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June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
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Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
14, 2003
Do Americans Expect
to be Misled?
Lies,
Damned Lies, and Military Intelligence
By WILLIAM S. LIND
It is now evident that Saddam Hussein's possession
of vast quantities of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is about
as likely as Mars having canals, complete with gondolas and singing
gondoliers. Remember, it wasn't just a couple of stink bombs
we accused him of possessing. According to data compiled by columnist
Nicholas Kristof, the governments of the United States and (once)
Great Britain told the world that Saddam had 500 tons of mustard
and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum,
almost 30,000 banned munitions and the tornado that abducted
Dorothy. So far, all we have found is two empty trailers. Presumably,
American troops had sufficient time to paint over the "Allied
Van Lines" logos.
Since Saddam's WMD were one of the principal
stated reasons for this strategically curious war, their absence
is something more than a social faux pas. Were the American and
British publics, as Pat Buchanan puts it, lied into war? If they
were, it would not be the first time. In Britain, the practice
goes back at least as far as the 18th century and the War of
Jenkin's Ear. Americans were lied into World War I by cartoons
of German soldiers bayoneting Belgian babies and into Vietnam
by a Tonkin Gulf torpedo boat attack that never happened.
There are, of course, other possibilities.
It may have been simply an intelligence failure. That is the
least disturbing possibility, because the others are worse.
One is that someone in the chain of military
intelligence deliberately cooked the books. If they did so, it
was probably to curry favor with their political and budgetary
masters, who let it be known what "findings" they wanted.
This sort of corruption is now endemic in Washington. Virtually
every Federal agency, including the armed forces, have accepted
the rightness of doing and saying anything to get money. Budget
size is the universal measurement of success, and whatever pleases
those who allocate funds is wholesome and good. What John Boyd
said of the Pentagon is now universal: "It is not true they
have no strategy. They do have a strategy, and once you understand
what it is, everything they do makes sense. The strategy is,
`Don't interrupt the money flow; add to it.'"
Another possibility is more disturbing
still, and regrettably I have to say I think it is a certainty.
Those who use military intelligence do not understand what it
is.
Throughout history, in virtually every
conflict, a universal law has applied. That law says that when
it comes to military intelligence, whatever you think you know
is incomplete, and some of it is wrong. You don't know what you
don't know, you don't know how much you don't know, and you don't
know what part of what you think you know is wrong.
As part of the so-called "Revolution
in Military Affairs," which promises to turn war into a
video game, many intelligence users, both military and civilian,
have come to think of military intelligence as "hard data."
RMA touts have long and loudly promised perfect information,
on both your own side (in war, just knowing what your own forces
are doing is difficult) and the enemy. The military talks about
"information dominance" (for just a few more billions),
which somehow suggests one of our attractive female officers,
dressed in a natty leather outfit, serving as the G-2SM, the
Information Dominatrix.
It may be -- though I doubt it -- that
our intelligence agencies really believed Saddam had all that
stuff. But even if that is what they reported to the decision-makers,
the decision-makers should have known better to swallow it. If
they did not know that, they are not fit to be making military
decisions. They lack the most basic understanding of the nature
of military intelligence, a nature no technology can alter (and
can easily make worse, by making the errors more convincing).
The upshot is that we went to war and
wrecked a country over something that, barring an unlikely revelation,
was not true. The American people don't seem to care. Perhaps
they expect to be misled by their government, or, more likely,
they have just changed the channel.
But the rest of the world does care.
The international credibility of American assertions based on
military intelligence is now zero. When we make claims about
other countries -- as we are now doing about Iran -- not a soul
will believe them, even when they happen to be true. At this
point, Americans should not believe them either.
Footnote: The U.S. is now moving rapidly
to relocate its forces in South Korea well to the south of the
DMZ. I suspect the real reason is to move them out of range of
North Korean artillery. At present, if we launch airstrikes on
North Korea, Pyongyang can respond with a massive, World War
I-style artillery bombardment of U.S. ground troops that could
kill thousands. The sudden withdrawal of Americans to positions
south of the Han river reveals our intention to go after North
Korea's nuclear and missile facilities. A possible North Korean
riposte: demand Japan expel all American forces or kiss Osaka
goodbye.
William S. Lind
is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free
Congress Foundation.
Yesterday's Features
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
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