tapes

A couple of different things from Libby's taped grand jury testimony today that could be nothing, but which could be worth remarking on.

In his March 5th, 2004 testimony to the Grand Jury, Mr. Libby made an interesting slip of the tongue.  He was talking about Iraq's attempts to acquire fissile materials as represented in the NIE, but instead of saying "Iraq", he said "Iran".  Now, with any other talking head under any other circumstances, this could be a common enough mistake.  However, given the Bush administration's hard-on for attacking Iran over their nuclear program, one has to wonder if this was actually a Freudian slip.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran on August 5th, 2005, nearly a year and a half after Libby's testimony.  BushCo has used the election of Ahmadinejad as an excuse to ramp up the United States' heavy-handed rhetoric against Iran, citing his crackpot statements about wiping Israel "off the map", but what if the Bush administration has been planning this particular expansion of the "War on Terror" all along, or at least since we invaded Iraq and destabilized the region?  Would that surprise you?  Would it really?

Maybe my tin-foil hat is cutting off the circulation to my brain, but given our President's imperialist tendencies and his utter disregard for the sanctity of other sovereign nations (especially Islamic ones), would it be that much of a stretch to think that they've had designs on Iran all along?  Iran's got oil, too.  And by the simple math of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Axis of Weasels, oil plus Islamic country minus the House of Saud equals "Grave Threat in the War on Terror" and therefore we must attack.

It's been pretty distressing to me and a number of other people to see the similarity of the arguments made for attacking Iran and the now-utterly-debunked case for going to war in Iraq.  We've already seen some public outcry about the dubiousness of the administration's claims against Iran, but BushCo's wheels of war seem to grind inexorably onwards.

From Salon:

Some see this gambit as representing a welcome return to coldblooded, "Great Game" realism after the wishful thinking that led to the Iraq debacle. But this is a superficial misreading. Bush's Iran ploy reeks of desperation and shortsightedness; it is no more "realistic" than his Iraq strategy. It may briefly postpone the day of reckoning by diverting Americans' attention and providing a temporary bad guy, one Bush is sure to blame when his Iraq venture completely falls apart. But it flies in the face of a historical shift, the rise of Shia and Iranian power, that Bush himself rashly set in motion, and cannot now be undone. It could lead to a shooting war, which would be utterly disastrous for U.S. interests and would set back the cause of reform in Iran by years. And by further exacerbating sectarian and ethnic tensions in the Middle East while denying, in time-honored neocon fashion, that there are actual causes for what Bush simplistically labels "extremism," it is likely to further destabilize an already-chaotic region — and empower al-Qaida, which thrives on hatred and chaos.

In effect, the Bush administration is trying to put out the flames of sectarian and ethnic hatred in Iraq, while pouring gasoline on them everywhere else. Somehow, despite the charred horror of Iraq, it does not seem to have realized that once the wildfire of sectarian hatred spreads, it is very hard to extinguish it.

Surely the author must understand by now that all NeoCons know how to do is start fires, not put them out.  That's what us wussie liberals do, desperately try to clean up the apocalyptic missteps of Republican administrations.

The other thing in Libby's testimony that raised some eyebrows today was something he said about when Cheney first told him that "Wilson's wife" worked at "the Agency".  Libby presented it as if it were just a glib aside from Big Dick, no context, just something he was noting in passing.  Nothing to see here, people.  Just passing the time with a bit if idle chit-chat about a fierce critic of the War in Iraq and his wife, a covert agent.

Right.  That salt o' the earth old Gentleman Dick really was just mentioning that because he was thinking of inviting the Wilsons to the White House's annual Labor Day picnic and potluck supper.  As Pach said on the phone to me earlier, "Oh, yeah.  Dick Cheney's a regular Garrison Keillor, just keeping abreast of all the good folks in the neighborhood."

You know, something that has been consistently bugging me about all of this is the assertion that BushCo outed Valerie Plame to "undermine Wilson's credibility".  I've never felt that this was the real reason.  How would that really invalidate his message?  Outing Valerie Plame was a bully tactic, a show of force that said, "Don't fuck with us.  We don't care if your wife gets killed.  We don't care about accurate intelligence.  All that matters is that our decisions are never, ever questioned."

Doesn't that seem more in line with the way this administration operates?  It wasn't aimed at the public.  It was aimed squarely at Wilson and his family, the White House equivalent of a horse's head left in someone's bed.

It's no coincidence that the laws Libby is being tried under were originally set up to fight organized crime.  The Bush/Cheney administration is a crime syndicate and all of their actions and reactions should be read in that light.  They are not a government.  They are a cartel.

Related posts:

  1. SCOTUS Denies Valerie Plame Wilson Her Day in Court
  2. Cheney’s Betrayal Made an IIPA Charge for Libby Possible
  3. The Taxpayers Paid Dick Cheney’s Personal Defense Attorney to Obstruct Any Inquiries Into His Crimes
  4. Come Saturday Morning: The Neocon Drinking Game!
  5. Late Night: Sarah Palin Consults Her Little Black Book