amen, brother.

It’s not that Bush knew, or didn’t know, it’s that he DIDN’T CARE. It still amazes me how many people think Iraq had anything at all to do with 9/11.

I disagree with Roger Simon that there are too many Pres. candidates. The more the merrier. And, speaking of merrier, Ralph Nader will probably run again. Ralph is always a cheerful, optimistic presence. Did you know that he is from the lovely Litchfi…

If you look at individual detailed predictions, I agree that many people were wrong about many things. The only thing that I was concerned about was whether Saddam might have had some WMDs and would use them in inventive ways resulting in mass casualties. Of course that was before we found out how thin the evidence was that he did.

But looking at specific predictions is always troubling because the more detailed the prediciton the more chance that it would be incorrect. What is more instructive is to look at the broad picture predicted by different people. In this, the picture painted by those who were in favour of the war was that the Iraqi people would embrace freedom and democracy, US troops would be scaled right back to 30,000 months after the invasion and that reconstruction of the country would be well on its way by now with Iraq as an example to the region. The anti-war prediction was that, as an ethnic state, democracy would produce ethnic divisions and the security situation would result in an eternal occupation which would, in the way of things, get more and more violent as the years passed, resulting in the fabled “Quagmire” while doing little or nothing to counter the terrorist Islamist threat to the West.

The reason why many people remind others of this is mainly because they are concerned that the people from the former camp are still making all the decisions regarding Iraq, whereas the latter group are generally ignored until reality screams so loudly that it cannot be ignored.

Still, not much of it matters in any case. This course was set in place long ago and we just get to watch it play out.

For those who believe that the alternative grouping of Shiite Secularists, Sunni Tribes and other small parties are going to form a cohesive government as an alternative to the Kurds, SIIC and Dawa, please could you explain the numbers on this? As far as I can tell they don’t have a hope in hell of getting it together and, even if they do, it is hard to imagine a grouping less able to hold together and actually govern Iraq. Say what you like about the current government but it is, at least, relatively unified. Useless, corrupt, incapable of action and largely holidaying in Jordan, but at least they’re not shooting at each other (most of the time).

Indeed, a dilemma. A tricky psychological situation for Rick Moran.

Someone who gambles or speculates in money is on a losing streak and asks himself: Should I go on and invest more money? Throw more good money into the abyss?

You may turn the corner, if lucky, or go broke completely.

Grown-up and levelheaded people usually stop early enough. They know that mere will-power will not coerce reality.

It was Karl Rove, I think, who famously said: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality … we’ll act again, creating other new realities … We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

That is the mindset: Create your own reality by the power of your own will. The “Moose mindset”: You win if you have the will to win.

It doesn’t work. Reality should always be treated humbly. Superior to our will.

It is not “lefties” who eat you up, Rick Moran, it is reality.

And you know: The “Moose mindset” would ruin your nation, if the nation followed it, as it has ruined plenty of gamblers and speculators, and as it had ruined Germany twice.

You wrote this:

“… And loons who still believe he knew there was no WMD in Iraq when we invaded don’t have the brains of a marmoset. If you believe he knew there were no WMD then you must also believe that he either wanted to lose the election of 2004 or lose the war against Iraq.

Even a 5 year old could figure out that if we won the war, we would have to look for WMD. Not finding it meant that Bush loses the election of 2004. Only because of the absolute stupidity of the Democrats in nominating John Kerry saved his ass. Anyone else would have beaten him in a landslide.

So which is it? Do you think Bush wanted to lose the election or lose the war? If he lost the war, he wouldn’t have had to worry about looking for WMD in IRaq, would he? So which one do you think Bush had in mind, him lying about WMD and all?”

My answer to that:

1

They hyped the WMD threat - because they assumed they could easily take over and transform Iraq. After such a success it would have been irrelevant whether WMD were found or not. People would readily pardoned the “error”.

Bush had problems in 2004 not because of the WMD fraud itself, but because Iraq had already begun to be a desaster, and therefore the WMD question remained relevant.

I think the mistake this government made was not to deceive others (about WMD), but to deceive themselves (about Iraq’s realities and the chances of occupation).

2

You claim it was an error. So does, f.e., Powell.

Powell prefers to concede error to concede fraud, and so do all the others, because in your moral world it is pardonable to err but unpardonable to commit fraud.

The Downing Street Documents, among others, prove that that it was not error, but fraud. And anyway, I know that somebody like Cheney or Powell is not so stupid, so incompetent not to recognize hyped intelligence.

The CIA was coerced to hype intelligence. CIA people work for the executive, and can be ordered to spin intelligence for political purposes. They delivered.

Politics, like Poker, is not a game in which you have to be so moral to show your opponents your cards. To deceive others is part of the game. But to deceive yourself is - incompetence, and for incompetence you have to pay a high price.

So in my political world it is not fraud, but erring what is unpardonable. And they erred about the reality into which they ran in Iraq.