Josh Marshall (click the link at the right for TALKING POINTS) clears the air of the smoke the Right's pundits wheeze and blow (even up their own arses) to justify outlandish and immoral acts.

TALKING POINTS MEMO
by Joshua Micah Marshall

William Safire has now joined the camp of those who argue that anyone who questions the White House's use of trumped-up or flimsy intelligence is actually playing into the hands of Saddam and aiding his quest to return to power. Saddam, says Safire ...

...presumes that British and American journalists, after the obligatory mention that the world is better off with Saddam gone, would — by their investigative and oppositionist nature — sustain the credibility firestorm. By insisting that Bush deliberately lied about his reasons for pre-emption, and gave no thought to the cost of occupation, critics would erode his poll support and encourage political opponents — eager to portray victory as defeat —to put forward a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate...

Let's translate this: What's the defense against charges of manipulation or deception? We don't have one. But don't mention it or you'll be helping Saddam return to power. Or perhaps you could put it another way: the mess we've made is too big for us to afford the luxury of asking why we made such a big mess.

I'll be honest with you. I struggled for some time trying to think up a way to discuss Safire's Monday morning column. But the whole thing was such a cynical mix of half-truths, untruths and twisted logic that it ended up besting me.

Here are a few examples ...

Saddamist guerrillas, aided by terrorist allies in Syria and Iran, would hold out the fearsome possibility of the return to power of Saddam or his sons. A series of murders of "collaborators" would continue to intimidate Iraqi scientists and officers who know about W.M.D. and links to Al Qaeda and its related Ansar al-Islam.

Here Safire slips in an assumption ("continue to intimidate") that virtually no one believes: that we haven't gotten WMD-related testimony because the scientists and officers fear retribution.

Or this ...

How best to deny Saddam's putative return from his Elba, and to put this summer of discontent behind us? Drop the premature conclusion that if we can't yet find proof of the destructive weapons, they never existed. That's like saying because we haven't found Osama or Saddam, those killers never existed.

Is it really like saying that? Am I missing something? Because this analogy sounds like one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life.

Let's be honest. Homefront disputes over war aims, justifications and policy are seldom helpful to the conduct of a war, at least in an immediate operational sense. But accountability and responsibility are so alien to these people that the responsibility for their manipulations, reckless enthusiasm and lack of planning rests not with them, but on the shoulders of those who now choose to call them on it.

-- Josh Marshall






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