Apparently the neocons who wanted us to invade Iraq and are now agitating for a US military strike on Iran are not motivated by facts. The facts, such as reports by our intelligence agencies, are not used to determine what they think should be done. The facts are only used to try to convince others. Their belief in the need for military action is obviously faith-based, beyond the reach of facts or reason. This can clearly be seen by their reaction to the intelligence reports that Iran had suspended their nuclear weapons program in 2003. Their reaction, such as this op-ed in today’s New York Times, is to disbelieve the intelligence and to even impugn the motives and patriotism of the intelligence agencies.
This is in stark contrast to what they had to say about the intelligence about Iraq before we invaded that country. When the intelligence agreed with their pre-determined conclusions they claimed to have reached those conclusions as a result of the intelligence. It should be obvious now that they never were swayed by the facts and have always been faith-based.
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That's a great point, David. You know, I'd bet that when it comes down to it, many if not most of the people who want to bomb Iran don't really care whether they have nuclear weapons or a nuclear program at all. I'll bet their stance is more based on the ideas that "The Iranians are really bad!" and "We are America! We can go and kick their butts!"
The same is true about the Iraq war. Paul Wolfowitz himself had said that the WMD argument about Iraq was not "the reason" why the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and he himself wanted to go to war. They decided to publicly focus on the WMD issue because it seemed like something "everyone could agree on." That is, the WMD argument seemed most likely to convince people the American people that it was necessary to go to war with Iraq. And they didn't seem too upset when the terrifying weapons they told us about weren't discovered, either.
The famous leaked memo from the British government revealed that the Bush team was manipulating the intelligence to fit the already pre-determined policy to go to war back in 2002. That hardly would have been necessary if they had been concerned about "the facts" back then, either.
And the journalist and commentator Robert Parry has a good article from April 2003 about how the drive to war against Iraq was more "faith-based" than based on concern about a WMD threat. It's really something to read through the list of lies, distortions and manipulations that the Bush team disseminated in order to make the case to war. It's all so transparent from today's standpoint. It's just pathetic.
What happened to the American people? I feel as if I'm watching an amateur magic show and the audience (American public) is full of naive toddlers watching in amazement when the magician pulls a quarter from their ear or pulls his thumb off of his hand. I find myself standing around screaming, "Can't you all see what just happened?" It's somewhat comforting knowing that we all aren't blind to the obvious. Bush only has 400 some odd days left in office and by God he'll do whatever it takes to flush us all down the toilet! Our society as a whole has swallowed the fear pill. This is why this is all happening right in front of our noses without anyone doing anything about. What happened to the time when everyone got together in massive marches to changes things. It's time to bring back some of the solidarity we had as a society from the 60's. Yes, I know the 60's had plenty of problems. However, the one thing we did well was pull together as a society to make change. I'm puttin' on my body paint and patchin' up some bell-bottoms...now what? I wasn't born 'til 73!
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