Home > Speaking of Phony Documents...Attention Deficit America

Speaking of Phony Documents...Attention Deficit America

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 22 September 2004
4 comments

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Excuse me, but the story is not CBS and the George W. Bush National Guard documents.

The story is: How did the US Congress, the opposition party, the news media, and the US public let the Bush administration start a war based on phony documents?

If someone deceived CBS and passed off forged documents as real, at least CBS consulted experts about the documents before going on the air.

Speaking of questionable documents, the Bush administration has swallowed a large number. What about the obviously forged "yellowcake" documents that were the basis for the "mistaken" claim that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program?

The Bush administration did not check out the "stovepiped" phony "intelligence" fed them by Iraqi exiles with an agenda and by neoconservatives determined to turn the "war on terror" into a war against Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The Bush administration ignored all warnings from real experts and CIA and State Department analysts. Bush invaded a country that not only posed no threat to the United States, but also had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections to Osama bin Laden.

The Bush administration’s forged war has cost more than 1,000 American families their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers and a few their sisters, daughters and mothers. Another 7,000-8,000 American soldiers have been wounded, more than half too grievously to be returned to combat. Many have lost arms, legs, eyes.

What have we achieved with these enormous casualties?

We have committed war crimes by bombing residential neighborhoods and killing thousands of women and children.

We have made ourselves infamous as prison torturers.

We have created an insurgency that we cannot put down.

We have given bin Laden an enormous boost in credibility and terrorist recruitment.

We have lost the world’s sympathy.

We have aroused massive anger from Muslims the world over and started a process of Muslim reunification.

We have wasted $200 billion that had high opportunity costs in terms of real needs that went unmet.

We made these egregious mistakes because the Bush administration and the President of the United States used questionable documents that Dan Rather and CBS would have rejected.

You have to ask yourself, why is the front page story CBS? If CBS had forged the documents in order to intentionally mislead to the public the way the Bush’s government used phony documents to start a war, yes there would be a story.

If someone fooled CBS with forged documents, the only story is: what was that person’s agenda? Why did he do it? Did the forger intend it as an offset dirty trick to the "swift boats" dirty trick against Kerry, or was it a blow aimed at CBS?

The CBS report is about something we already know—the missing gap in Bush’s National Guard service. If the CBS report fails to illume that gap, then the story remains to be told. News organizations should get off CBS and on the story.

Whether documents are forged or authentic, the CBS investigation of Bush’s National Guard service is far less important than Bush’s war based on intentional deception.

Will the American public focus long enough to demand the real story?

Paul Craig Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09212004.html

Forum posts

  • This is a great display of ignorance.

    Anyone who believes that Iraq was not a threat to the US is living in denial.

    Did Iraq have WMS?

    Absolutely, he had them and he used then on the Iranians and the Kurds.

    Have we found them? Not yet, but that does not mean that they do not exist.

    Was there a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? Yes, it was been well documented.

    Would Al Qaeda use WMD on the US if they had them? LOL who has any doubts!

    Would Saddam give his WMD to terrorists? I think we all know the answer to that.

    This is not about your bias or my bias. It is about the future of our country and the future or lack there of for our children and grand children.

    Even John Kerry has said on many occasions that the world is a safer place with Saddam out of power.

    It is refreshing to see the polls and know that the majority of the American people don’t not agree with you and are returning George W Bush to the Whitehouse for another 4 years.

    • Great display of ignorance?Have we found wmd’s? Not yet!!!! 2,000 people have been employed for more than a year trying to find these things. And you would think there would be a hell of a paper trail with wmd’s. Maybe they are packed in alongside the weapons!!!
      Any connection between Saddam and bin laden? Well they both liked kebabs!!!!!!!
      Are you kidding me? One was a secular muslim, one was was a fundamentalist. That is like saying because Germany and Britain are christian countries Hitler and Churchill were bosom buddies.
      1 thing you are right about, this is not about your or my bias. It is about our kids.
      President Bush’s policies have thrown thousands of young men into the welcoming arms of al qaeda. That is definitely not in dispute. The only things a terrorist organization needs to survive and thrive is motivation and popular support. By being the first non arab invader of an arab country in nearly 100 years this administration has provided this in bucketfuls.And if you believe all that spin on your nightly news that we are safer under W remember this could be our last vote

  • MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!

    • Th paranoia going through the U.S. right now is incredible. If Iraq was usch a threat why wasn’t the Israeli government who was technically still at war with Iraq and almost within sling shot range as concerned as the US? Why were so many countries unwilling to get involved?
      When the U.S. asked for help in Afghanistan after 9/11 the west responded eagerly.
      Somehow I think Americans are missing the message. Bush talks of Kerry’s plan for Iraq and says it calls for the US to withdraw and then stands with Allawi and says he doesn’t want to send insurgents a mixed signal. That is exactly what he wants, except its Americans not Iraqis he wants to send it to. Kerry never said he would remove the troops.
      While Americans get caught up in psychobabble real people die. Dan Rather should of ran for office the press would have let it slide. The "terrorists" in Iraq have killed almost half as many Americans as in 9/11 and far more Iraqis. Thank God everything is under control and Americans(those not fighting} are safer. Yeah Right.