Prevailing Doctrinal Assumptions, Part VI

An important, yet entirely predictable, event happened recently. To quote David Peterson:

"Thursday’s release of the Report to the President of the United States, the latest official re-assessment of the state of pre-war “intelligence” behind the claims that the former regime in Baghdad possessed various nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capabilities, programs, and/or intentions (Don’t you love this last category? Intentions being pre-eminently pre-emptable. Of course.), was immediately portrayed as damning for the Executive Branch, and equally damaging. "

http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entry/official_history1/

Peterson then goes onto indicate something that can be used as a heuristic for the difference between conservatives, liberals and leftists.

Conservatives will argue that the intelligence community had good reason to believe things that may have been inaccurate, that the war is still justified because [insert reason here], and that a number of "mistakes" are erroneous creations of liberal media.

Liberals will argue that the intelligence community made mistakes that propelled the country to war, that the war was insane and terrible, and that the media did a good job after the war.

Leftists will argue that the intelligence community didn't "fail" if we're being ideologically clear-headed. The intelligence community was being actively recruited to lie. Reading foreign relations articles and doing basic Google searches, the elite intellectual critique of the buildup for the war was incredible. But critics were actively silenced and smeared, like Joseph Wilson. The Bush Administration knew the risks: they proceeded because elites overwhelmingly don't care about security. Further, the media did not report and continues to not report the truth, despite elites being scared, because Bush is such a popular candidate among the rich and because encouraging critique of der Fuhrer empowers ordinary people to begin to ask questions.The world looks a lot different from two parts of the left.