Tangential Connections

Certain articles tend to escape our attention. I suspect its unlikely that this one will be seen on the MSM.

From the BBC: Students raid Islamabad 'brothel'

excerpt: "Dozens of young women from a religious school in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, have broken into an alleged brothel and kidnapped the owner."

The other night former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton was being questioned on CNN about the Iraq Occupation, why it was started and why the surge is beneficial.

BOLTON: "He himself (Saddam Hussein) and his regime were the threat to international peace and security. The president never made the argument that he constituted an imminent threat. It was the existence of the regime that was the threat. And that is why it was right to overthrow it."

BOLTON: "I think the decision to overthrow him was unquestionably correct. I don't think somebody like him or Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong- Il are really susceptible to classic theories of deterrence. I think there is a second question analytically that it's fair to ask, and that is, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, was the conduct of policy correct? And I think on that question, reasonable people can disagree. In hindsight I'd have turned responsibility back to the Iraqis a lot earlier than we did. The question now going forward is, what is the best strategy? I think the president's surge is really the only strategy there is."

First its important to remember that Bolton is a neo-conservative and as such was one of the people that pushed for shock and awe to begin with. Bolton signed the PNAC document. (Project for a New American Century) As such he will support the Iraq occupation always. Bolton is also an authoritarian personality, he speaks with a disdain for anything that challenges his position and he speaks with certainty.

If you examine the statements above you will see that Bolton actually says - nothing. That is correct, absolutely nothing. There is no fact, no basis of fact, nothing.

He claims that it was Saddam Hussein and his regime that were the threat to international peace and security. How could that be given that Saddam was completely boxed in through international sanctions that cut him off from the world and completely depleted Iraqs' resources, reducing the country to third world status.

What Bolton is doing is handing out the outrageous lie that Saddam was next to Hitler in terms of power and force in the world. Saddam was not even minutely close. Saddam was virtually powerless, stripped of all weapons through UN inspectors. The only card he held was OIL.

Bolton attempts a consistent strategy; build Saddam up to be feared, when in fact he was militarily powerless.

Bolton claims that the mere existence of the regime was reason for a massive unending war. This is akin to stating that the very existence of someone being alive is reason for a massive war. One person's existence does not merit a war, a war which has cost untold costs.

Bolton agrees that the policy to go to war was correct. However remember he is a neo-con, he helped to devise the strategy to begin with, why would he condemn something of his own creation. He is essentially patting himself on the back for his ideology. This is akin to anyone going on TV to say how great they are, it is a self aggrandizing maneuver. If someone tells you they are a great person, do you nod or do you think, they are full of it?

Finally if there was anything that Bush and company did it was to create the sense that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US, first by directly lying in stating that Saddam was the cause of 9-11, and second by ringing the alarms about WMD.