I was looking over Sullivan's blog today and it seems he's got an ongoing post regarding the supposed pre-war activists who stated that Iraq didn't have WMDs. The whole debate was ignited by the above New York Times article that states that Saddam himself lied to his military advisors about having WMDs in order to bolster their confidence. Sullivan, moderately I kindly add, gives a little wag of the finger to those who claim that they knew, or had evidence that showed Saddam's lack of weapons. He and his readers attack such guys as Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, who did a couple of flip-flops during the years from 95-03. Fine, I'm not going to object, and in fact I might even say that there wasn't one person who knew--for sure--that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction other that Saddam. And you know what? It doesn't make a lick of difference. I thought back then that Iraq didn't have WMDs, and the only intelligence I had was common sense.
So what made me so bright? It's not brightness at all. It's only the bitter, bitter cynicism, that I have for this administration and this Congress.
I've spoken before about it, but allow me to present my point again. Confidence and faith is created by experience and reputation. It sounds so simple but for so many it seems the hardest thing in the world. Now I'm not talking about a faith in a Deity. That lies in the plane of metaphysics and who can tell what about that. No, what we are talking about here is material reality, and none but the foolish can ignore experience. Our experience with government has taught us that they are fickle, ignorant, short-sighted and corrupt.
During Reagan's tenure we "fought" the Cold War, which should be restated as "fed" the military industrial complex. Documents, such as the ones discussed in former Sen. Daniel Moynihan's book Secrecy, have shown that most intelligence agencies knew that the Iron Curtain was coming down decades before Reagan "fought the good fight." Then there was Panama, Grenada, the First Gulf war, yadda, yadda, yadda. Each of these Presidents fed us alot of jingoistic, nationalistic, fearsome nonsense, and then the respective administrations went on and did what they wanted to do regardless of dissent. So there wasn't hard figures to back up or negate the charge that Iraq had WMDs? So what? The only thing that seems to matter is the whims of those in power. Not the troops that have to fight, not their families and sure as hell, not you and I. If you have a wife who's cheated on you 20 times, are you going to ask for a DNA test when the 21st time comes up? We don't. We're more cuckoded than King Arthur and Hilary Clinton put together, but we always take our mistress back. Frist wins the straw poll, Bush wins in 2004, DeLay gets the GOP nomination in TX, and the wheels go round and round.
We have become the country that cried wolf! Pundits may still want to wag fingers, but we have a greater issue confronting us. In a time where we need the aid and support of international allies we cannot afford to have our own people second guessing our leaders. We have spent a good amount of time and money trying to develop a strong intelligence system. But what good will intelligence be, if no one believes the messenger.
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