The One Percent Doctrine...what you already know but worse

[Hamlette]

I had all but forgotten that it was Suskind who exposed this administration and all its horrors in The Price of Loyalty. He has done it again with this new book. From the Salon review:

As in "The Price of Loyalty," Suskind's great achievement here is to reveal how the Bush administration short-circuited and ultimately corrupted the way America's government is supposed to work. Actual coups d'état are lurid and violent and attract attention. As Suskind reveals, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove pulled off a much more sophisticated job: a bureaucratic coup d'état. Without firing a shot, they silenced critics, squelched unwanted facts, and created their own false but salable reality. As a result, they were able to launch a war justified by lies and driven by nothing more than Bush's ignorant whim. It is, truly, the heist of the century.

snip

Many reasons have been advanced for why Bush decided to attack Iraq, a third-rate Arab dictatorship that posed no threat to the United States. Some have argued that Bush and Cheney, old oilmen, wanted to get their hands on Iraq's oil. Others have posited that the neoconservative civilians in the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and Feith, and their offstage guru Richard Perle, were driven by their passionate attachment to Israel. Suskind does not address these arguments, and his own thesis does not rule them out as contributing causes. But he argues persuasively that the war, above all, was a "global experiment in behaviorism": If the U.S. simply hit misbehaving actors in the face again and again, they would eventually change their behavior. "The primary impetus for invading Iraq, according to those attending NSC briefings on the Gulf in this period, was to create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States." This doctrine had been enunciated during the administration's first week by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who had written a memo arguing that America must come up with strategies to "dissuade nations abroad from challenging" America. Saddam was chosen simply because he was available, and the Wolfowitz-Feith wing was convinced he was an easy target.

The choice to go to war, Suskind argues, was a "default" -- a fallback, driven by the "realization that the American mainland is indefensible." America couldn't really do anything -- so Bush and Cheney decided they had to do something. And they decided to do this something, to attack Iraq, because after 9/11 Cheney embraced the radical doctrine found in the title of Suskind's book. "If there's a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response," Suskind quotes Cheney as saying. And then Cheney went on to utter the lines that can be said to define the Bush presidency: "It's not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence. It's about our response."

This bizarre statement, in which might not only makes right but actually makes reality, recalls the infamous words of the anonymous Bush official who told Suskind for a New York Times Magazine article that the Bush administration made its own truth by acting, which those in the impotent "reality-based" community would have to come to terms with. Behind it is the notion that America is both omnipotent and infallible. No matter what it does, it is always right, and even if it makes a mistake it is impervious to harm. This quasi-theological mind-set, which as Suskind shows tracks perfectly with Bush's religio-patriotic fervor and Karl Rove's political strategy, allowed Cheney and Bush to believe that they could send 130,000 U.S. troops into the heart of the Arab world without negative consequences.

Much, MUCH more here: http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/06/23/suskind/

And in the book.

The "make our own reality" is the scariest thing to me. When I first heard it I thought it was aberrational. Probably not.

One thing I hope they ARE right about: God is on our side. We'll need his help to survive this horrid mess.

[ariellyn]

1. "1 percent" is pretty much what they've been saying/doing, however,

I feel that it is an excuse that ultimately allows them to personally enrich themselves--1 percent is a cover for theft.

[90-percent]

2. One Percent

How quaint.

This is also the term outlaw bikers have used in their history to describe themselves. this is left over from an early 50's biker meet out in some california town (Hollister) where supposed "riots" took place amongst the bikers. The American motorcycle Assn. attributed the bad behavior to the "One Percent" of bikers that were criminalistic. Pre Hell's Angels California bike clubs called themselves "One Percenters" proudly.

So the current US foreign policy doctrine is left over from the beginnings of the outlaw biker culture?

Let's see James Burke cover that "Connections"!

-85% Jimmy

[glitch]

4. interesting. you learn the strangest things on DU.

I wonder if dick & don were ever bikers? or more likely biker-wannabes.

[faithnotgreed]

3. kick

[spanone]

5. This is a Cheney evil concoction.

So if we have to kill 99 civilians to get one terrorist, all is well....some sick thinking.

[degreesofgray]

6. I thought 1 percent

was the part of Bush's brain that works: "Eat a pretzel. Pet your dog. Ride a bike. Clear brush. Read My Pet Goat. Start a bogus war. Steal an election. Good boy."

[mhatrw]

7. Kick.