or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
September 15, 2004
Do Not Despair! For Cheney Was Probably Lying!
By the way, I don't think anyone should be convinced Dick Cheney actually believes what he says. I know I'm not convinced myself. I think there's a good chance he's consciously lying, and as I say, that should make everyone more optimistic about the world's prospects.
Here's why: during the Cold War many US government officials consciously lied about our foreign policy. They were anxious to keep the world economic order as it was, which required stomping on countries all over the planet. Unfortunately, the only way to get Americans to go along with this was to claim all of our wars were a response to the dreaded Soviets, when in many cases they had nothing to do with them. Indeed, some of America's foreign policy cognoscenti were courteous enough to explain this at the time. Take Samuel Huntington, the Harvard professor and Mr. Trilateral Commission. In 1981, Huntington learnedly explained:
[Y]ou may have to sell [intervention or other military action] in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting. That is what the United States has done ever since the Truman Doctrine.
(Cited to Stanley Hoffmann, Samuel P. Huntington et al., "Vietnam Reappraised" [colloquium], International Security, Summer 1981, pp. 3-26 in Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky.)
Now compare that to what Donald Rumsfeld was saying to aides on September 11, 2001:
Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.
So if I had to guess, I'd say Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other assorted Superfriends see terrorism as they saw the Soviet Union -- a useful boogeyman to frighten Americans into letting the US government carry out policies it couldn't get away with otherwise. You might have seen 9/11 as a terrifying crime that killed 3,000 innocent people. But that's because, honestly, you're sort of simple-minded. If you were a sophisticated thinker like Condoleezza Rice, you'd see it as an "enormous opportunity":
...if the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11 bookend a major shift in international politics, then this is a period not just of grave danger, but of enormous opportunity. Before the clay is dry again, America and our friends and our allies must move decisively to take advantage of these new opportunities.
So let's get out and there and seize these wonderful opportunities! Which will require enormous amounts of lying!
Posted at September 15, 2004 11:07 AM | TrackBackDon't leave Kerry out! He was right with Rummy and Condi on using 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. From his October 9, 2002 speech (http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/kerry-iraq.html):
"Later in the year [1998], Congress enacted legislation declaring Iraq in material, unacceptable breach of its disarmament obligations and urging the President to take appropriate action to bring Iraq into compliance. In fact, had we done so, President Bush could well have taken his office, backed by our sense of urgency about holding Saddam Hussein accountable and, with an international United Nations, backed a multilateral stamp of approval record on a clear demand for the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. We could have had that and we would not be here debating this today. But the administration missed an opportunity 2 years ago and particularly a year ago after September 11. They regrettably, and even clumsily, complicated their own case. The events of September 11 created new understanding of the terrorist threat and the degree to which every nation is vulnerable. That understanding enabled the administration to form a broad and impressive coalition against terrorism. Had the administration tried then to capitalize on this unity of spirit to build a coalition to disarm Iraq, we would not be here in the pressing days before an election, late in this year, debating this now."
I'd say that anyone who thinks Kerry would not have gone to war with Iraq has to believe he is lying too--at least some of the time!
We're stuck up the Mekong without a paddle in this election.
Posted by: Bob at September 15, 2004 12:17 PM"I'd say that anyone who thinks Kerry would not have gone to war with Iraq has to believe he is lying too--at least some of the time!"
On the other hand, "coalition" does not have to mean "invasion force" just because Bush thinks it does. Clinton, after all, made the U.S. official policy to Iraq "regime change" but did not invade.
This is not to defend our Iraq policy, which has been an unmitigated disaster for many, many years. But to be fair to Kerry, threatening war is not actually the same as war.
On the third hand, Clinton DID disarm Iraq (with due credit to Bush Sr. and his coalition and the UN arms inspectors, and heck, maybe even Saddam). So why did Clinton and Bush Jr. and Kerry all still think we needed to disarm a disarmed country? My suspicion is that it has been about the oil and the bases all along, and that Clinton's ordering the inspectors out and the Desert Fox bombing was a smokescreen to hide the fact that Iraq had been substantially disarmed--and Clinton (and Kerry and Bush etc.) knew it. This smokescreen was hidden behind the further smokescreen of the silly sex scandal, and was used right up until David Kay finally blew it away and blamed everyone ("We were all wrong") back in January. By then, Kerry was pretty much installed as the "challenger," and Saddam was in custody--which Bush has used ever since as retroactive justification for disarming an unarmed country.
Posted by: Bob at September 15, 2004 01:35 PMBob,
I suspect both Clinton and Bush knew Iraq was essentially disarmed. But Kerry probably did not. You'd be amazed at what Senators don't know and don't bother to find out.
I'm sure Bush's motivation was oil, bases, a brute show of force, etc. But Clinton's may have been as simple as being concerned about being attacked on Iraq from the right if he allowed Iraq to be declared disarmed and sanctions to be lifted.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at September 15, 2004 02:46 PMEither way, it doesn't reflect well on Kerry. And don't forget that both Colin Powell stated publicly in 2001 that sanctions had worked and that Iraq was essentially disarmed and not a threat, even to its neighbors*. Surely Kerry has staffers who know how to google? And it certainly should have been clear to anyone in October 2002 that Bush and Cheney were absolutely determined to go to war with Iraq, and that the resolution, no matter how much rhetoric it had in it about inspections and the UN, was a vote guaranteeing that the war would happen. And I don't recall any push by Kerry, Edwards, or anyone in Congress who voted for the resolution, trying to do anything to stop the drive to war in early 2003, even as the inspectors were finding barrel after barrel full of nothing in Iraq. I think Byrd and Kucinich were pushing to rescind the resolution, but they got no support.
I'll probably end up voting for Kerry, but I just don't want people to pretend that his election will stop American imperial wars. He has been a willing participant for years.
* Link: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm
Bob,
No argument there. I don't see any reason to believe that the imperial fun and games will stop with Kerry's election. However, there's no question in my mind that there will be less of it under Kerry than under Bush, who is completely out of control.
