Tales from the Memory Hole III: O'Reilly & Hannity

It's not as important to review the statements made by Fox News commentators Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity because their duplicity has already been well-documented and they have never been serious thinkers, but just mouthpieces for George Bush. However, for the sake of completeness, I will list some of their reasons for supporting the Iraqi war. There isn't much substance to either of these two "journalists," so I'll mostly let them speak for themselves.

Bill O'Reilly supported the war in Iraq for the standard reasons: weapons of mass destruction. Let's look at a few of his quotes:

"If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein, and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and will not trust the Bush Administration again."

"If [Hussein] has 8,500 liters of anthrax that he's not going to give up, even though the United Nations demanded that he do that, we are doing the right thing. If he doesn't have any weapons, then we are doing the wrong thing."

This is pretty clear, right? If Saddam's regime possesses WMD then we are doing the right thing by invading, and if not, the wrong thing. Note that Mr. O'Reilly doesn't argue that we should invade Iraq to liberate its people from Saddam's regime, or to bring them the fruits of western democracy. The justification for the war rested solely on the belief that Iraq's WMD threatened the United States. So after it turned out that Iraq didn't have any WMD, did Mr. "No-Spin Zone" O'Reilly change his tune? Here's what he had to say in one of his nightly talking points:

Our analysis has been clear and to the point - the CIA blew it.

But then I go on Good Morning America (2/11/04), and say I'm sorry my analysis on WMD's before the war was wrong, and I'm angry about the CIA mistake. I mean, any honest commentator would say that.

But the left-wing press uses my admission as some kind of liberal policy vindication - and uses my words to hammer President Bush.

That's dishonest.

I still believe removing Saddam was the right thing to do - and that history will prove it.

As we can see, Mr O'Reilly is not above doing a little "spinning" of his own. He said he would never trust the Bush Administration again if WMD were not found, but in this memo he blames the CIA. He also says that removing Saddam Hussein was still the right thing to do. But why? Mr. O'Reilly said that removing Saddam Hussein would not be the right thing if he wasn't producing or concealing anthrax and other weapons of mass destruction. So on what basis was the Iraqi war the "right thing to do?" Mr. O'Reilly never bothers to tell us. Bill O'Reilly is not an independent journalist, not objective, and not fair, but just a partisan shill for the president, a true Bush Cultist.

If you had to grant an award to the world's number one Bush Cultist, that honor would go to Mr. Sean Hannity, author, talk radio host, and popular conservative personality. Of course calling Mr. Hannity a "conservative" is really a stretch, because he's nothing more than a true blue, dyed in the wool shill for George Bush and the errant war in Iraq. Hannity has no philosophy, no worldview, no sense of right and wrong, no belief in truth or falsehood outside the partisan interests of George Bush. Bush is his center, the unshakable axis around which his entire live revolves.

But before we continue to level any further accusations at Mr. Hannity, we should pause for a moment and ask a simple question: what is a conservative foreign policy? In 1999 when the Clinton Administration intervened in Kosovo, Mr Hannity asked a few pointed questions that revealed his foreign policy perspective:

"And then we go back to Henry Kissinger's test, which is number one, is there a vital U.S. national interest? And do we have a plan to disengage? What's the exit strategy? I don't see that we've met that test either. And why does it have to happen this second, this hour? Why don't we have a national debate first?"

Mr Hannity raises a few key objections to our intervention in Kosovo: there is no vital national interest, and there is no exit strategy. These are very pertinent questions to raise because conservatives don't believe we should go to war -- even a war as inconsequential as Kosovo -- unless it is in our national security to do so and unless we have an exit strategy. Conservatism always counsels prudence. Mr Hannity continues:

"But you know what? There's a lot of massacres going on in the world. As you know, 37,000 Kurds in Turkey, over a million people in Sudan. We have hundreds of thousands in Rwanda and Burundi. I mean, where do we stop?"

Here Mr. Hannity raises another objection: we should not intervene just for humanitarian reasons. There must be a national security interest at stake. These opinions are not controversial or surprising, but are just the natural conclusions one draws from conservative principles. However, all this changes when a Republican is in White House.

In an heated exchange with Congressman Ron Paul after the May 15th debate, Hannity was almost apoplectic that Ron Paul didn't support such indiscriminate use of our military forces. Here is part of the exchange:

HANNITY: Are you saying then that the world has no moral obligation, like in the first Gulf War, when an innocent country's being pilaged, and people are being raped and murdered and slaughtered, or in the case of Saddam, he's gassing his own people, are you suggesting we have no moral obligation there? Do you stand by and let that immorality happen?

HANNITY: We got it, Ron, you would stand by and do that, I would not.

Hannity is now arguing that the United States military has a moral duty to engage in humanitarian crusades, which is in direct contradiction to his statements on Kosovo. Why the change? That's easy. Sean Hannity is a Bush Cultist and simply supports the war in Iraq because Bush supports the war in Iraq. Now Hannity might make a few arguments for why we should be in Iraq, but ultimately it's all about defending the partisan interests of the president at the expense of all else.

Tales from the Memory Hole II: Sowell

In my previous entry I quoted Mr. David Limbaugh who made the case that the justification for the war in Iraq was Saddam's continued development of WMD. However, if Mr Limbaugh was principled, and his beliefs flowed from his convictions, he would have simply said, "I thought Iraq had WMD. I was wrong. We should leave Iraq immediately." Of course, no such mea culpa was forthcoming from Mr Limbaugh, and that's because he is a shill for George Bush, a Bush Cultist as I like to call him, and will change his arguments to suit the partisan interests of the president.

Unfortunately, he is not the only Bush Cultist out there; they are legion. Mr. Thomas Sowell, who has history of promoting free markets and conservative causes, has now also revealed himself to be little more than a shill for George Bush. Let's see what he had to say before the war in Iraq began, and compare it to what he said later.

On January 6, 2003 Mr Sowell wrote a column entited "Dangers ahead -- from the right" where he did discuss the upcoming war in Iraq.

Those neoconservatives, especially, who were pushing an activist "national greatness" foreign policy, even before September 11th, have siezed upon that event as a reason for the United States to "use American might to promote American ideals" around the world.

That phrase, by Max Boot of the Counsel [sic] on Foreign Relations and the Weekly Standard, is breathtaking in its implications. When he places himself and fellow neoconservatives in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, it is truly chilling.

The track record of nation-building and Wisonian grandiosity ought to give any pause. The very idea that young Americans are once again to be sent out to be shot at and killed, in order to carry about the bright ideas of editorial office heroes, is sickening.

He concludes, "But to destroy regimes that are trying to destroy us is very different from going on nation-building adventures."

I applaud Mr Sowell for acknowledging the existence of neoconservatives and also for recognizing that their ideals are a far cry from genuine conservatism. When many people hear the term neoconservative, or Neocon for short, they think it is just a slur invented by the Left to ridicule Bush's foreign policy. However, at least Mr. Sowell demonstrates that, "yes Viriginia," Neocons are real, and, in fact, acutely dangerous. The last line sums up Mr Sowell's reason for supporting the war in Iraq: Iraq is a regime that is trying to destroy us.

So much like David Limbaugh, Mr. Sowell does not support invading Iraq to spread the germ of democracy, to liberate the citizens of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, or to involve the military in an exorbitant nation-building exercise. His argument is preemptive self defense: we must destroy Saddam's regime because his regime is about to destroy us.

In a January 30, 2003 column entitled "Disarming a country" Mr Sowell continues to hit on the same themes. He makes the shopworn comparison of Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and compares those who oppose the war in Iraq to reborn Neville Chamberlains. Mr. Sowell believes that almost every war, every military engagement, is just a re-play of WWII, as if that war exhausts all the wisdom there is to know about war. Comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler and between Iraq and Germany are absurd, but Mr. Sowell uses the comparison for polemical purposes: the more you can graft WWII onto the Iraq war, the more just and urgent it will seem. (Mr. Sowell is now comparing Iran to the Third Reich.)

Like Mr. Limbaugh and scores of others, Mr. Sowell put his faith in the Bush Administration and seemed to genuinely believe that Iraq's development of WMD posed an urgent threat to the United States. So what was his response when it turned out Iraq's WMD were just chimeras of an over active imagination? He addressed this in a February 10th, 2004 column entitled "Weapons of political destruction." It is here where Mr Sowell's profound dishonesty is on full display.

Was the Iraqi war worth it and should we have gone to war if we had to do it over again, knowing what we know now? On net balance, yes.

Among the things that we know now is that you get cooperation in the Middle East after you have demonstrated your willingness to use force. Would Libya have revealed and dismantled its weapons of mass destruction if the Qaddafi regime had not seen what happened in Iraq? Would Syria and Iran have taken a more conciliatory attitude if they had not seen what happened in Iraq?

Mr. Sowell is saying that even if he knew Iraq had no WMD and was not a threat to this country, on net, going to war was still a good idea. Why? Because it forced Iran and Syria into a "conciliatory attitude." So even though this wasn't a preemptive war after all, it was still necessary to show other Middle Eastern nations that we mean business. Note that Mr. Sowell has now invented a new argument to defend Bush's decision to invade Iraq. But does he take his new argument seriously, or is it just special pleading?

In an August 22, 2006 column entitled "Point of no return" Mr Sowell has the following to say about Iran: "Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea mean that it is only a matter of time before there are nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorist organizations."

Is this evidence of a "conciliatory attitude" by Iran, Mr Sowell? So there is no indication that our invasion of Iraq has encouraged Iran and Syria to become more "conciliatory." Mr. Sowell made the argument in 2004 because he was desperate to find a justification to support the war in Iraq. He couldn't trot out the "we are turning Iraq into a democracy," because he had already dismissed the argument that the United States should participate in democratic nation building experiments in the Middle East. So he didn't have much wiggle room to concoct a new argument. But after it turns out that the Iraqi invasion did not force Iran into a "conciliatory attitude" does he now say that in hindsight, the war in Iraq was a mistake? Don't bet on it.

Let's finally untangle the layers of mendacity Mr. Sowell has weaved around the war. Prior to the outbreak of war, he made the very practical argument that we should invade Iraq because Iraq intends to "destroy" us. When it turned out that Iraq had no WMD, Mr. Sowell said that "on net" we should still have invaded Iraq because it forced nations like Iran into a "conciliatory attitude." However, in his latest columns, Mr. Sowell is accusing Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon, and says it's a greater threat than the one we faced from Nazi Germany. So he doesn't even believe his own argument about the war in Iraq making Iran "conciliatory". What is going on here?

Verdict: Thomas Sowell is not a conservative, and is not honest. Thomas Sowell is a purveyor of dishonesty because first and foremost he's a Bush Cultist. That's the ugly truth.

Tales from the Memory Hole I: Limbaugh

The most frustrating part of debating the war in Iraq is that those who support the war never defend their arguments, but instead just throw out new arguments before you can shoot down the last one. So the case for invading Iraq isn't based on any real argument. Instead it's based on changing the argument -- keeping it a moving target -- so that you never have to actually do any arguing.

Perhaps you'll hear the argument that Iraq's WMD were a threat to this country, but once you mention that Iraq had no WMD, then the argument becomes Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime and "gassing his own people." Fine, you might say: the United States should engage in humanitarian foreign policies and we should intervene in Darfur, Niger, Zimbabwe and dozens of other countries, but supporters of the war in Iraq don't really believe that, so then the argument will become Saddam's violation of United Nation Security Council Resolutions. Why should US servicemen fight and die to uphold the sanctity of a UNSC resolution, you may ask? Well, then the response might be something about 9/11 and fighting terrorism. And round and round it goes.

The point is that supporters of the war never stick to an argument and defend it. Before you engage the debate, they've shifted the cause of the war to something else. So they must win arguments by avoiding arguments. If you pay close attention, this is the tactic of people like David Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and of course George Bush.

However, I find it instructive to go back before the war in Iraq was underway to see what the supporters of the war said back then and see if it's similar to what they're saying now. Often, you'll notice that arguments change as circumstances change. This phenomenon is what I refer to as "Bush Cultism," the belief that Bush's partisan interests determine what is right and wrong, true and false, good and evil, patriotic and unpatriotic.

David Limbaugh has been an implacable defender of Bush's war in Iraq since the idea was first floated, so it's instructive to re-visit what he thought the original cause for war was and compare it to what he's saying now.

The first column I could find by Mr. David Limbaugh discussing Iraq was on August 3, 2002. The title of his column was "Invading Iraq is in our national interests." Let's look at a few quotes to see why he feels the United States must invade Iraq.

"With all due respect to the Iraqi people and with genuine concern for their interests, let's not fool ourselves. Our decision to invade Iraq will not and should not be driven primarily by their interests."


"When it comes to foreign policy, no nation -- including one as powerful as the United States -- can afford to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation every time it disapproves of the way it treats its citizens."

"We are justified in preemptively striking Iraq because Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction and would use them against our allies and us."

"And we cannot be deterred from an invasion because it might produce 'chaos.'"

Mr Limbaugh's case isn't vague or ambiguous, but strikingly clear: Iraq is developing WMD so that it can provide these weapons to terrorists to attack the United States. He makes it patently obvious that this war isn't about bringing democracy to the people of Iraq, nation building, or trying to prop up a new government. Importantly, there is no suggestion that Iraq is the "central front in the War on Terror," and that we should keep troops in Iraq until we save it from the "chaos" that will inevitably ensue after Saddam's regime is overthrown.

This last point about the "chaos" that will erupt after we depose of Saddam's regime is particularly illuminating. It shows that Mr Limbaugh was fully aware that our invasion of Iraq could kick off an ethnic and religious firestorm and make it impossible for our troops to lay down any law and order. However, Mr Limbaugh was very clear: the ensuing "chaos" is not our concern, only the elimination of Iraq's WMD and the Hussein regime are the justifications for the war. But now it's all been re-packaged. The sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Shiites, and even the tribal rivalry among the Shiites is now presented as a continuation of the "War on Terror." In other words, we wreck Iraq; Iraq explodes into social disarray, and Mr Limbaugh simply sells this violence and "chaos" as part of the War on Terror.

After 9/11 no one thought that winning the war required making the Shiites and Sunnis like each other. No one thought that we had to capture Muktada al-Sadr or increase security in Baghdad and the al-Anbar province. These all became concerns after we invaded Iraq and proceeded to wreck the country. None of these objectives are in any way related to fighting terrorism or increasing American security.

Mr Limbaugh supports the war in Iraq. Bush wrecks Iraq. And then Mr Limbaugh now calls the "wreck" part of the War on Terror. What a scam.

Of course much has changed in the last few years, but Mr Limbaugh's fanatical devotion to George Bush hasn't even hit a bump.

Later, we'll look at Thomas Sowell, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and hopefully others. Such mendacity shouldn't be allowed.

First introduction

The war in Iraq continues to drag on without any foreseeable resolution, but just the empty promise that things will eventually get better. This is unacceptable. Why should Americans continue to fight in this war when our commanders have no clear criterion for victory, no realistic strategy for improving Iraq, and no idea how much longer this war will go on?

There were those of us who said that this war would be a disaster before the first shot was even fired. The opposition wasn't just on the Left, but on the Right as well. Sadly, the crusaders for this war -- chiefly the Neocons -- were intent on maligning anyone who didn't get on the pro-war bandwagon. David Frum's infamous piece in National Review in March of 2003, Unpatriotic Conservatives, is a good reminder that the Neocons are fanatics who will not permit dissent.

However, the Neocons are not the only ones responsible for entangling the United States in Iraq, but the noisy and reckless legions of Bush supporters, more aptly called Bush Cultists, who rallied for this war and were nothing more than around-the-clock propagandists.

Hopefully, we can clear up the damage the war in Iraq has caused, and create an understanding that will prevent the Neocons from ever again attempting such a dastardly and despicable act against this country.

To that purpose, this blog is dedicated.