LESSONS LEARNED: Slate's Fred Kaplan examines the now-(in?)famous Downing Street memos, and reaches three major conclusions.
President Bush was clearly dissembling throughout the summer of 2002. War wasn't a "last resort" for this administration; it was a conflagration devoutly to be wished.
The Bushies weren't lying about WMD. They were wrong, but they weren't lying.
- Iraq probably wouldn't be the disaster area it is today if President Bush had acted upon the concerns raised by our British allies during the planning phase.
In short, the memos are a bit of a mixed bag, according to Kaplan -- considerably more damning than most on the right are willing to acknowledge, but somewhat less so than many on the left would like to believe. Which is probably just about right.
Comments
He said/she said, so the truth must be in the middle? Seriously, I think you're taking too kind a view of this.
For one, the behaviour during the summer of 2002 is mislabeled if you call it dissembling. The correct term is lying.
Next, the WMD: Kaplan concludes the administration politicized intelligence (yet genuinely believed there was some there). I think it is a disservice to the facts to reduce this to "being wrong". For one, in that position one can't just go round believing anything that sounds credible. IOW, their genuine belief at least merits the charge of criminal negligence. Much worse though, they were in fact lying when they reported their belief as fact. (Assuming they are able to distinguish between thing they believe to be true and things they know to be true). And this isn't merely a matter of poor expression either, since a lot hinged on their saying "we know" instead of "we believe/there is some evidence" etc., especially since everyone had to take their word on it.
All this has been known for some time, the only thing that saved them so far was the possiblity of them actually falling for bad intel and dealing with it poorly. But as the first point shows, that doesn't fly (which is incidentally why I think it's wrong to separate them like this.)
Third, "probably wouldn't be" again lets them of the hook too easily, as does "acted upon the concerns". How about "certainly wouldn't be as bad as it is if Bush had not failed to do any serious post-war planning at all"? What I'm trying to say is, if someone tells you, that you have no idea how to repay that large loan you just took, saying that you "failed to act upon the concerns raised" by that person does not adequatly described what happened IMHO.
Yes, I am being anal retentive. But I have - among other things - seen a war hero slimed and criminals lecture us on the ethics of those who helped bring them to justice. There is a war of ideas on, and language is major part of it (privatisation/personalisation) and any quarter given in advance will be used against those giving it.
Posted by: markus | June 16, 2005 08:06 AM