t r u t h o u t – Former Pentagon Insider : ‘Neoconservative Propaganda Campaign Led to Iraq War’ By Karen Kwiatkowski, The American Conservative

[Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon insider, concludes her observations on the run-up to the Iraq war in this last of a three-part series.]

As the winter of 2002 approached, I was increasingly amazed at the success of the propaganda campaign being waged by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and neoconservative mouthpieces at the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal. …

In December, I requested an acceleration of my retirement after just over 20 years on duty and exactly the required three years of time-in-grade as a lieutenant colonel. I felt fortunate not to have being fired or court-martialed due to my politically incorrect ways in the previous two years as a real conservative in a neoconservative Office of Secretary of Defense. …

When military officers conspicuously crossed the neoconservative party line, the results were predictable—get back in line or get out. …

In my study of the neoconservatives, it was easy to find out whom in Washington they liked and whom they didn’t. They liked most of the Heritage Foundation and all of the American Enterprise Institute. They liked writers Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol. To find out whom they didn’t like, no research was required. All I had to do was walk the corridors and attend staff meetings. There were several shared prerequisites to get on the Neoconservative List of Major Despicable People, and in spite of the rhetoric hurled against these enemies of the state, most really weren’t Rodents of Unusual Size. Most, in fact, were retired from a branch of the military with a star or two or four on their shoulders. …

Soon after, I was out-processed for retirement and couldn’t have been more relieved to be away from daily exposure to practices I had come to believe were unconstitutional. War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to Congress and the American people for this one were so inaccurate and misleading as to be false. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq—more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional sheikdoms, maintaining OPEC on a dollar track, and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision. These more accurate reasons could have been argued on their merits, and the American people might indeed have supported the war. But we never got a chance to debate it.

My personal experience leaning precariously toward the neoconservative maw showed me that their philosophy remains remarkably untouched by respect for real liberty, justice, and American values. My years of military service taught me that values and ideas matter, but these most important aspects of our great nation cannot be defended adequately by those in uniform. This time, salvaging our honor will require a conscious, thoughtful, and stubborn commitment from each and every one of us, and though I no longer wear the uniform, I have not given up the fight.

Just in case you reject this piece because it comes from the liberal truthout.org, note it originally appeared in The American Conservative . Who could imagine I would quote Pat Buchanan and cite his magazine. mjh

Bush clutches for the Vision Thing. Some vision: we got to the moon in less than 10 years of effort. Thirty five years later, we think we can do it again in another 15 years. That’s ambition!

Of course, going to the moon will cost a lot more than the War on Terrorism. Where will the money come from? Corporate sponsors? ”The Coca-cola lander has just left the Fed-Ex Rocket on its way down to Ronald Raygun Spaceport.

Finally, no one has mentioned the inevitable truth with this President: this is a step towards militarizing space. How long before this President insists on nuclear weapons in space. Some vision. mjh

Beacon Journal | 01/15/2004 | John Glenn doesn’t think Bush’s space plan will fly By Bob Dyer, Beacon Journal

The first American to orbit the Earth thinks President Bush’s plan to build a permanent base on the moon and use it as a launching pad to Mars makes Bush look like a space cadet.

In a general sense, John Glenn loves the plan Bush unveiled Wednesday afternoon. But Glenn thinks the president’s cost projections are so far off target as to be nearly weightless. …

Bush wants to complete the space station within six years. But Glenn fears plans for the operation of the finished station will be slaughtered if $11 billion of NASA’s $15 billion annual budget is raided for use exclusively on this new plan. …

The Democrat is flabbergasted by that promise. “You’re not going to run a moon or a Mars program on $11 billion reprogrammed from the NASA budget. That will pay for the blueprint paper.” …

From 1903 to 1969, humans went from not flying at all to landing on the moon. That’s 66 years. Since then, 35 years have passed and we haven’t gone any farther.

”Barry Goldwater must be spinning in his grave.” So says arch-conservative Pat Buchanan. Of Bush’s ”Healthy Marriage” proposal, Buchanan calls it ”faith-based pork to buy off his supporters on the religious right.”

Op-Ed Columnist: Masters of Deception By BOB HERBERT, NYTimes

At one point, [Al Gore] told his audience: ”In preparing this series of speeches, I have noticed a troubling pattern that characterizes the Bush-Cheney administration’s approach to almost all issues. In almost every policy area, the administration’s consistent goal has been to eliminate any constraints on their exercise of raw power, whether by law, regulation, alliance or treaty. And in the process, they have in each case caused America to be seen by the other nations of the world as showing disdain for the international community.”

Amid cheers, he made it clear that the broad interests of the American public are consistently betrayed by the policies and practices of President Bush and his administration. “They devise their policies with as much secrecy as possible,” he said, “and in close cooperation with the most powerful special interests that have a monetary stake in what happens. In each case, the public interest is not only ignored, but actively undermined. In each case, they devote considerable attention to a clever strategy of deception that appears designed to prevent the American people from discerning what it is they are actually doing.

“Indeed, they often use Orwellian language to disguise their true purposes. For example, a policy that opens national forests to destructive logging of old-growth trees is labeled Healthy Forest Initiative. A policy that vastly increases the amount of pollution that can be dumped into the air is called the Clear Skies Initiative.” …

“This is insanity,” said Mr. Gore, referring to the administration’s handling of the environment. But his speech made it clear that he could just as easily have applied that sentiment to the full range of Bush-Cheney policies. History will not be kind to the chicanery that passes for governing in the Bush II administration.

Op-Ed Columnist: Who Gets It? By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes

Earlier this week, Wesley Clark had some strong words about the state of the nation. ”I think we’re at risk with our democracy,” he said. ”I think we’re dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame.” …

The real division in the race for the Democratic nomination is between those who are willing to question not just the policies but also the honesty and the motives of the people running our country, and those who aren’t.

What makes Mr. Dean seem radical aren’t his policy positions but his willingness — shared, we now know, by General Clark — to take a hard line against the Bush administration. …

[T]he Bush people really are Nixonian. …

That doesn’t mean that the Democratic candidate has to be a radical — which is a good thing for the party, since all of the candidates are actually quite moderate. In fact, what the party needs is a candidate who inspires the base enough to get out the message that he isn’t a radical — and that Mr. Bush is.

PABLO’S REVENGE by Matt Miller Online

That our stunningly incurious president and his top advisers have little interest in such evenhanded decision-making underscores the primary lesson of O’Neill’s book: how radically conservative the Republican Party has become.

Think of O’Neill as some centrist Republican Rip Van Winkle, who came back to a GOP White House after 25 years, only to find that his pragmatic approach to public problem-solving made him an alien to be ignored or a prop to be used for “cover” by zealots.

O’Neill’s tragedy may be that he never realized, before signing on for this last costly hitch of public service, that in the GOP’s view, he was already an antique whose notions of responsible governance had long been purged from the center of Republican power.

John Leo: More Immigration Folly

But on hot-button social issues, Bush has a history of ignoring majorities and abandoning his base, and of backing the position of small but powerful and largely Democratic elites.

Obviously, the White House thinks there is more hay to be made by adopting the elite position ….

Oh My God! The über-conservative John Leo thinks Bush caters to Democrats?! After that hearty laugh, the best thing about this is seeing the Radical Right snipe at the most conservative president in memory. They always want more. mjh