I think we all know the truth about Bush's war, and of the
other various motivations and influences that brought this war
about. There may be no one easy or identifiable reason or
conspiracy behind the war, but it would seem safe to conclude
that PNAC served as a theoretical underpinning for this
secretive, neoconservative vision; that GWB had determined,
even before the 2000 "election", to invade Iraq; and
that upon the occurrences of 9/11 he seized upon the occasion
to twist the truth to justify his predetermined invasion of
Iraq.
I am no fan of Bill O'Reilly, believe me, but on an NPR
discussion with James Carville, he presented some interesting,
and probably valid, factors that encouraged Bush to attempt
his ill-advised adventure. First, because the CIA more or
less handled the Afghanistan war, and because the war
succeeded (or seemed to succeed) despite critic's warnings
that it would be a disaster and a quagmire, Bush felt, wrongly
of course, that the same could be done in Iraq. But Rumsfeld
and the Pentagon ran the Iraq show, not the CIA, and the
"Commander Guy" and Rummy were more than willing to
distort, suppress or ignore CIA intelligence as well as to lie
outright. And they did all of the above. Moreover,
politically speaking, what better way could there have been to
blot out completely any real discussion of Bush's performance
in office by 2002 than to fire up the Iraq controversy during
the mid-term election campaign? This effectively drowned out
any discussion of Bush's domestic policies or the
effectiveness of his foreign policy, or anything else. It was
the beginning of the most dramatic "Wag-the-Dog" war
we could possibly have imagined.
O'Reilly's arguments, however, combined with the ad hoc post
facto rationalizations for the war with which we are all
familiar (WMDs, ties to al-Qaeda, blah, blah), were no more
than additional window dressing for the Bush lies. However,
it does underscore the fact that the CIA was NOT wrong in its
assessments in Afghanistan, but that the agency was barely
consulted, or selectively consulted, regarding Iraq.
And yet, the religious entanglements of Bush and his war are
real, and perhaps just as disturbing as his lies about, and
distortions of, CIA intelligence. The religious right does
apply its prophetic nonsense to this situation, and they want
to see what they believe is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy
in the reestablishment of Israel (done) and the rebuilding of
the Temple. Some of you may have seen on TV, as I have, a
feature about the efforts of a rich, religious, right-wing
rancher who is breeding cattle in an attempt actually to
produce the "red heifer" that (he says) is
prophecied to be sacrificed as a key ritual in bringing about
the Second Coming.
So, what we see here, unhappily, is a form of true insanity
taken into the highest level of government as part and parcel
of policy-formation.
I don't see that resorting to a delusional religious mode of
thinking is of any help in defending us from the infection of
a president's mind with the same. We need only an adherence
to facts, logic, and the precepts of the Constitution in order
to counter the errors and crimes of the Bush administration,
as well as the errors and crimes of religious zealotry,
wherever it raises its truly ugly head.
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