Krugman
wrote: After all,
suppose that a politician — or a journalist — admits to himself that Mr. Bush
bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false pretenses is, to
say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to yourself that such a thing
happened, you have a moral obligation to demand accountability — and to do so
in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless political machine but in the face
of a country not yet ready to believe that its leaders have exploited 9/11 for
political gain. It's a scary prospect.
The New Republic article by Judis and Ackerman that Krugman
referred to as “magisterial” is too large to attach and pass through FW’s
filter, (I MB) but if anyone wants to read it in a easy to read Word format, (11 pages) please contact me. Otherwise, it’s at http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003.
I don’t think it’s a matter of naivete. You have to open people’s mind to their
deception gently. It you accuse
someone of being willfully stupid and willingly deceived, they will be even
more defensive and retreat into denial.
It is my instinctive feeling that the American public is
weary of scandal, beginning in importance with the travesty that was the
Clinton sex scandals that led to a sham impeachment proceeding, calling into
question the motive and intent of all subsequent and more relevant, legitimate
reasons for it in our checks and balances. Many people felt
"used" by the excesses of the Starr Report as they saw life return to
normal, Clinton's job approval ratings surviving right up to the end when the
pardoning scandals unleashed yet another wave of mental overload.
Who knows what it will take for comatose America to wake up? I suspect
something dramatic will have to come to light, more than leaked stories by
enraged intelligence officials, stories from soldiers returning from the war, a
jobless recovery confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt and the best efforts of
the corporate media to hide it. Besides a smoking gun, which hopefully
the article above will provide catalyst for, we need people to be brave enough to look at their
communities and neighborhoods, to the families affected by joblessness, being
shut out of higher education by rising tuition and fewer scholarships, by
homelessness and the increase in personal crimes (domestic abuse, rape) venting
personal emasculation, and the declining prospects for real health care and
retirement for millions of people who have put a lifetime into Social Security
who are feeling betrayed.
It is very discouraging to read
that the Bush campaign is already halfway to its fundraising goals, with the
reality of what that money can buy, but this simple overdone greediness may
wake a few people up to the presence of a real threat to the election process
and practicing democracy. I remain hopeful, because I must. Maybe
that is part of the syndrome, too, however; that we don't want to know how bad
it is and hold onto the dream that it is still working, real and viable.
Some of us are working fervently and diligently, some of us carefully and
incrementally. Some of us are ostriches, some dreamers, some of us
rabble-rousers. We may fail, but I'll be damned if I am going to sit by
silently and passively. What
we need is an abundant sense of outrage and civic call to duty. - – KWC
REH wrote: I agree Keith,
They are all being almost beyond naive but devious. I don't even
watch Russert and the others that I used to watch
religiously. Their questions are obvious and the shape that
they put to them constitutes spin. There is not longer and explorations
but a bi-polar spin to everything. Its absolutely
parliamentary. Something that is definitely an immigrant to
this soil. We used to be about negotiation and
compromise. Today we are about class. Sound
familiar?
KH wrote: The blurb on the NYT e-mail says, of Paul Krugman's latest Op-ed:
> <<<<
There is no longer any doubt that we were deceived into war. The key question
now is why so many influential people are unwilling to admit the obvious.
Surely the answer is obvious. Is not the NYT and Krugman being a teeny-weeny
bit naive? The idea of an occupation of Iraq as a fallback secondary source of
oil in the case of instability within Saudi Arabia had long been on the books
-- not in the State Department itself, maybe, but certainly in the Bush Senior,
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle group. Then, when it became clear that it was a group
of predominantly Saudi Arabian fanatics that caused September 11, this was
final confirmation that SA was a far more unstable country than even the
Bush-Cheney group realised. The uncertain situation in the Middle East could no
longer be left in the air. Of course, no one is willing to admit the obvious!
To say publicly that the Americans were guaranteeing their oil supplies by
invading Iraq would be almost a declaration of war against the whole of the
Moslem world because the implication is that they might be prepared to invade
Saudi Arabia or Iran next. If Osama bin Laden and a bunch of amateurs could
take out the World Trade Centre, what could the governments of Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Syria and Pakistan do between them? Placing a suitcase nuclear
bomb somewhere near the White House would be a relatively easy operation
by terrorist group given a nod and wink by these governments. Unlikely,
maybe, but quite feasible.
Instead, by invading a country whose President was demonstrably a monster (even
though an ex-ally), the Americans have been able, so far, to establish their
determination to guarantee their oil supplies by proxy without actually making
a frontal attack on Islam itself. So far, the Americans have skirted disaster
by a razor's edge.
The influential people Krugman alludes to know what it's all about, but they
are certainly not silly enough to talk about it publicly. Nor is Tony Blair or
Jack Straw, our foreign secretary, or Geiff Hoon, our defence minister. The
whole of the Middle East, and Israel in particular, could be a disaster area if
America were too honest about what they're really about.
DENIAL AND DECEPTION @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/opinion/24KRUG.html
Paul Krugman
Politics is full of ironies. On the White House Web site, George W. Bush's
speech from Oct. 7, 2002 -- in which he made the case for war with Iraq - bears
the headline "Denial and Deception." Indeed.
