None So Blind….

The United States has plunged itself and the world into an unstable mix of factors that threaten the destabilize the Middle East, spread warfare [conventional and unconventional] beyond the Middle East arena and re-enervate the deadly nuclear arms proliferation race. The threat to the world at large lies not only from the potential for misguided deliberate actions by world leaders, but also from inadvertent, accidental and unintended consequences of circumstances and actions that are being taken. When placed in an atmosphere of actual threats, aggression and bellicose rhetoric from the United States, so-called “rogue” states of North Korea, Iran, Syria and others targeted by US foreign policy salvos can easily be understood when they seek to escalate their arms capability as a deterrence to such threats. The reasoning is neither obscure nor far fetched. All the predicates for disaster are manifest and documented. We need only look at the situation with objective, unbiased and unclouded vision.

The Iraq invasion and occupation has been the subject of massive, but totally unnecessary, public “debate” regarding its bona fides. Despite all the smoke, propaganda and deception that has lasted over three years, the public is finally beginning to awaken to the facts that have been manifest firmly establishing that the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence in order to orchestrate a predetermined strategy to invade Iraq for the purpose of regime change. That such actions were a clear violation of international law seems not to have sunken into the American consciousness generally.

A myriad of independent sources have put forward compelling evidence that the Bush Administration initiated the strategy of invasion prior to obtaining any resolution, authorization or approval from the UN or the US Congress. Internal memoranda, statements from former White House operatives and the Downing Street Memoranda all confirm that Bush intended to depose Saddam Hussein even prior to his inauguration. The manifest evidence also confirms that the Bush Administration knew that there were no viable “weapons of mass destruction” [WMD] or biological weapons systems in Iraq. Although the US had provided such weaponry to Iraq under the Bush I Administration, the years of sanctions and intervening events had eliminated the capacity of Saddam Hussein to maintain or advance these programs. Moreover, continual international monitoring gave the US and the world reasonable confidence that no such systems existed to seriously threaten Iraq’s neighbors, and certainly not the US.

The recently released book by Bob Woodward, “State of Denial,” further documents the faulty judgments by the White House and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in preparations for and execution of the invasion of Iraq. The White House continues to make public speeches about how well it is doing in the Iraqi conflict, and progress that is being made. They do this in the face of almost weekly reports from knowledgeable observers regarding the actual state of affairs in Iraq. Just a day or two ago, the entire city of Baghdad had to be placed on lockdown curfew. Despite reports of “progress” in training and preparing the Iraqi army and security forces, a recent report confirmed that only 25% of Iraqis in the national security forces reported for duty when deployed to defend Baghdad. That hardly sounds like “progress” even under the most generous characterization of the state of Iraqi readiness.

The ersatz “War on Terrorism” has been equally disestablished. Richard Clarke’s book amply documents the existence of information and briefings regarding the potential threat of an attack by Terrorists led or incited by Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden long before the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Other independent reports statements and documents from government officials from the Department of Defense and the CIA confirm the multiple failed attempts were made to raise the level of priority and urgency within the White House enclave. Public pronouncements by the White House and Condoleeza Rice have been, one after another, proven to be blatant lies. That the Administration would try to “spin” or whitewash the facts is not surprising. The remarkable aspect is the arrogance of doing so with clear knowledge that the disproof of their assertions is available through multiple corroborating sources. The discrepancies were not simply a difference of “interpretation,” the Administration attempted to gainsay documented facts relating to the very occurrence of certain events or existence of certain documents.

The most remarkable observation of all is the apparent willingness of the American public to turn a blind eye to the incompetence, corruption and blatant deception by the White House and Congressional leadership. The media has been far too complicit for too long in this process, by ignoring or burying stories that would disclose the deceit and failures of the Administration. However, now that the truth is appearing in print, and despite the Right Wing “talking heads” who continually try to downplay or discount the governmental incompetence and misconduct, the public still has not mobilized in any meaningful way to demand accountability of the White House and Congress. It would appear that the American public has bought into a kind of self delusional mindset that allows them to accept statements that they know to be untrue, as long as they appear to support some jingoistic mantra of “national security” or “war on terror.”

Hard evidence of torture used on US detainees is sidestepped or ignored as long as it was proclaimed necessary to fight terrorism. Never mind that torture of a crime under national and international law, that in most instances we know about the torture was inflicted upon people who were not terrorists and the Administration has been unable or unwilling to give the public any concrete evidence to support the claimed necessity for using illegal and morally reprehensible tactics. We ignore weekly reports of the devolution of Iraq into civil war and chaos as the President exhorts us to “stay the course” and continue to pour over $8 Billion per week of precious US resources and numerous lives of US military personnel into an Administration adventure that Bush cannot even hazard a guess as to when it can be brought to a successful conclusion. This is the case even if we allow the Administration to define a “successful” conclusion.

All of this is done in the name of the American people and with the lives of our children and citizens and with our precious financial resources. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Unfortunately, the American people and our children will pay the price for this willful disregard for many years to come.