What I Was Trying to Post Before Being so Rudely Cut Off

Take a look at these stories, and try to guess what I'm getting at:

It's not what he said, but who he attributed it to, from National Review Online.

How many times do we have to tell you that Mohammed Atta and Saddam Hussein were connect... (link requires subscription)...oh, I guess it's a forgery after all.

If we say it often enough, maybe someone will think there's a connection.

Did we say 9/11? Oh we meant WMD, I mean liberation of the Iraqi people, I mean the flypaper strategy, I mean--hey, we got Saddam! Let's kill him--then beat him up!

Combat Operations have ended--wait--where's the edit key--ok, MAJOR Combat Operations have ended. (Thanks to Today in Iraq for the link).

I'll see your 8500 liters of anthrax and raise you 100-500 tons of chemical weapons.

Actually, the point isn't that some newspapers aren't averse to publishing before everything checks out--hell, that happens. Sometimes it's for sloppy reasons, sometimes it's because the paper really thought they had the story, sometimes they don't care, but want to push an opinion. The point, though, is that the story, true or not, becomes part of the mythology of, well, in this case, the Iraq situation. As noted below, last Sunday I spent a chilly day watching (once the electricity was restored) a call in show on C-Span regarding the war (interspersed with repeats of the various press conferences). And, while a call-in on the cable network may not be a representative sample of the public, I was especially struck by the lies, non-truths, guilt-by-false-associations, non-truths by overgeneralization, and so on, that the pro-war callers kept repeating. It struck me that truth is no longer much of a concern for most of these folks.

While I don't buy the pro-war argument for a second, I'll at least listen to a good, reasoned position--for instance, most if not all of the horrors perpetrated by Saddam against his own are a strong argument in favor of his overthrow. His invasion of Kuwait twelve years ago certainly gives one pause (at least until you read this interesting article which argues that the invasion of Kuwait was not Saddam being his usual meglomaniacal self, but rather was a desperate attempt by a career bungler to keep Iraq afloat financially--and make sure you note Henry's source--the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute--not exactly a commie hotbed). But again, I've digressed. My point was that the right certainly can point to Saddam being evil, they can certainly say that US hegemony over the entire Middle East would be good for the US (if we could actually do this--Iraq is proving to be a real problem as a "test case") and so on. But the arguments that emerge from the pro-war side are often partisan reports that don't seek to uncover truth, but instead arouse the ire of their followers, whatever you want to call them (dittoheads, Coutergeists, etc.). Once published and consumed, it doesn't matter if they're true, false, or simply weird.

And that's why fighting against the war is such an uphill climb--a worthwhile climb, but an uphill one. Because, the truth will eventually get out--it just has to fight through the proverbial pack of lies. And while I get pissed off at those who believe the lies we've been told about Iraq--especially after the lies have been thoroughly disproved--it never ceases to amaze me when I hear the other voices, those folks who have been lifelong Republicans who are opposing RoveBushCheney (the three-headed monster) precisely because they see through the shallow arguments, the continual lies that the press FAILS to follow up on, the pattern of deception that is truly replicated only in those countries whose democratic traditions are essentially non-existent, the whole cynical, scripted, phony show. Those people give me hope.