Cheney's War by Whim

The major disclosures this week smoke screened out by the Cheney shooting incident make it pretty clear that our war on Iraq was carried out at the whim of the administration. Libby apparently testified that Cheney ordered him to disclose the Valerie Plame CIA identity to discredit or distract from her husband's report that Hussein had not acquired nuclear materials. Cheney has now claimed that he can declassify whatever he wishes:

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m20699&l=i&size=1&hd=0

Paul Pillar, a key CIA operative, has reported in Foreign Affairs:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

that the administration manufactured a connection between 9/11 and Hussein -- thus allowing them to use this national tragedy to carry out their pre-planned attack in 2003, despite massive objections at home and abroad and massive chaos created in the aftermath -- the mobilization of the culture war that we see being manifested around the Muslim world in response both to our brutal torture of Muslims in Guantanamo based on reports of those now released therefrom and those of Abu Ghraib graphically displayed in living color.

My two personal observations here are that as a New Yorker I deeply resent the use of our tragedy for such perverse purposes. And I have not seen such vicious abuses of political power since those of our enemies during WW2.

And one might add some questions about the personal profiting from Cheney's operations -- Halliburton and Co. in Iraq?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
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