi exiles in Washington who were more than willing to provide handy lists of the precise locations of deployed WMDs. And thus was born the big lie: There's no time for U.N. inspectors to continue their work; the threat from Iraq is less than an hour away, and any delay puts the planet at risk.

It worked so well even our Marines were fooled.

mtliveingtree, do you think that those who died and those who lost a son, a brother will say "Thank you and god bless America" ?


I don't think so

nowar,
"mtliveingtree, do you think that those who died and those who lost a son, a brother will say "Thank you and god bless America" ?

Yes, I think many will. That's one of the things you don't understand.
Patriotism and thankfulness. All soldiers go in knowing they may die and most of their families stand behind them and support their belief. It's the unselfish who will die for others and the proud who will die for their beliefs and the Patriot who will die for freedom. I don't know you but, when I served, I would have died in combat for you if my country asked me to.

so your president say:

you MUST jump in the water, don't be afraid, the water is at 24°C.

They jump but the water is at 100°C and your president knew that .....

and they gonna say "Thank you Mr President" ?

this is not patriotism this is "idiotism" ....


you should think a little bit by yourself and not let the others think for you ......

nowar,
You still don't get it. You must be from Canada too.

sorry, I'm from Belgium ......

and sorry again, but blindly following what your leader says -lies - and still saying "Thank you and god bless you" is the most stupid behaviour I ever seen .......

are you member of a sect ?

no, I don't think so but you act as the sheeps, if the first one jump in the precipice, you will follow ........ sorry, I'm not like that.

and there you still don't get it ......

nowar,
Oh, I get it. I get you.

And I bet you say," If you don't show me respect, I won't respect you".
Sounds like you have a "me" syndrome.

jump too aaaaaaah, you are a good sheep, but don't forget to let you sheared before the jump

get back some post before ......


..... you act as the sheeps, if the first one jump in the precipice, you will follow ........

jump too aaaaaaah, you are a good sheep, but don't forget to let you sheared before the jump

wool ? sheep has wool, and to get the wool you shear the sheep .....

maintenant t'as compris connard ? do you want the english translation or you understand ******* ?