Yesterday morning I heard an NPR interview with Richard Perle on the election and Iraq that elicited a number of negative reactions in me, but disgust and disbelief topped the list.
When the interview was introduced, Perle's "credits" included the fact that he was Chairman of the Defense Policy Board until April of 2003, but did not mention the lobbying and profiteering scandal associated with his resignation from that position, though perhaps the larger scandal is that he remains on the Board. I found this oversight irksome, as much as the fact that such a discredited individual - on so many counts - would continue to be credited in any way at all, much less asked to share opinion on anything, much less these elections or the debacle that he helped craft in Iraq. But irked was the least of my reactions.
As an aside, it was nevertheless refreshing to hear Andrea Seabrook finally show some spine in questioning Perle's position on key points that have been utterly and completely rebuked, such as the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Perle's response to Seabrook's request for specifics and evidence was nothing short of elitist disdain for what he hoped would be conveyed as her ignorance, while of course he utterly and completely failed to produce a shred of said evidence, stating only that he'd seen the evidence and he continued to hold to his opinion that there had been WMDs.
Alas, however, Seabrook failed to catch a glaring contradiction in Perle's whine and cheezy fest. Perle is admitting defeat of a sort, but of course taking no responsibility for the failures. To his credit - the only credit he deserves here, or anywhere - he does admit that had he known then what he knows now, he'd have never....
Well, you can fill in that blank easily enough. It sort of passes for a mea culpa, sort of, at least on the face of it. But what is it that he knows now that he did not know then? No WMDs? No, he already insists there was "evidence" for that. No ties to al Qaeda? No, he also insists there is ample evidence to support this notion.
No, he's learned nothing new about all those discredited
No, instead, Richard Perle, the wizened and sage old ... (now, what should we call him? A pundit? A profiteer? American with questionable ties to AIPAC and even more questionable loyalties? Traitor?) ...neocon blames (wait for it)...the Iraqis.
Kid you not.
This appears to be the latest frame for neocon CYA: the Iraqi people are just incapable of logic or organization or anything beyond their greed and bloodlust, and certainly incapable of democracy. Several of their ranks are spewing this overt racism in the interests of excusing their own astonishing lack of foresight or even insight, and Robert Fisk delivers the appropriately scathing put down of all their nonsense.
But even Fisk overlooks the jaw-dropping contradiction dripping from Perle's bloodless lips that froze me in my tracks. Suddenly, now, the failure or our ridiculous adventure rests in the hands of the Iraqi people.
Where, oh where, was this opinion four years ago when he and all his fellow neocons - teeming with greed and bloodlust of their own - insisted that only the powerful and benevolent US could bestow the liberation of democratic nation building upon these poor heathens??
Then, of course, they could not be masters of their own fate, but nevertheless deserved our
Where do these guys keep hidden these inappropriate insights for untimely exposure? Buried away with the rest of their elitist racism, no doubt.
1 comment:
Watch the film "Iraq for Sale," and you'll see the true inanity of an American accusing the Iraqis of greed.
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