How BFEE Sold the War -- and We Bought It (Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson)
Here's an important essay Corporate McPravda USA has seen fit to miss:
How the Bush administration sold the war – and we bought it
We knew WMD intelligence was flawed, but there was a larger failure of officials, media and public to halt the neocon juggernaut
Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 February 2013 03.30 EST
It has been 10 long years since "Shock and Awe" – the opening bombardment of Baghdad – lit up the skies above the Tigris. A decade later, we know far more about the case the Bush administration made to the world to justify its war of choice to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Books like Hubris by David Corn and Michael Isikoff, and British commission and US Senate reports have catalogued the extent to which intelligence was misused to mislead the public.
Yet, even as the intervening period has brought profound change for the United States and its role in the world, have we learned the lessons of that disastrous period? And what were those lessons?
SNIP...
Powell's claim from a discredited defector code-named "Curveball" on Iraq's biological weapons capability was particularly alarming. Valerie knew that "Curveball" had been deemed a "fabricator" by the agency, meaning that none of his intelligence could be believed.
The implications suddenly become obvious: we were watching a kabuki play and the outcome was predetermined. The Bush administration was determined to go to war, however bad the intelligence, and not even Secretary of State Powell was going to stand in the way.
SNIP...
That it was so successful is an indictment of a corrupt administration. But it is also emblematic of the failure of the checks and balances that are the hallmark of our democracy. As Obama appointees John Kerry and Chuck Hagel can attest, the US Congress was ineffective, to say the least, in the exercise of its oversight responsibilities. (The same applies to the UK Parliament.) The Washington press corps was dilatory in its investigative reporting – valuing access and cozy relationships with senior officials above the search for truth; ultimately, the media served as lapdogs rather than watchdogs.
CONTINUED...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/27/bush-administration-sold-iraq-war
= new reply since forum marked as read
Our tax dollars at work...
The U.S. embassy in Iraq stands unfinished in Baghdad. The story from the good folks at In These Times:
Empires Architecture
Should it ever be finished, the U.S. embassy in Iraq will stand as a colossal monument to the Bush administration’s failures
By Allen McDuffee
Panic shot through the State Department and White House earlier this summer when the American architecture firm Berger Devine Yaeger posted computer-generated images and layout of the forthcoming U.S. embassy in Baghdad on its website. Ostensibly concerned with security, government officials urgently acted to remove graphics to avoid aiding potential insurgents in their plots to disrupt the embassy’s progress.
The real fear, however, may have been that the disclosure would draw public and congressional attention to everything that’s gone wrong with the embassy. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how insurgents could be any more disruptive to the embassy’s existence than those who are building it. Allegations of mismanaged funds, shoddy workmanship, kickback schemes, exploitative labor practices, ill-gotten contracts, blocked investigations, trafficked humans and covered-up deaths have plagued the construction of the world’s largest embassy.
The planned 104-acre, 21-building compound on the Tigris River will include two office buildings, six apartment buildings, a pool, a gym, a movie theater and a food court. The embassy will be supported by its own power and water treatment plants—probably wise in a country that has, on average, one hour to four hours of electricity daily, and where 70 percent of the population lacks clean drinking water.
The White House originally requested $1.3 billion to build the compound, but Congress allocated $592 million for the project in 2005. It was a hefty sum given that the United States didn’t pay a cent to Iraq for the four-square-mile stretch of land in Baghdad’s Green Zone, roughly the size of Vatican City. By comparison, the United States paid $22 million for land that was less than one-tenth that size for a planned new embassy in Beirut, which will now no longer be built because of security concerns over its proximity to a Hezbollah stronghold.
Nevertheless, the nearly $600 million wasn’t enough for the embassy in Iraq. According to documentation provided to Congress by the State Department, an additional $144 million is needed for completion and the embassy may cost as much as $1 billion each year to operate.
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http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3458/empires_archit... /
That oil must be worth an awful lot to Halliburton and Chevron for these warmongering traitors to pay for it with the blood of a million Iraqis and 4,000-plus Americans.
Wonder why it seems there's never any money to make life better for the 99-percent?
It must be going somewhere, all that tax money and all that borrowed money.
Oh, here's something...it's a question of discretionary spending and who's exempt from what.
Why Is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?
EXCERPT...
Indeed, the Republican government battering ram appears to have stopped at the Pentagon door. This was evident early on. As soon as they took over the House of Representatives, Republicans changed the rules so that military spending does not have to be offset by reduced spending somewhere else, unlike any other kind of government spending. It is the only activity of government they believe does not have to be paid for. Which brings to mind a bit of wisdom from one of their heroes, Adam Smith. “Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the year … wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken.”
SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/economy/151617/why_is_the_most_wasteful_government_agency_not_part_of_the_deficit_discussion/
From my perspective, We the People used to be the government -- you know, "Government of the people, by the people for the people."
Nowadays, the government is somebody -- no, some thing -- else and it's not a democracy. Rather than getting the policies and programs to serve the nation, We the People are expected to shut up and serve those who, figuratively and literally, call the shots.
How this thing is accomplished: Our Betters allowed our elected representatives to cut themselves in on the Action:
Know your BFEE: WikiLeaks Stratfor Dump Exposes Continued Secret Government Warmongering
That's the truth they don't want us to handle.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2438723
Not that I care, but really...
