[OPE] CIA's Analysis of The Soviet Union

Allin

I meant to indicate that I think that the surface motivation for going to war was different from the real motivation, but also, that this was again presented differently to the public by politicians, who told outright lies to justify the invasions. The Americans did their best to rig the votes at the UN, with the aid of bribes and blackmail. American agencies operate with the "might makes right" principle and thus they encourage everyone else to take the same approach. That is their "leadership" (sic.).

It created the spectacle that the justification, stories and reasons for going to war were constantly being revised and disputed - the American polity seem to have judged that, apart from engineering the media coverage, eventually the conflict would become sufficiently incomprehensible and mystical that it would fade away from public consciousness.

As I have argued from the beginning, contrary to the Left, the Americans politicians never had any intention of withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they started the wars knowing jolly well that if they did so, they would be militarily committed for the long haul. Colin Powell summed it up clearly by saying, somewhat phallocratically, "we will be in there, as long as it takes" - an interesting turn of phrase, because it begs the question "what does "it" stand for?".

But I think what you say is basically correct, the intelligence services were asked to say what the politicians wanted to hear - to find some "dirt" that could provide the justification for military aggression.

If the American politicians had had any integrity, they would have pursued a democratic public debate and inquiry about the meaning of the 9/11 attacks. Instead, the attacks were a handy justification for the further military extension of the American empire in the Middle East, covered by a bunch of lies. Eventually, of course, this is all going to backfire and blow up in their face, insofar as it hasn't done so already.

Mr Obama seems to think he can sweep it all under the carpet, "let bygones be bygones", but I don't think that strategy works in the longer term. The Americans hope that if the truth does come out, it will come out when it is no longer politically important. But that's a very dodgy way of looking at political processes.

Jurriaan

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Received on Mon Apr 20 02:35:05 2009