Democracy for Vancouver

From TPM come some distillations from the Phase II/What the Fuck Happened on the Way to Iraq report (pdf):

–Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

–Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

–Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

–Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
…

I know that this will all cause Lord and Lady Douchebag of the Beltway a great deal of consternation and panty-twisting, but this is simply no surprise to anyone who had two braincells to rub together when Bush started up his dog-and-pony show in October 2002.

I had some very animated, ixnay-on-the-uck-fays-while-the-kids-are-in-the-room discussions with cousins and brothers (funny how they’re all male) who were certain we had to go into Iraq, fast and hard baby, not because they had anything to do with 9/11 but because they were a threat tantamount to al Qaeda. If some stateless asshole in a turban could do this to us from his hidey hole in fuckedupistan, just think what big, scary Saddam could do with his hatred of us and his poison gas and his scuds and smallpox and anthrax and and and…

And even if he doesn’t have any of that, wouldn’t it be great to make some brown people PAY? Because if we don’t teach those sand niggers a lesson, they’ll just laugh at us, man. Laugh at us! The only thing those camel jockeys understand is brutality, so let’s show them how brutal it can get when you mess with the U.S. of fuckin’-A.

Of course, my relatives are too genteel to ever say it like that, but what I heard was a thirst for violence and vengeance against a country whose populace could never be our equals. Because if they’ve lived this long under Saddam, how could they be? Pitiful bastards.

But I knew. And it ate a hole in my gut. I actually started keeping a file on everything I knew about the lies leading up to Iraq so that if the country remained criminally insane, and what went into the history books was a glorification of Captain Codpiece and his grand adventure into Babylon, I would have something on hand to de-program our son.

But, it looks as though the fever may have passed - and just in time for Bush and Cheney to ride out of town on their broken down ponies into a sunset of pardons and petrodollars. I have lost all hope that these two criminals, together with Rice, Rumsfeld, and Abu Gonzales, will ever see the inside of a courtroom (much less a jail cell), whatever Vincent Bugliosi’s excellent brief might prove.

Because, dear reader, we went along for the ride - or at least 70 percent of us did. We are all accomplices. And if the American people are anything, we are fiercely non-introspective. Ask us to take responsibility and we will quickly point out where the true blame lies (far outside our comfort zone), and why. This is why we hate the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger. Truthtellers can go fuck themselves.

We are a nation of glass houses and hoarded stones.