[Peace-discuss] Washington's Wars and Occupations:

[C. G. Estabrook]

This seems to me quite wrong.  If it represents the thinking of UFPJ, it 
helps to explain why they've been so ineffective as part of an anti-war 
movement.  If you misunderstand the situation, the best will in the 
world can only err, or do the right thing by accident.

It is certainly not the case that "Most of Bush's elite critics are 
still too scared of 'you-don't-support-the-troops' demagogy to confront 
the President head on."  Those "elite critics" know that three-quarters 
of the populace are against the war.  They don't confront the President 
because they agree with the general policy -- US control of ME energy 
resources -- but hope to make factional hay out of the Bush 
administration's failures effectively to achieve it: they argue that 
they can do it better.  It's not mitigation but support for the policy 
that leads them to arrange for "a more prudent imperial custodian" -- 
Hillary.

The NIE was not leaked: it was the consensus of the foreign policy 
sectors of the government (including the military), designed effectively 
to say No to the war party's press for an attack on Iran.  It's not 
clear what side Bush himself was on -- with Cheney or with the pros. 
Nor is it clear if it had any "intelligence" value:it was a veto by 
those who would have to make war.

The flap about the torture tapes may be a counter-attack against the CIA 
by the war party, enraged by being told it can't have its Iran war. (I 
think there is a slight chance that Cheney et al. tired to get the war 
going on their own in "seven days in September.")  How fast do you think 
this Justice Department would get a special counsel on the job (as is 
now the case regarding the torture tapes) if the administration didn't 
want it?

The quoted paragraph is Democratic party spin, as much a conscious lie 
as that the US blundered into a quagmire in Vietnam because it didn't 
know what it was doing...  --CGE

Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Passed on from United for Peace and Justice, an article by Max Elbaum:
> 
> http://www.war-times.org/pdf/WT%20MiR-Dec07.pdf
> 
> An extract, the idea being that the governing elite worry that the Bush 
> cabal has failed in its aims, has been too imprudent; hence the "leaks" 
> from within the power elite regarding the missing torture tapes and the 
> NIE report. 
> /
> /
> /Most of Bush's elite critics are still too scared of/
> /"you-don't-support-the-troops" demagogy to confront the/
> /President head on. Hence the latest cave-in by congressional/
> /Democrats in voting Bush the no-strings-attached funds he wants/
> /for Iraq. But via backroom maneuver and leaks, they are trying/
> /to change Bush's course and make sure a more prudent imperial/
> /custodian can come to power./
> /
> /
> --mkb