Bush World: A Matter of Faith before Fact

[Vyan]

Today may be a Historic Day, and then again it may not.

At 2:30 pm Eastern, a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes, by the Democratic members of the House questioning when the Bush Administration decided to begin the Iraq War and on what basis, will be convened. Expectations from both sides of the political spectrum are quite extreme. The "Far-Left", including those who hate the very idea of George W. Bush in the White House may be hoping that this will be the first serious salvo in the march toward eventual impeachment hearings - while those with a right-ward bent are sure to insist that this is just another example of how those "whiny Loser-crats" refuse to accept that their defeats in the 2000/2004 elections, and simply can't resist blaming everyone else but themselves.

As usual, my own position is toward the Center as I suspect that both sets of expectations will fall far short of the reality.

Did President Bush Lie us into a War? I think not. At least - not exactly. Was the President merely the innocent victim of a broken intelligence apparatas that failed to warn us of 9/11, and then continued to fail when it came to Iraq's involvment in the event, ties to al-Qaeda and possession of WMD's? Again, I think, not exactly.

I think if you look at the facts honestly and squarely, you will begin to see a pattern that has led us to where we are now - and it's not neccesarily a pattern of deliberate deception, it's a pattern of paradigm, a pattern of received wisdom, and fervent belief. A pattern of faith before fact.

...

For these various {Bush} Deputies and Undersecretaries (such as Bolton and Wolfowitz), it's not simply a matter of them deliberately lying to their superiors - it's an issue of which facts did they choose to highlight in their reports, and which did they choose to de-emphasize or omit? This might mean that the longed-for independant investigation of President Bush may find that he was simply the victim of misguided and overzealous aids, not a deliberate prefabricator or liar per se.

Or then again, was he a willing victim of this paradigmatic group-think?

The most telling answer to this question comes from former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who said the Bush was like ""a blind man in a room full of deaf people", and that he whole-heartedly believes his decisions are the right ones, regardless of all nay-sayers and in many cases - clear and raw evidence to the contrary.

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," Bartlett (a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance) went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.This reliance on belief and conviction over fact, may indeed be a common trait among the PNAC/neo-conservative movement, and has gradually influenced the President. Where once he opening took input from many source, according to a extensive report by Ron Suskind for the New York Times, today he has closed himself into the tightest circle of "happy-talking" insiders and confidents of any President in modern history.

To lie is to state as fact, something that you yourself don't believe is true - but I strongly suspect that the aswer to the perennial question of "How did we get here?" may be something both far greater and far smaller than simply a set of repeated lies, it may indeed involve quite a bit of blind self-deception as well.

You can not simply call it a "lie" when someone simply refuses to accept those facts that contradict their predetermined belief... we have only one name for that act.

Zealotry.

Read more...

[ixion]

1. BS! No free pass for chimpenator

They ALL KNEW DAMN WELL there was NO THREAT FROM IRAQ, and that's all there is to it, IMO.

[wtmusic]

2. Vyan, WADR,

Bush lied us into the war. It's deliberate deception. Its motive is sheer profit.

If you don't believe it, you don't know enough.

[Vyan]

3. Read the link please....

Then you'll see what I do, and do not "know" on this issue.

Sometimes the truth isn't as obvious as it appears.

Vyan

[wtmusic]

7. I did

and I agree that PNACers are 100% convinced that there ideology is just.

So was Stalin of his.

What you don't seem to know (or maybe don't appreciate) is that the war is illegal not only by the terms of the UN Charter, to which we are signatory, but by the norms of the Nuremburg trials and all international law since the Peace at Westphalia 500 years ago.

Whether Saddam has/had WMDs is irrelevant. The US has no right to attack another nation outside of self-defense, and that is exactly what happened. Bush justified the war by scaring the American public about the WMD threat when, as show by the DSM, he intended to start a war anyway.

Starting a war is a war crime. If we are fortunate he will be punished and punished appropriately.

For more info on the trumped-up legality of the war in Iraq, read "The Myth of Pre-Emptive Self-Defense":

http://www.asil.org/taskforce/oconnell.pdf

[Vyan]

10. Assumptions are indeed a dangerous thing....

as I'm well aware, and in completely agreement with the view that the Iraq War was and is illegal. This was clearly the view of the British Attorney General at the time of Downing Street Minutes, yet over the course of several months, and after numerous intelligence revelations (most apparently delivered gift-wrapped by Curveball) - his view shifted.

If there is to be a full investigation, we need to look carefully at how this shift occured on both sides of the pond.

No one would consider Colin Powell to be a neo-con. He was even quoted (on NPR) as referring to PNAC/Neo-cons like Rumfelds and Wolfowitz as those "f-ing crazies", yet he still went to the UN and acted as the mouth-peice to the world.

What I'm suggesting is that we don't underestimate the depths to which these people are willing to go, or the level of committment they bring to the table when they go after something they want. We are living in the era of the "Faith Based Presidency", where facts are merely tools and means to achieve an end, not guideposts to help us understand the reality of world - these people are out to recreate reality by enforcing their perceptions on us all.

Vyan

[Ysolde]

4. I concur.

How could it not be lies??? They knew the "Niger" connection was false, but still reported it as true. How is that not lying? They knew that Saddam had no connection to Al-Queda, but they still insisted on promoting that. How is that not lying? Why is it that there are still apologists for this administration?

Bush lied. Thousands have died.

[Vyan]

8. Take a deep breath..

And read what I'm saying carefully. No "apology" for the Bush Administration is being put forth, only a warning that over-reaching, and over-assuming can be a dangerous thing.

When someone, anyone holds a fervent belief - they tend to cling to that view even in the face of contradictory evidence, just as many poster in this thread simply refuse to entertain the idea, as expressed in this essay, that the primary culprits for the "fixing of the facts" may not be the President himself. Or at least, certainly wasn't the President alone.

Of course a key issue is what was known, and when was it known. But even more important is how did high-level administration appointees, particularly those with for PNAC creds, such as Wolfowitz and Bolton, Press the intelligence communities to support what they beleived and <i>already knew</i> about Saddam?

Who in the administration received information about the falsified Niger documents and when?

Who in the administration paid attention, and how ignored the information, when the U.S. Energy Commission said the aluminum tubes were the wrong type?

Who in the administration decided not to share information about Curveball's unreliability?

Answer these questions, and you begin to paint the real picture what happened - and what is continuing to happen in the Bush Administration.

Simply calling it a "Lie" doesn't even begin to cover the scope of how insidious it truly is.

Vyan

[Ysolde]

14. Ok.

I get what you're saying. It's a lot like the argument my husband and I get into about responsibility and accountability. I thoroughly believe that the folks who voted the Shrub into office are as responsible for the Iraq war as the German public was for the Holocaust. My husband prefers to say that their ignorance (whether willful or not) lets them off because they know/knew no better. Basically, they've been brainwashed (deluded, delusion, same end result) into believing that what is going on is necessary and "right", so that lets them off. I don't buy that. I understand what you're saying about a "lie" versus a "delusion", but I just refuse to let them get by on that. These people are responsible for the deaths of over 1700 US soldiers, tens of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the maiming of countless more; not to mention the torture, the renditions, etc. I know that you're not really advocating that they be let off the hook, but I think if we don't call it lying, then those who aren't so deluded won't get it either. (I'd go on more, but the fire alarms are going off...)

[BlueJazz]

5. Bullshit..Bullshit..They can dress this Hog up in the finest..

..clothes known to society and it's still a Hog.
Bush Knew it was a pile of Crap and he still knows it was a pile of Crap.
To think that this Idiot is going to get a Pass while our Former President was raked over the coals for a Blow-Job is the Hypocrisy of the Right...

[SF Bay Area Dem]

6. Reading this makes me think you are a...

...apologist for *. This "I think not" interpretation as to whether * lied to get us into this war is exactly the attitude that Rove counts on for political cover. The evidence is overwhelming that * lied through his teeth and his conservative flunkies went right along with it.

Sorry but I do not buy this "faith before fact" nonsense and unfortunately I must reject the basic premise of your blog.

[Vyan]

9. I think the evidence is the reverse...

That the flunkies as you call them, were far ahead of Bush himself on the idea of Iraq being a threat way back in 1998 when they wrote the PNAC letter to President Clinton. Clearly, even before he became President, Bush shared some of their views that a War with Iraq was inevitable - but these others believed in it passionately. It appears that they slowly brought Bush fully into their jihad, following 9/11.

I understand what I'm positing is an unpopular view here on this forum -- but that's exactly the point I'm making. The knee-jerk reaction is always to ignore the unpopular view and reject it if it doesn't fit into the predetermined belief.

Looking at numerous peices of evidence from various sources, I have an opinion that this is the kind of "knee-jerK" reaction that the Bush Administration implemented in it's policy to Iraq, and that in many ways this kind of thing is actually far worse than a "lie", because in this situation you are arguing with someone who simply trying to deceive you - you're arguing with someone who has deceived themselves!

Nay-sayers at the state deptartment, U.S. Energy Commission and even UN inspector teams, were ignored or squelched, nay-sayers such as Joe Wilson and Scott Ritter.

Today Joe and Scott get a chance to speak up and tell their story at the Iraqi WMD's.

All I'm asking is that we actually listen to what they say, rather than what we think they might say.

Vyan

[katty]

11. Not buying this-Sorry, no free ride for junior now matter

how much this transparent, asshole hypocrite believes god is speaking to him or, more accurately, how sick in the head he is. He took an oath of office and his drug/booze history, his poppy and family power DOES NOT abdicate him from his primary responsibility as President.

[Bravo411]

12. This is some twisted logic...

So if there's a red car in the parking lot and I go telling everybody it's a blue car, then according to your logic, as long as I truly believe that it's blue then I haven't lied.

Not guilty due to stupidity and/or willful ignorance of reality isn't a justified defense.

[Vyan]

13. It's not a defense...

it's a <I>delusion</i>, and we have to begin to better understand that the people we are arguing with in the so-called "Red States", the ones we are trying to convince, are deeply trapped in that delusion. Just look at how Freepers behave, they desperately believe what they believe, they ignore inconvenient facts or rationalize and marginalize them when they don't "fit". A lying person <i>knows</i> what he saying isn't true - someone who is <i>deluded</i> does not.

So when I say I don't believe that Bush was lying, I'm not letting him off the hook one bit. What he's and his ilk have done and is doing is far worse than simply being a liar. If we want to truly end the reign of the neo-cons, we have to attack their delusional ideology, not simply President Bush.

Vyan