The Making of an Anti-American Century
by William H. Thornton
Iraq as Prelude: The Making of an Anti-American Century
An in-depth essay excerpted from William Thornton's forthcoming book, New World Empire: Islamism, Terrorism and the Making of Neoglobalism: Whatever else one may think of him, G. W. Bush must be credited with extraordinary sales skills. Like a real estate agent who manages to sell inaccessible lots in a swamp, G. W. has managed to keep his ratings up while selling America a quagmire. Even as his administration ignored the real perils of Saudi Wahhabism (or actively camouflaged them, as Michael Moore would have it), it miscast Saddam as the mother of global terrorism. The decision to invade Iraq was put beyond debate by Saddam’s mythic stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Thomas Powers dubs this “the least ambiguous case of misreading of secret intelligence information in American history.” “Misreading” is too generous a word for it, given the pressure the White House applied to the intelligence community to extract desired results. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 1, 2002 more than met those desires, and a week later Congress voted for war. The question is how much the administration’s slant on Iraq was inspired by ideological prepossessions as opposed to economic calculation....
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Thornton1022.htm
Iraq as Prelude: The Making of an Anti-American Century
An in-depth essay excerpted from William Thornton's forthcoming book, New World Empire: Islamism, Terrorism and the Making of Neoglobalism: Whatever else one may think of him, G. W. Bush must be credited with extraordinary sales skills. Like a real estate agent who manages to sell inaccessible lots in a swamp, G. W. has managed to keep his ratings up while selling America a quagmire. Even as his administration ignored the real perils of Saudi Wahhabism (or actively camouflaged them, as Michael Moore would have it), it miscast Saddam as the mother of global terrorism. The decision to invade Iraq was put beyond debate by Saddam’s mythic stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Thomas Powers dubs this “the least ambiguous case of misreading of secret intelligence information in American history.” “Misreading” is too generous a word for it, given the pressure the White House applied to the intelligence community to extract desired results. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 1, 2002 more than met those desires, and a week later Congress voted for war. The question is how much the administration’s slant on Iraq was inspired by ideological prepossessions as opposed to economic calculation....
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Thornton1022.htm
Starmail - 22. Okt, 15:48
