http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=8768
John Kerry and His Role in the Undermining of U.S. Intelligence-Gathering
Written by Karen Pittman
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Victims. That's what we've become. A society of victims.
But when we wallow in victimhood, we deny natural law. We shun nature. We
reject the simple truth of cause and effect. But we do so at our peril.
Consider the current brouhaha over the intelligence failures
preceding 9/11 and leading up to the war in Iraq. (Case in point: If we
blame the CIA, we--we who voted the CIA-degraders into office--cleverly
sidestep taking responsibility. Thus we anoint ourselves victims. How
convenient. How conscience-salving.)
Here's how the tortuous illogic goes:
First, we strip the CIA buck-naked, then say, ''Why weren't you
wearing your clothes?''
Next, we build a wall between the CIA and FBI, then say, ''Why
weren't you guys talking?''
And when the CIA is embarrassed by its nakedness; when the FBI is
caught hunkering down behind that wall; when those inevitable chickens come
home to roost, whom do we blame?
Do we blame ourselves? Do we blame the people who took the CIA's
clothes off and who laid that wall brick by brick in the first place? Do
we blame the legislators, like John Kerry, who--in the nineties, under
Clinton--hamstrung the CIA by eviscerating its human intelligence-gathering
capabilities (which now must be painfully and painstakingly rebuilt, even as
the wall between that agency and the FBI is being loudly torn down)?
No. We blame the people who were working on the day when the
system--which the strippers and separators by their actions
flawed--''failed.''
Let's say you're a craftsman and your specialty is plaster. Let's
say, for whatever reasons, you can only get your plaster from one
source--and that source has decided to water down your product. (The
manufacturer says it's cheaper, more profitable, and possibly more humane to
the production workers because the process requires fewer chemicals.)
The point is: When you water down plaster, you get mud. Your
plaster is now undeniably weak. It ain't what it used to be. It might now
make a hut, whereas in the past it would have made a castle.
But you don't have any choice: It's all you've got to work with. So
you dab it on anyway, hoping against hope nobody will notice. And the whole
time your hands are tied because you can't get the kind of plaster you
really need to do the job right. Nobody makes it. You aren't allowed to
use it. It's illegal. (Remember, it contains "potentially" harmful
additives. It might give offense.)
And so you apply your flimsy film, layer by layer. But over time
the cracks begin to show. The cheap plaster degrades and starts to craze.
Eventually, the entire structure crumbles.
Now, who's responsible, you or the plaster manufacturer? Who do you
think John Edwards would hold accountable in a court of law--you, ''the
little plaster worker,'' or the big corporate mill who decided for you how
the plaster would be made, and which (not irrelevantly) had a monopoly on
its design and manufacture? Whom do you think he would sue for those huge
horty-torty damages?
I rest my case.
The question before us is simple: Having made obviously wrong
choices in the nineties, will we make them again, in 2004? Having seen
close-up the consequences of those choices, are we brazen--are we
foolish--enough to take the chance?
And if we are, and if those choices turn out to be wrong--dead
wrong, yet again--will all the excuses and defenses in our psychic arsenal
ever be enough to grease our collective guilt? Will any commission or panel
answer the fury of grief? Will our victimhood help us then?
Knowing all we know now, are we really going to vote the very man
who was one of the principal drafters of the CIA's Plaster Disaster into
this nation's highest office on November the 2nd?
If we do, then we had better not wail in five, ten, or twenty years
when the sticky (stinky) stuff hits the fan. We had better not whine about
how ''miserably'' the CIA and FBI "failed." It is we who failed. We failed
ourselves--miserably. And for God's sake, whatever we do, we've got some
nerve if we blame the poor stiff who happens to be on watch, as president,
when the big one strikes.
Please. The people who work for the CIA aren't idiots. They didn't
''fail.'' They weren't allowed to succeed! Their tools were taken away!
Their plaster was watered down.
By whom? By the idiots in Congress, that's who. Idiots like John
Kerry.
I'm tempted to say the people who elected these idiots are idiots,
too. But they can be forgiven for their transgressions--if they don't
repeat them. Anybody can make a mistake or misjudgment once. But if you
make the same mistake twice . . . well, you're the one at fault, then. You
get the government you deserve. The next time the planes hit, don't act
shocked and appalled. Don't caterwaul to the heavens as if you hadn't a
clue, ''How on earth did this happen? Why do they hate us?''
If the American electorate does it again--if it votes Democrat while
talking Republican ("We need a strong defense and reliable
intelligence!")--then this time it can't be forgiven. And--in the face of
such naked inanity--we as a people will have no choice: We'll have to call a
spade a spade. We'll have to admit we're idiots.
Michael Moore knows this. He knows we're gullible. (Actually, his
word for it is "stupid.") He knows he can make us believe a silk purse is a
sow's ear--just by saying so, often enough and loud enough, on film. (Ah,
you see, for the unwashed rabble, the image is the key: Put it on [M]TV!)
Well, when you get what you wanted all along, don't bitch about it
when it turns out not to be everything you thought it was going to be!
Today we're suffering the consequences of poor governance. On 9/11
we paid in blood for the bad choices made under Carter and Clinton, with
their encouragement. Kerry personally yanked the pants off the CIA. And
now he wants you to absolve him. He wants you to pretend you didn't see him
do it. He wants you to believe it was Bush who undid the belt. No: He
wants more than that. He wants you to make believe it was Bush who undid
the belt--even if you know better (as does he, as does Edwards, as does
Moore).
And he wants you to get rid of Bush, who is outfitting the CIA as
never before, so he can yank its pants off all over again! But he will do
this only after a respectable period of time has passed. You see, he must
first make you believe he really wants the CIA fully clothed. Then, when
your defenses are down, when you aren't looking, down come the pants again,
too!
People, get a clue! In a democracy, the government you get is the
one you earn. If we go back on Bush now, we go back to the era that brought
us 9/11. We then set in motion the next 9/11.
Actions have consequences. No matter how good a trial lawyer you
are, no matter how persuasive your argument, you cannot alter this immutable
law of nature. As night follows day, effect follows cause. You vote for
Clinton and Kerry, you get a stripped-down CIA. You get a stripped-down
CIA, you get 9/11. You get 9/11, you get exaggerated data about WMD. You
water down plaster, you get mud. Go figure.
We are not victims. We make choices, and then we live--or die--with
the consequences of those choices.
You have a choice to make. You can, if you choose, choose change.
Or you can choose the path of least resistance. You can choose stasis. You
can choose to take us back down the same dead-end road that got us here.
It's up to you. All I can say is: If you get in Kerry's car and you
end up upside-down in a ditch, don't say I didn't warn you. And this time,
you've forfeited your right to whine.
About the Writer: Karen Pittman is
a freelance writer and published poet
from Augusta, Georgia.
Karen receives e-mail at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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