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BAD FAITH ACTORS AND WHY DUBYA OWES CLINTON AN APOLOGY
Last week, more than two hundred Iraqis were murdered, blasted into pulp during a one-day wave of terror that some suspect was orchestrated by Jordanian archterrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. In a year since the relatively easy invasion precipitated a grinding occupation in Iraq, observers estimate that Zarqawi has been responsible for killing hundreds more Iraqis, as well as coalition troops. No mean feat for a man who may not even be alive.
Last week, NBC News learned that between June 2002 and last March - nine months - CIA and Pentagon officials approached the Bush administration on no less than three occasions with plans to take out Zarqawi's terror training camp in northern Iraq. The plans, which called for a cruise missile attack and a lightning airstrike, eventually made their way to the National Security Council, where they were debated and abandoned. Three times.
The official story for Dubya's lack of action on these CIA/Pentagon initiatives was delivered by former NSC member Roger Cressey, who told NBC: "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists." Furthermore, some believed attacking the camp might hinder efforts to assemble an international coalition against Hussein's regime. The subtext is clear: a bunch of hand-wringing, politically correct bureaucrats restrained and impeded America's bloodthirsty Warrior Preznit, to deadly and disastrous effect.
In order to understand how ridiculous is Cressey's version of events, we must first understand the nature of the National Security Council. What is the Council, exactly? That might sound like a stupid question, but yer old pal Jerky wasn't 100% sure about the answer, himself. Seeing as NBC isn't required to provide a civics lesson with every news story, I decided to google it. Here are the fruits of my speedy investigation:
According to the NSC's official website, the Council was established by the National Security Act of 1947. During an organizational overhaul two years later, it was placed under direct control of the President. The Council is currently "the President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials… (it's role is) to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies… (and is) the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies."
So who is on the Council? The list is surprisingly short. The President chairs it. Other regular attendees are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of CIA, the Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Attorney General, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Other senior officials are invited to attend meetings when appropriate.
Some of you may already see what I'm trying to get at, here. Essentially, the NSC is every administration's A-Team. In this case, that would be Dick "Pull My" Cheney, George "Eight-Nine" Tennet, Condoleezza "Long Grain" Rice, Andrew "Picka" Card, Collin "Rectin" Powell, John "Ashes to" Ashcroft, and Don "Bottle of" Rumsfeld.
And of course, the chairman of the board is none other than George "Dubya" Bush, himself. Therefore, to imply that the NSC tied Bush's hands with regards to attacking Zarqawi - as the afore-linked MSNBC article goes out of its way to do - is to accuse the Preznit of tying his own damn hands.
Now, is yer old pal Jerky suggesting that there was something more than incompetence involved in Dubya's failure to approve plans to eliminate a terrorist who has since gone on to kill hundreds of innocent people? Not in the least. In fact, I'm not even suggesting incompetence. There isn't enough information for anybody without a top-level security clearance to come to a conclusion. Much can be learned, however, by comparing media reactions to the Zarqawi case with a similar incident from a couple years back.
Some of you may recall how, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the likes of Bill O'Reilley, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh claimed Bill Clinton turned down an offer by Sudan to hand over Osama bin Laden. Never mind that the sole source for this story was a Pakistani businessman with CIA ties who has since gone on to find gainful employment as a "consultant" for the Fox News Channel… the story reflected badly on the hated "KKKlinton" so - corroborated or not - conservatives latched on and dug in. To this day, they continue to use the barely-there Sudan/Osama story as a pretext to fart thunder about how Clinton "did nothing" to prevent terror. Across the talk radio dial, in billionaire-subsidized right-wing magazines and newspapers, and (of course) on the Fox News Channel, the same bullshit accusations get repeated over and over again, without respite.
Meanwhile, despite personally nixing at least three Pentagon/CIA attacks on a known terrorist camp in Iraq, Preznit Dubya continues to be portrayed as a blameless, holy being who can't be held responsible for any actions taken - or not taken - by his administration.
There's also another, more sinister dynamic at work, here. For more than a year after 9/11, Dubya mocked his predecessor for launching attacks similar to the plans drawn up by his own military and intelligence agencies to deal with Zarqawi. He ridiculed Clinton for launching cruise missiles to destroy "an aspirin factory" in Sudan and "empty tents" in Afghanistan. Back in 1998, Bush's current right-wing media cheerleaders characterized Clinton's 1998 attack on Iraq as a case of Wag the Dog, meant only to distract the world from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Now, thanks to Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq on behalf of Bechtel and Halliburton, we know that Clinton's attacks on Iraq were wholly successful. Not that this excuses Bush's transparent "bad faith" dealings with the international community. Clinton's success would have eventually been catalogued by United Nations WMD inspectors, if they'd been allowed to do their job. Then again, if they'd been allowed to do their job, Bush wouldn't have been able to invade and occupy Iraq on behalf of Bechtel and Halliburton.
While conservatives devoted themselves relentlessly to the destruction of a popular, twice-elected president - doing everything in their power to get him thrown out of office for lying about a BLOWJOB for fuck's sake - it turns out Bill Clinton he was busy crippling Saddam Hussein's military and destroying his WMD stockpiles. How ironic is that?!
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