I went to see Ike Skelton this morning..

[jbm]

He was speaking at a dem fund raising breakfast. Ike is a congressman from Missouri, and is the ranking democrat on the House Armed services committee. After listening to him, the whole Iraq thing finally made sense to me. I have never fully embraced the 'because they're evil' or 'they did it for money' theories because I never walked away from them feeling like all the pieces fit. Ike said today though that the admin 'allowed themselves to be seduced' and he was actually quoting a high ranking military officer who had testified during the 9/11 hearings. After listening to Ike, I got the feeling that what happened was was sort of like if somebody comes and tells a group of people about some huge unjust atrocity happening down the street. The "I'll kick their ass' types are going to jump right up and run down there cause now they have an opportunity to kick some ass and play the hero. Hopefully there will be another mindset in the crowd wise enough to not jump to conclusions without making certain they have a true understanding of the whole situation. I have never yet encountered one of those situations where the reaction from the "I'll kick yer ass' mindset turned out to have been the correct path to travel.
I dunno...thinking of it that way finally made the pieces fit for me.

Ike said a lot of other things too, like 'this really is the most important election of our lives" and we HAVE to win this". There was a genuine intensity in the way he delivered his message this morning. I do not believe this was regular campaining for his candidate. When he said, "we have got to win this one" he really meant it.

[acmavm]

1. Oh I see. We have Barney Badass in the White House who gets miffed

because the 'guy' down the street is supposed to be doing something bad, so he shifts into testosterone overdrive and sends somebody else, like the kids in the military, down to kick some ass.

Works for me. (That last remark was pure sarcasm).

[jbm]

2. LOL

That's not exactly how Ike put it, but if I was hearing what he was saying, you captured the essence of what happened!

[Hubert Flottz]

3. "we have got to win this one"

He is 100% correct! Wish they'd seen that in 2000!

[IkeWarnedUs]

4. Not the whole story

While I think there are some "I'll kick their ass" types who jumped on the bandwaggon, that wasn't what drove this administration to "allow themselves to be seduced" into attacking Iraq.

Are you familiar with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)?

PNAC is a group formed in 1997 by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Jeb Bush and many more of the movers and shakers in this administration. They were the driving force behind Clinton pulling the inspectors out and bombing Iraq in 1998. They issued a paper in September 2000 called "Rebuilding America's Defenses; Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century". In it they laid out their plan for America to become an empire. Not just their desire for an empire, but how to do it.

The plan put forth by PNAC is unfolding before out eyes. The defense budget being increased to 3.8% of our GDP (almost to the penny). Rendering organizations like the UN and NATO ineffective so the US can emerge as the world's constable. Fighting simultaneous, major multiple-theater wars to show our superiority. Even Bush's push to reorganize our space program (they want to form another branch of the military - U.S. Space Forces) is part of the PNAC plan.

In the 2000 report they say:

"Indeed, the United States has for
decades sought to play a more
permanent role in Gulf regional
security. While the unresolved
conflict with Iraq provides the
immediate justification, the
need for a substantial
American force presence in the
Gulf transcends the issue of
the regime of Saddam Hussein."
(page 14)

and

"After eight years of no-fly-zone
operations, there is little reason to anticipate
that the U.S. air presence in the region
should diminish significantly as long as
Saddam Hussein remains in power.
Although Saudi domestic sensibilities
demand that the forces based in the
Kingdom nominally remain rotational
forces, it has become apparent that this is
now a semi-permanent mission. From an
American perspective, the value of such
bases would endure even should Saddam
pass from the scene. Over the long term,
Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S.
interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even
should U.S.-Iranian relations improve,
retaining forward-based forces in the region
would still be an essential element in U.S.
security strategy given the longstanding
American interests in the region."
(page 17)

By the way, they also said this:

"Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor."
(page 51)

Their agenda sure did fall into place after our "new Pearl Harbor" three years ago today.

One of my favorite articles about PNAC is by Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal Constitution from 9/29/02 called "The President's Real Goal in Iraq". It is archived now, and I can't post the whole thing here because of copyrite laws, but I am sending it to you by PM. Will Pitt also wrote a couple of great pieces about PNAC and I have the links at the end here.

Please, go back to Rep. Skelton and make sure he knows about this. I met with Danny Davis a couple of weeks ago and he knew of PNAC only as a think tank Rumsfeld used to be part of before he became Sec. of Defense. We can't assume our Congress people know about PNAC.

A copy of the Project for the New American Century's September 2000 report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses; Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" can be viewed at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf


Of Gods and Mortals and Empire
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Friday 21 February 2003

http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htm


Blood Money
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Thursday 27 February 2003

http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml