[A-List] Fw: Standard Operating Procedure

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Dostanic" <kdnlist@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <decani@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 11:39 AM
Subject: NYT: Standard Operating Procedure


> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/03/opinion/03KRUG.html
>
> THE NEW YORK TIMES, Tuesday, June 3, 2003 OP-ED
>
> Standard Operating Procedure
>
> By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
> The mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot
> less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three
major
> American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials,
> back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush
> administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.
>
> And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point.
> The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and
> Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports
> supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.
>
> In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious
> implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war opponents. The
> Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it ran an analysis
under
> the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew parallels between the
selling
> of the war and other misleading claims: "The government is seen as having
> `spun' the threat from Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."
>
> Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is
> far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time.
> Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war
gain
> credibility from the fact that misrepresentation and deception are
standard
> operating procedure for this administration, which - to an extent never
> before seen in U.S. history - systematically and brazenly distorts the
> facts.
>
> Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that
> we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National
> Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays
> taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million
> children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50
> million American households - including a majority of those with members
> over 65 - get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And
a
> great majority of those left behind do pay taxes.
>
> And the bald-faced misrepresentation of an elitist tax cut offering little
> or nothing to most Americans is only the latest in a long string of
blatant
> misstatements. Misleading the public has been a consistent strategy for
the
> Bush team on issues ranging from tax policy and Social Security reform to
> energy and the environment. So why should we give the administration the
> benefit of the doubt on foreign policy?
>
> It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over
the
> last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the
> administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters - a
group
> that includes a large segment of the news media - obediently insist that
> black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only
> that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic
> politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses
and
> playing down the extent of the lies.
>
> If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace,
> we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max
> Hastings, the veteran war correspondent - who supported Britain's
> participation in the war - writes that "the prime minister committed
British
> troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it
> stinks."
>
> It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. I could point
out
> that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this war were nonchalant,
or
> worse, about mass murders by Central American death squads in the 1980's.
> But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us.
The
> public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was
> fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in
American
> political history - worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed,
> the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so
> uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.
>
> But here's the thought that should make those commentators really
> uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And
> suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr. Bush
can
> fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In that case,
> our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably,
corrupted.
>
>
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