The 'Surge' comes under fire

It is now becoming part of the accepted wisdom that the 'Surge' has been successful in bringing down the level of violence in Iraq. While it is fortunate that violence in Iraq has declined, it's not clear that the Surge is wholly responsible for this. In a previous post I cited the work of conservative columnist Paul Sperry who suggested the Surge not only involved increasing the number of troops in Iraq, especially in Baghdad, but also involved handing out cash bribes to Sunnis to cease resisting the U.S. occupation.

Confirmation for this continues to roll in, but I find it amazing that the media -- especially the so-called liberal media -- seems reluctant to report these findings. I encourage everyone to read Steve Simon's essay in Foreign Affairs The Price of the Surge, because he provides a more even-handed analysis of the Surge. Violence has gone down, yes, but at what cost? And are we any closer to establishing a political reconciliation among Iraq's various ethnic enclaves?

However, he does discuss the cash 'bribes' we've been providing to the Sunnis and why this has been a significant factor in alleviating the violence in Iraq. He writes :

"The deals were mediated by tribal leaders and consisted of payments of $360 per month per combatant in exchange for allegiance and cooperation. Initially referred to by the United States as 'concerned local citizens,' the former insurgents are now known as the Sons of Iraq. The total number across Iraq is estimated at over 90,000.

The Sunni sheiks, meanwhile, are getting rich from the surge. The United States has budgeted $150 million to pay Sunni tribal groups this year, and the sheiks take as much as 20 percent of every payment to a former insurgent -- which means that commanding 200 fighters can be worth well over a hundred thousand dollars a year for a tribal chief."

It's important to note that these are former Sunni insurgents, that is "terrorists," who have been responsible for killing Americans. But because the United States could not find a way to militarily bring down the violence and the war was becoming increasingly unpopular at home it seems a silent deal was struck between the commanders on the ground and the Sunnis. So far the 'bribes' seem to be working, but is this really much of a success?

The author also notes that the ethnic cleansing that went on in 2006 and early 2007 segregated the Shiites and Sunnis so that now they live in their own communities. A recent study done by professors at the University of California at Los Angeles confirms this.

Night light in neighborhoods populated primarily by embattled Sunni residents declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never returned, suggesting that ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit, the team reports in a new study based on publicly available satellite imagery.

It seems premature to declare the Surge a success because clearly other factors are at play. Finally, though, we should remember that the ultimate purpose of the Surge was not just to decrease the level of violence in Iraq, but to provide the embattled Iraqi government time to reconcile with dissident factions. While no one knows the future of Iraq, we do know that we had no cause to invade and occupy Iraq and all the "successes" in Iraq are ultimately for naught.

WMD: The Lie that Lingers

A recent report by the Center for Public Integrity has chronicled at least 935 "false statements" made by top Bush administration officials regarding Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and "connections" with al-Qaeda. While this report has gotten a good amount of buzz, and made a big splash in the blogosphere, it doesn't present any new information. We've known the intelligence on Iraq's weapons program has been wrong since 2004, if not earlier, and that Iraq had no operational connection with al-Qaeda.

Unfortunately, this report didn't do much to clear up some of the confusing and vexing issues surrounding the Bush Administration's use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Needless to say, this topic is politically explosive, so it's very difficult to make any kind of definitive statement that doesn't immediately provoke a torrent of partisan rancor. But we cannot understand the WMD controversy without first wading through the political muck, so that's where we must begin.

Politically, there are two very different versions of the WMD controversy. The first, which is the favorite of Democrats, is that President Bush and top administration officials deliberately made false statements about Iraq's WMD to frighten the American people to justify a war with Iraq. The second, which is popular among Republicans, is that Bush was simply repeating the conclusions of U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, and that the decision to invade Iraq was based on a genuine concern to protect the United States from Iraq's dangerous arsenal of WMD. If the first is true, Bush is a rotten war criminal. And if the second is true, then Bush is courageous leader who simply was misled by U.S. intelligence.

Anytime there is a suggestion that Bush "lied" to the country about Iraq's WMD, then Republicans make the argument that Bush's statements are no different from the Democrat's. Bush and the Republicans are not the only ones who thought Iraq had WMD. Here are some quotes by Democrats:

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
-- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002"

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

We can see that Bush's statements on Iraq's WMD program are really not so different from the Democrat's. So does this prove that there was no chicanery going on? Were we all wrong, as Bush supporters like to say? Or was there an effort to influence the intelligence to justify a war with Iraq? The intelligence world is full of secrecy, anonymous sources, and murky details, so a crystal clear picture of what went on is going to be difficult, but we have enough background information to make reasonable conclusions.

A fact often overlooked is that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)was a seismic shift in thinking about Iraq. The Robb-Silberman report, a task force commissioned by President Bush to look into the intelligence failure, states the following, “The October 2002 NIE reflected a shift, however, in the Community's judgments about the state of Iraq's BW program. Previous Community estimates had assessed that Iraq could have biological weapons; the October 2002 estimate, in contrast, assessed with ‘high confidence’ that Iraq ‘has’ biological weapons.”

“The Intelligence Community's assessment of Iraq's CW programs and capabilities remained relatively stable during the 1990s, judging that Iraq retained a modest capability to restart a chemical warfare program. The October 2002 NIE therefore marked a shift from previous assessments in that it concluded that Iraq had actually begun renewed production of chemical agents on a sizable scale.”

Is it not suspicious that the October 2002 NIE gave the Bush Administration the justification it needed to initiate a war with Iraq? Are we to believe that the intelligence agencies just so happened to produce so much bad intelligence right when the Bush Administration was trying to sell a war? More importantly, the October 2002 NIE seems to provide an ex post justification for Dick Cheney’s August 26, 2002 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars where he makes the following alarming statements,

“The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq; these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond.”

“Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon”

“Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”

Of course, only the most Pollyannaish would object to war if this was all true. However, this wasn’t true, nor was it supported by U.S. intelligence at the time. George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, said in his book _At The Center of The Storm_ that Cheney’s speech “went well beyond what our analysis could support,” but he failed to say so at the time. The Vice President had just concocted his own intelligence report out of whole cloth that had no basis in fact. It’s also important to note that Cheney wasn’t just claiming that Iraq had renewed production of biological and chemical weapons, but that Saddam’s intent was to use these weapons to wage aggressive wars, to blackmail the world, and threaten the United States. Cheney’s speech inaugurated the propaganda campaign to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein was an immediate threat to our national security, and only a war -- regime change -- could guarantee our safety. In this light, was it really bad intelligence or political intelligence?

Another seldom mentioned fact about the October 2002 NIE was that it was a rushed job. Typically, it takes about ten months to produce a NIE, but the one on Iraq’s WMD was completed in about 19 days. This fact alone proves the NIE was a political document, because there wasn’t sufficient time for all the raw data to be properly digested and assimilated throughout the various organs of U.S. intelligence. Instead of the normal gestation period of ten months, it came into being after three weeks, useless and stillborn, with its conclusions barely surviving a few months of exposure. The Robb Silberman report states, “The time pressures of the October 2002 NIE also may have hampered the normal thorough review before dissemination.” Of course, this “time pressure” is really political pressure, because the Bush Administration needed the intelligence community to give them a document that could justify a war -- mission accomplished.

While the Robb Silberman report provides a painstaking and thorough analysis of how certain aspects of the intelligence community went awry, the main points can be summed up briefly. In short, the Bush Administration was alleging that in 2002 Iraq had “renewed” production of biological and chemical weapons and was actively seeking a nuclear weapon. Once we remove the layers and layers of intelligence “assumptions,” “best guesses,” and “interpretations,” we see only a paucity of evidence that could barely survive a moment’s scrutiny. The conclusion that Iraq was seeking a nuclear weapon mainly came down to two bits of information: aluminum tubes and a forged uranium document. The conclusion that Iraq had extensive mobile biological weapon labs came down to one source, an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, who was unreliable and a known fabricator. The conclusion that Iraq had renewed production of chemical weapons came down to satellite imagery that showed “suspicious” truck activity, and, again, Curveball. That was it. The entire case for war in Iraq was built upon a flimsy house of cards that could hardly stand on its own.

However, what is even more troublesome is that after the publication of the October 2002 NIE, its conclusions came into immediate question. On March 7th, 2003 the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) released its findings about the state of Iraq’s nuclear program. These findings eviscerated the claims made by Dick Cheney and the 2002 NIE. The IAEA exposed the uranium documents as crude forgeries and concluded that the aluminum tubes were not designed for enriching uranium.

“There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminum tubes in question.”

The 2002 NIE maintained that Iraq had renewed production of chemical weapons, but this also came into question after the United Nations team (UNMOVIC) spent months in Iraq acting on the best U.S. intelligence. Hans Blix states, “And among the 700 inspections that we performed, none brought us any evidence of weapons of mass destruction.” So the United States could not provide a single bit of intelligence to corroborate the conclusion that Iraq had facilities producing chemical weapons.

Finally, in regards to the conclusion that Iraq had extensive mobile biological weapon labs, this came from a single source, Curveball, who was known to be unreliable prior to October of 2002. The Robb Silberman report states, “Indications of possible problems with Curveball began to emerge well before the 2002 NIE...The analysts' resistance to any information that could undermine Curveball's reliability suggests that the analysts were unduly wedded to a source that supported their assumptions about Iraq's BW programs.”

What does all this mean? It demonstrates conclusively that every bit of raw data that went into the October 2002 NIE --the intelligence document that paved the way for the war in Iraq -- had either been debunked or called into question before President Bush initiated “hostilities” on March 19th 2003. Simply, Bush took the United States to war even though the entire case for war had gone up in plume of smoke.

So how do we assess culpability? On October 11th the Senate approved the resolution to grant President Bush authority to wage war in Iraq. So after this date, the decision to go to war is entirely invested in President Bush. It was after this date that the conclusions made in the 2002 NIE came into question. The uranium documents were exposed as forgeries. Hans Blix found no traces of chemical weapons, and Curveball was widely known as a fabricator. So the most relevant question is: was the belief that Iraq had WMD just as solid in March of 2003 as it was in October of 2002? The answer is obviously “no.” Intelligence is a dynamic process -- conclusions can and do change. There is no reason to stay wedded to assumptions if the evidence changes. If President Bush was truly concerned about the accuracy of the intelligence, he could’ve called for another NIE, or permitted Congress and the Senate to cast another vote in light of the latest intelligence. However, he used his “authority” to wage war and the rest is history.

Ultimately, the war in Iraq was not about weapons of mass destruction, or protecting this country from a rogue regime. That was merely a convenient sales pitch for the war. The war in Iraq was about something else. But that's another story.

Is war with Iran on the horizon?

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITEE TESTIMONY -- ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, February 1, 2007

It seems as if the United States is always on the cusp of plunging into a full scale war with Iran. Last year, President Bush made the allegation that Iran was responsible for providing sophisticated "explosively formed projectiles" to the Iraqi insurgency. This year the State Department added the Al-Qods to the list of terrorist organizations. Finally, there has been much saber rattling over Iran's nuclear weapon program, and while the latest NIE on Iran defused much of the tension, the White House remains adamant that Iran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Last weekend there was an "incident" in the the strait of Hormuz in which Iranian speedboats "swarmed" several Navy ships. During the communication there was a threat, "I am coming to you...you will explode in a few minutes." Originally, the Pentagon claimed that this threat came from one of the speedboats, but now things are not so clear. Supposedly, it may have came from shore, or from another merchant freighter in the strait. However, this doesn't stop President Bush from playing up this incident for all it's worth:

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, so the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

You're not imagining things if you think this rhetoric sounds awfully familiar.

We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.

This was from a speech in Cincinnati made on October 9th, 2002 as part of the Administration's attempt to justify the use of force in Iraq.

Americans need to understand that those who formulate America's foreign policy, the Neocons, are adamant that the United States overthrow Iran's regime, and occupy the region. We must interpret all events in this light. It's very possible that there will be an attempt to provoke Iran or possibly stage a "Gulf of Tonkin" incident to start a war with Iran. We should be skeptical of any report released by the Pentagon or the White House that alleges Iran is "threatening" the United States. America will not benefit from a war with Iran, but the Administration desperately wants one, and right now there is no telling how far they will go to get one.

Ron Paul: scourge of the establishment

In celebration of Guy Fawkes Day, Ron Paul's supporters donated 4.2 million dollars to his campaign, a one day record that outperforms all the other Republican candidates. This shows that while Ron Paul may not be polling very high among Republican primary voters, his supporters are the most energized and enthusiastic in this election cycle.

Of course many people do not understand Ron Paul, seeing his candidacy and his positions as some kind of anomaly. How do you explain an anti-war, anti-Bush, pro-life Republican? But Ron Paul has hit a powerful chord in the American electorate challenging the simplistic notion that Republicans and conservatives support the war in Iraq and Democrats and liberals oppose it. This is the way the issue is always framed in debate shows, magazines, and other popular venues of opinion, but things are not really so simple.

The war in Iraq is the most pressing issue of this election cycle, and wars are never gray. Supporters of the war believe that we are in a struggle against evil, that the war is good and just, and that we must not leave Iraq until we can safely declare we've defeated the enemy. Opponents of the war vary in their opposition, but largely they don't see it as a fight against evil, or as a response to 911, or as an attempt to keep Americans secure. A "war for oil," or the "military industrial complex," is how some opponents characterize the war; while others just see it as unnecessary quagmire that was conducted poorly and is largely irrelevant to our national security or the fight against terrorism. Regardless, in between these positions there can be little common ground. This is why Ron Paul is a breath of fresh air to some and a scourge to others.

Here we have a Republican with a solid conservative voting record speaking out against the war. In fact, Ron Paul is only one of a handful of Republicans to vote against the resolution to grant President Bush authority to wage war in Iraq. Even though Ron Paul is a Republican with unimpeachable conservative credentials, he is seen as a threat to the Republican establishment. Why?

Ron Paul shatters the illusion that opposition to the war in Iraq is just a Leftist or liberal position. His candidacy shows that Republicans can also be against the war and that the anti-war position isn't a monopoly of the Democrats. This is a frontal challenge to the Republican leadership because they've banked their superiority and strength on the war, on their greater ability to protect this country from the "enemy." The one and almost universal defense of George Bush is that he has shown tremendous leadership in the War on Terror, and while it might be legitimate to question his handling of other issues, his conduct in this war is above reproach.

Ron Paul's straightforward message is a dagger aimed right at the heart of Bush's supposed mantle of invincibility. The war in Iraq was not in our national interest, not a proper response to 911 or terrorism, and besides the United States military has no role in nation building, declares Ron Paul. He has unnerved the Republican establishment -- and good for him.

Within the last few weeks a popular blog for Republicans, Redstate, has banned any new posts that "pimp" for Ron Paul, and just last night Hannity's forums also banned any new threads regarding Ron Paul. Ironically, while Ron Paul does fare well in on-line polls and even Fox News polls -- much to Sean Hannity's chagrin -- he is still polling at only about 2% nationally. His inability to rank with the top tier is both mysterious and troubling.

I do not expect Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination, but for his candidacy to be a success he doesn't need to. Perhaps it would be enough if his candidacy were to shatter the simplistic partisan equation that associates criticism of the war with liberalism and support for the war with conservatism. Many conservatives are against the war, but their voices are too often ignored by the Republican establishment, which has no time for dissent.

Ron Paul is a scourge because he reminds the Republicans that opposition to the war is the true conservative position, that Bush's leadership is wholly superficial and phony, and that critics of the war are no less patriotic than those who support the war and wrap themselves in the flag.

I hope Ron Paul's scourge will last a long time.

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.

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.