Rachel Maddow and MSNBC have produced a documentary that is probably the best we’ve seen about the lies of the Bush administration that led up to the Iraq war. It’s based on the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.
In those days right after 9-11, I remember being glued to TV news, watching as the Bush administration manipulated and took advantage of the national fervor that had seized the country. Everywhere Rob and I drove, we saw American flags flapping on cars. We were surrounded by people who were gung-ho for war against – well, whoever these guys with paper cutters were.
As the official picture became clearer – Afghanistan, then Iraq – I remember how Rob and I talked about how the hijackers were Saudis and that a couple of them worked out in a gym where he used to teach yoga. We wondered why Saudi Arabia wasn’t on the administration hit list.
As the fervor mlounted and moved in 2002 and then early 2003, we were horrified that Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rice were getting people to believed the lies they told about why we had to invade Iraq. The laundry list: Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (no, he didn’t); Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger (a lie, as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame proved), and how we were going to be greeted as liberators by the Iraqui people (Cheney said so, therefore it must be true). We knew – as many others did – that we were being snookered.
This documentary illustrates just how slick these lies and their perpetrators were. Tony Blair believed them and when he got up there and talked about it in his beautiful, dignified British voice, it fueled the Bush administration’s resolve. Some of the Democratic senators who voted for the war undoubtedly now regret that vote. Among them: John Kerry, our new secretary of state, and Hillary Clinton, who may have lost the 2009 election because of that very vote. The documentary also shows how Colin Powell, probably the most respected member of the administration, became their fall guy.
The documentary is just an hour long, in six short parts. It’s well worth your time. It’s kind of sad that those of us who knew it was a lie were powerless to do anything about it, that we were essentially railroaded by hawks and extremist in the Bush administration. Take a look at the statistics on the dead and wounded for this war and try to convince yourself it was worth it. Then watch the documentary and think of what George Santayana so famously said,”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Think about Bush’s infamous axis of evil speech so that when the revisionists of history try to convince you the Iraq war was necessary, you can just turn your back on them, the way elephants do when one of their own is dying.
The documentary is here.
Actually, I don’t think it was Hillary’s vote for the Iraq War authorization that hurt her. It was a small factor, but I think the biggest argument against her was the “Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton”, where two families have a lock on the White House for 24 years. Obama was a fresh face and spoke of unity and reconciliation. Hillary was a reminder of the 1990s Cultural Wars. America needed a break from that. Now, if Hillary runs in 2016, she’ll have even greater stature because of her foreign policy experience. No one would doubt her ability to be commander in chief now. Plus, there’s no uninterrupted break between Bush and Clinton administrations. Obama gets to clean up Bush’s mess and Hillary will inherit a better country.
Good point, Sansego. I like Hillary, would have voted for her – except for that Iraq vote and the bush/clinton/bush/clinton thing. But she has excelled as a secretary of state.
Well, the Republicans will be harping the Benghazi tragedy for the next four years and if Hillary does run, they’ll be very OCD about it, hoping to pin the blame on her. I think their obsession is bizarre, because they didn’t have this kind of outrage during the security lapse of 9/11 and the disastrous handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, or even when Pat Tillman was killed in a fragging incident. They have no room to be outraged. It’s phony.
Memories are short. By 2016, Benghazi will have been obliterated by horrors perpetrated by the GOP. If Hillary runs, I think she’ll win. And I don’t think it will matter who the repugs run because whoever it is, the person will represent the party platform as it exists now –
unless the party, as a collective, has a real epiphany. You know, like: oh wow, we’ve been disenfranchising everyone except old, rich white guys. Where do we go from here?
I’m not defending Slobodan Milosevic or anything like that, but he used a real fascistic revival in Croatia, Bosnia etc. in order to become a dictator (who was later removed by revolution and whose “warriors” have killed the former president Stambolic and prime minister Djindjic). We in Serbia were a test bed (for both Bushes and Clinton) for Iraq and Afghanistan. I am a refugee from Croatia.
Wow, it’s sad, Aleksandar. War is war, regardless of which political party initiates it, and your part of the world has endured a lot by this country’s apparent need to act as world cop.
One good to come of it is the American people won’t be so easy to fool the next time. Maybe that’s why Obama has proceeded to use drones in Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen without even asking Congress or the American people. He knew their answer.
The drone thing is worrisome.
The population were dragged into this war by lies. Blair’s Iraq Dossier wasn’t based on facts – it was fiction. He was supported by the down-market UK tabloid newspapers (Sun and Star) who published headlines such as “Brits 45 Mins from Doom”, and “Mad Saddam Ready to Attack: 45 Minutes from a Chemical War”. It was absolute rubbish.
I can’t comprehend how Blair is still swanning about the world in supposed responsible positions and making loads of money – reported to be over £70 ($100) million since leaving office. He and Bush are responsible for so many deaths – over 100,000 – as your stats link shows.
There is much, much more behind the scenes as to why ‘we’ really went to war.
Yes, it’s amazing that these was criminals are still loose and profiteering. Wow, 100 million since leaving office?
We watched it together, hubby and me, when it came on TV. It does put it together very well, and the only thing left out, as far as I could see, is the massive demonstrations in country after country against our going to war. That struck me especially hard during the time we were going to war. What I don’t understand is why nobody is talking about war crimes! If leaders of any other country… don’t get me started. Thanks for sharing this documentary with those who didn’t see it earlier.
The whole lot of them should have been tried for war crimes.
So true! I remember being horrified that they were using fear to try and take away our freedoms in this country and people were just blindly accepting it.
You just wanted to Shake people and smack them a la “Moonstruck”..”snap out if it!”
That’s how I felt, too.