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the bush administration in collusion with the american "free press" generated what amounts to a climate of hysteria in the wake of 9/11/2001 which they extended and used as a cover for putting into motion an invasion of iraq that followed point for point the rationale offered by the project for a new american century group in 1997. in this context, the administration selectively interpreted/distorted/fabricated infotainment that rationalized the action. in this context, congress approved the actions because, for whatever reason, at the assumption that the administration was acting in good faith apparently overruled better judgment. there is no question about the outline of this scenario, and it is what it is regardless of whether you might approve of the invasion of iraq for reasons that have nothing to do with the rationale that was floated for it.
at the very least, the war in iraq represents a breakdown in independent thinking, a breakdown of oversight, a breakdown of fact-checking--problems which i think would not have happened as they did outside the hysterical context generated in the early phases of the bush-war on ghosts. there is abundant documentation, readily available, which shows every step of the message-and-distort approach to infotainment, the building of a tendentious set of interpretations based on this massaged-to-distorted infotainment.
the problems are obvious: at one level, what the war in iraq opens onto is a breakdown of the dominant american political and ideological system as a whole, one for which the entirety of the dominant order is responsible in general--but within this, it is the administration which is responsible in particular.
was this illegal?
shouldn't that be determined by a process?
it hardly seems worth the effort to type this--but this is a messageboard without any standing of make determinations as to what is or is not illegal--so for the most part "illegal" means i dont like it and "legal" means i like it.
but i would think that anyone in their right mind would be disturbed by how the situations which resulted in the launching of the fiasco in iraq unfolded--that it would give you pause--that preventing something like this from happening again would be a priority--it is altogether too easy to generate a climate of hysteria in the states, given the primacy of television as an opinion co-ordinating mechanism. it is SO easy that i would think folk who claim to like the american system as a whole would be bothered by it.
there is obviously a symbolic dimension to calls for impeachment of george w bush for misleading the public and congress (and the international community)
--there is a criminal (metaphor) degree of irresponsibility in using the information that they used, a criminal (metaphor) level of incompetence in the assembly and evaluation of intelligence--and this if you assume the administration acted in good faith. seems to me that in ANY other situation, the right would be calling for the heads of whomever acted with this degree of incompetence and would be complaining about whatever structure protected them--but not here, but not now.
why is that?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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