Monday, September 25, 2006

"LalalalalalalaLALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU"

The bullshit's flying fast and furious from the white house today after yesterday's intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war is increasing worldwide terrorism, hurting the "war on terra", and generally making life more dangerous for us all.

In an astonishing display of obfuscation, white house drone Peter Watkins commented today that "the radicals' rage against the US and Israel goes back generations and is not linked to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq". Incredibly, he also says "their hatred for freedom and liberty did not develop overnight. Those seeds were planted decades ago". Also, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said that the media's reports on the intelligence assessment weren't "representative of the complete document". He seems to be saying that the media has focussed on the negative parts of the report, without reporting the positive aspects.

But wait. Negroponte's not saying the reports are untrue, he's just saying they're "incomplete". If what's been reported is true (though incomplete), how exactly do you get from Point A -"the war in iraq has caused more terrorism and is making the world more dangerous" to Point B - "but everything's cool"? Answer: you don't. Because as long as it stands as fact, that the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists and making the world less safe, there is no getting to "everything's cool". Try it: the war in iraq is creating more terrorists and making the world less safe, but..... Baghdad had electricity for 3 hours today. Or... a school was built last week and it's still standing. Or... only 72 people got blown up today. Or how about... Saddam got kicked out of court again today. Hmmm, no. None of those things really seem to cut it, when the first part of the sentence is "the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists and making the world less safe".

No matter what has or hasn't been accomplished in Iraq, it isn't delivering the one thing the world was promised from it: less terrorism and more security. A lot of us knew that it wouldn't. But now that it's a documented fact that the war is actually making the world more dangerous, I wonder what the people who supported it have to say. Mission accomplished?

More here if you can stand it.