High Level Finger Pointing

The behavior of the neoocns and the PNACers in inciting and demanding the invasion of Iraq is a model for how NOT to do anything. Don’t “read the directions”. Don’t consult anyone. If something fails, do it again harder. Only hire cronies. Never try anything new.

Vanity Fair is running a series of interviews of the top dog neocon ideologues. With their fond dreams of spreading democracy (code for world domination using military force) and hopes for a greater Israel sinking into the sands of Iraq, they are throwing GW under the bus. Richard Perle, their spokesman, says it’s all Bush’s fault that their brutal, hubristic plot flopped.
Funny that.

As I recall Bush’s signature is absent from the PNAC document that outlined their exuberant strategy “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. Given Bush’s mighty struggles with his mother tongue, it is doubtful that he read any part of it, much less authored it. However they knew they could count the recklessness of their boy king to unleash the dogs of war and they knew his penchant for excess would allow them plenty of time to mess about.

These are men with terrifically bad judgment and an unshakeable belief in their own opinions. Nothing demonstrates this more than their assessment of the US defeat in Viet Nam. Never having bothered to join in the fray themselves, they insisted that the US didn’t fight hard enough and long enough. Being combat virgins did not deter them from the voicing the opinion that ten years and 50,000 American lives, more than a million Vietnamese lives, God knows how many wounded or crazed and a huge war debt was an inadequate price for others to pay for illegitimate power over a sliver of land half a world a way.

To plan the war and “divvy up” the oil fields, they fingered a man who brought shame on three other presidents, Dick Cheney. His career life partner Donald Rumsfeld, another military virgin, was nominated to carry out the plan.

Rumsfeld was in love with a new generation of lethal technology. He was going to fight the war “on the cheap”, using fewer soldiers and more gadgets. His methods proved to be the very definition of false economy. He jauntily repeated all the failures of the past as if he had invented them.

Turning Donald Rumsfeld lose in the Pentagon was an unmitigated disaster. He vetted the Pentagon of everyone that could help him. When “victory” was achieved, Rumsfeld elbowed aside the State Department who traditionally handle issues of occupation and rebuilding so he could screw up the nation building himself. Like the amoral opportunist he is, Rumsfeld and his supporters are now blaming the “generals on the ground”. Charming.

Seymour Hersh in his investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal in "Chain of Command" cites a book called “The Arab Mind” that was enthusiasctically circulating among the movers and shakers at the Pentagon. According to Hersh, the book was used as an example of how not to do sociology in a university classroom.
The ideas for the sexual humiliation of Arab detainees likely had their origins in the pages of this tome. It is not likely the old farts at the PNAC read any legitimate cultural studies on Middle East history or were even familiar with their history. We can be fairly certain that they didn’t consult with any of the regional experts who warned all willing to listen of what was likely to happen.

The neocons did know that Iraq was a nation on its knees, weakened by wars and ten years of sanctions so inhumane that even the UN intervened. Only the mainstream media seemed to be out of the loop, neglecting to tell Americans that Iraq was no danger.
It is likely when congress gave Bush the green light to dip into the US treasury for the neocons social experiment that they really thought it would be a cakewalk. My guess is that Donald Rumsfeld really believed that Iraq would not only pay for its own conquest but help fund gobbling up Syria and Iran. I think he still believes it.

When it all started to go pear shaped they never bothered to examine the causes or to tweak their amazingly naïve plan. They just dumped more of our money and our lives into the fray.

The plan and execution were deeply flawed at the outset. The people chosen to implement it were complete amateurs and friends of complete amatuers. The only response to failure was to deny and then amplify and repeat the failed strategy. Though Bush is certainly responsible for buying into and tolerating the failures, the real culprit is standing in front of Perle et Co.s mirror.

Like all amoral opportunists, Perle is a moral coward and is unable or unwilling to take responsibility for his mistakes or to benefit from any lessons events might offer. Though men and women like him constantly seek power over others, under no circumstances should it ever be granted.
That is the lesson that events have to given us to learn. That is our reward for enduring this long national nightmare
Carol DW