This morning as I was reading the Daily Heap of Newspapers for some blogging inspiration but I could not get past the front page news about the WMD dossier and the tragic end of the alleged MoD ‘mole’. Dr Kelly has been ruthelessly used as a pawn in the game far less civilised than chess between Downing Street and the BBC. By the way, I agree with this analysis of the situation.
The reason I cannot get excited or outraged about the ‘sexed up’ dossier containting evidence about Saddam’s threat to the Western world and his WMD capabilities is that I expect that of anything that comes out of the many-mouthed hydra called Government. Do you really believe all those statistics about the economy, crime, schoolsandhospitals? I sure don’t and never have. True, the spin has acceralated under the Labour government and not only because of Alistair Campell, who is merely an embodiment of the New Labour cavalier attitude to reality. I am not stranger to the public relations techniques, however, I expect that even I would be taken aback by how calculating, manipulating and truth-spinning the whole exercise has become.
This is because the current set of politicians regards such practises as the very business of ‘professional’ government. Keeping the media ‘on-message’ has become far more important than the facts underlying the message itself.
Therefore, paradoxically, I think if anything the WMD dossier has been spun less than the usual stream of propaganda from Downing Street. This is because the tension before the conflict had been so high, that even the spin-doctors at No 10 would have appreciated the hightened exposure they were facing. I bet you that they actually took care not to spin too much and stay with ‘just the facts’.
That they failed so miserably is not evidence that they needed to exaggerate the threat Saddam posed to the Western world. It shows that, under scrutiny, even when the government tries to be honest and credible,their routine lies and disregard for the truth leave them looking like used car salesmen.
Governments lie because that is what governments do
To expect otherwise is to expect a government
not to act like a government.
Amen.
Amen again. Unfortunately, it sounds like the govt is using your own cynicism against you, if your expecting to be lied to doesn’t influence your support of their actions in Iraq.
Its like when Clinton used “respect my privacy – nobody can withstand this sort of scrutiny w/o being found to have broken some law” to defend himself during Monicagate. People want their own privacy respected, and just about anyone can be locked up for violating some law somewhere (or most fear that on some level).
Clinton used that against people by wanting to make himself the lone exception instead of doing anything about the problem (i.e. he’d be immune, but the rest of us still would have our privacy violated and be open to arrest and conviction on some BS law). Basically, he argued “how would you like this to happen to you?”, but did nothing to keep the govt from doing it to the rest of us.
What will you say when some leftist says “of course the govt lies about health care; they lie about everything” and maintains his support for nationalized medicine despite that. Would you not respond with “why give liars that sort of power”?
If you can’t trust the govt on Iraq, you cannot trust their claims to want to or plan to replace Saddam with anything better. You cannot trust their claims to have the situation well enough in hand that they can implement whatever plan they actually do have for Iraq. Its proven outside of any govt claim that Saddam is evil, but its not proven outside any govt claim they ultimately care about the human rights record of whatever replaces him.
This is also like the Clinton defense in that “I don’t care if he lied” was a proxy for “he lied to the idiots who opposed him, but they don’t deserve the truth, but he didn’t really lie to me because he didn’t lie about anything I think matters.”
If you don’t really care about the lack of WMDs, and don’t care about any dishonesty concerning them, you’re taking the same sort of stance: “Blair really didn’t lie to me, he just lied to the anti war rubes”.
Scott: You have completely missed my point. I did believe Blair’s conviction about the seriousness of the threat Saddam posed, about the need to fight him and that is why I supported him on that issue. As far as the dossier is concerned, it did not say anything I did not know already from other public sources as I already blogged about it on this blog before the conflict.
The fact is splitting hairs about 45-minutes or other such details of the case for disarming Saddam cannot excite me. Blair’s people may have screwed up but not because their case wasn’t strong enough, but because they couldn’t help spinning even when they didn’t.
And not only I don’t give a damn about Clinton, I also didn’t really get your point above… Sorry.
Which is it? This is the “my client wasn’t at the scene of the crime, but if he was, he didn’t do it, and if he did it, he was temporarily insane and shouldn’t be held responsible” defense. You both believed the govt, and don’t care if they lied because you expect them to lie.
45 minutes vs. possibly years isn’t “splitting hairs” – its a bald faced lie. If that lie helped Bush and Blair get their war, whether you cared about 45 minutes or not, then they are war criminals. If their actions are OK because their hearts were pure, then you wind up w/ one law for your side of the war debate and another law for the other side.
My point about Clinton is that this war is turning its libertarian supporters into socialists like him. Wrongdoing (i.e. “sexing up” evidence) by your allies in govt is OK because they are furthering the “larger truth”, wrongdoing by your opponents wouldn’t be (if the French buried evidence against Saddam, you wouldn’t be as generous as you’re being toward Blair).
This whole story seems to reflect the desire to focus on the simple- “who said what to whom and was it right in hindsight etc”.
The issue of what should be some in Iraq in the future is rather too tricky and is best left alone except in the context of “what one could be doing now if one hadn’t done something else some other time”.
I expect the debate to continue on to the issue of of “who should be responsible for the fuss about who was responsible for the dossier that may have been sexed-up by……..” and sow little intest in the situation in Iraq which seems irrelevant now except in the context of balming the ameicans for getting themselves shot.
“If that lie helped Bush and Blair get their war, whether you cared about 45 minutes or not, then they are war criminals.”
If you go back and look at the entire body of what Bush and Blair said, specifically Bush (which may not be your target), it’s quite clear that their were a multitude of reasons we wanted to remove Saddam. The Bush foks erred in giving into Blair’s (and some Democrats) demands that we work with the UN. The entire focus on WMD’s was to placate the UN, plus to give Blair some support. But, the actual statements Bush made to the US shows there were FAR more reasons for war than a supposed Niger uranium connection or some overestimated capibilities of Saddam’s ability to weild WMDs.
So, if the government KNOWINGLY lied, then I’d be pissed. If the government had BAD intellegence, I’d also be pissed, but not as much, particularly if they fired somebody for it. If the government spun the evidence that was known in a way that might have over-emphasized this or that, then, well, that’s frickin politics.
Bottom line, to say they got their war for these items that supposed “sexed up” the evidence, and really “sexed up” small portions of the evidence, then to call them war criminals is just a really big stretch.
But, even the U.N. had evidence that was more than enough reason to take Saddam out, especially if, like most pro-war types, you don’t think a dicatator deserves complete due dillegence when wagering the lives of a western City. That’s the post Sept 11th world we live in.
“Sept 11” is not a mantra to keep the evil spirits at bay. If you allow that to excuse bad behavior, you guarantee bad behavior from our govts.
Governments lie. It is in their nature… I try to make my own mind up on whatever information I can muster myself.
I wanted Ba’athism in Iraq overthrown and I got my way. Why should I give a shit about what the state, who I dislike anyway, said to justify doing what they did for its own reasons? They did what I wanted and the fact they embelished some of the reasons comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. So what? All governments lie, why should this have been any different? Liars lie, theives steal and murderers murder. No shit. I cannot get all too worked up about it. I trust governments to act like governments.
Perry, these liars are the people you trust to put in something better than Saddam. You didn’t get your way if Saddam is just replaced by some other psycho nutjob.