Mendacity and stupidity

Here's another on-the-money editorial by The New York Observer's Joe Conason, about the just-passed "unhappy anniversary" of our unwarranted invasion of Iraq, and the outright glee of the war's supporters three years ago. Mr. Conason notes:

After three years, tens of thousands of lost and ruined lives, hundreds of billions of squandered dollars and incalculable damage to the respect for America around the world, it is strange to look back on the earliest days of the war in Iraq. [I]t is worth recalling the triumphal mood of that moment, and how the neoconservative ideologues celebrated the successful culmination of their campaign for war.

Holding the authors of the war accountable for their mendacity and stupidity is imperative - in hope that their advice will be ignored in the dangerous days to come.

Sadly, there seems to be little hope that such a reckoning will come to pass, despite the heroic efforts of individuals such as Messrs. Feingold and Conyers in Washington. Even now, the so-called "liberal" media continues to be anything but, simply regurgitating the President's current blitz of disingenuous, feel-good rhetoric about the "noble cause" in Iraq as hard news, without significant challenge or dismissal of his continued lies for the propaganda they so clearly are.

As I've written before, the inexcusable incursion into Iraq by this Administration is one of the most shameful events in American history, and promises to be a terrible problem for at least one generation to come. After years of selling the fairy tale that "victory" was just around the corner, Bush himself has finally admitted that our unwanted presence down Baghdad way will certainly continue well after he has comfortably (i.e. without personal sacrifice, culpability, or consequence) left office, supported and protected at taxpayer expense in reward for his "service" to the nation.

And, as in so many other documented instances throughout his past, the mess that Georgie has so irresponsibly made will simply be left to be cleaned up by others.

I lamented three weeks ago:

How can we ever expect to make this right? How can we ever explain the things America has done to a nation that had not harmed us, posed no threat to us, gave no aid to those who had attacked us? Through the remaining years of my life, chances are that I will meet people of other nations who will know, simply by my age, that I am of the generation that allowed its leaders to arbitrarily destroy a Middle Eastern country on a delusional whim. It is a stain, a stigma, that every adult American must bear for the deceitful, deplorable actions of those who govern us.

Many are contending that a continued examination of the intentional deceptions that propelled the U.S. into Iraq serve no purpose. After all, they claim, we're there now, whatever the reasons, and we must focus on the situation at hand. To some practical extent, that reasoning is true.

But in a much larger sense, a full investigation into the campaign of deceit and self-delusion waged by this Administration and its Congressional backers in their race to war could not be more important. Unless a miracle occurs, we face another 34 months with these same individuals calling the shots, not only as regards our plan for Iraq, but also the full range of domestic and foreign policies these incompetents will try to implement before their shift mercifully comes to a close.

The calculated pattern of conduct exhibited by these "leaders" from the very moment they assumed office speaks directly to the character of those on whose judgment we are forced to rely. If the architects of this national shame are allowed to escape unpunished for their reprehensible stupidity, a stupidity which has bankrupted our economy, left America more vulnerable to actual terrorist attack, severely damaged U.S. credibility around the globe, and killed tens of thousands of American, Afghani, and Iraqi sons and daughters, then what does that say about our character as a nation of law, as a benevolent democracy, as a just and honest people? Mr. Conason concludes:

As the intellectual cheerleaders for war, the neoconservatives knew perfectly well that there were many reasons to doubt the existence of Saddam's fearsome arsenal and to doubt the rosy scenarios for a postwar Iraq. They angrily dismissed those doubts and beat the war drums louder.

Proven wrong on every count, they insist those arguments no longer matter, but they're wrong about that too.

It's well past time for the calumny of the warmongers in Washington to be examined and exposed for what it is - and has always been. To do any less is to acquiesce to three more years of business as usual. And that, we simply cannot afford to do.