re Powell's dog-and-pony show

[pynchonoid]

"[...] Powell's lack of rhetorical grandstanding was
welcome, as was the specificity of his charges. That
being said, they still fail to justify launching a
war. 

The first and most obvious problem is that it wouldn't
be a launch. It'd be a dramatic and gruesome
escalation, to be sure, one that even its lead
architect has compared, publicly and approvingly, to
Hiroshima. But three presidents have been waging
continuous war against Iraq's government and its
people for a dozen years -- from the Gulf War, to
economic sanctions, to the unilaterally imposed no-fly
zones, to regular bombings, to covert efforts to
overthrow or assassinate Iraq's leaders, to the
current, steadily increasing bombing runs and
psychological pressure on the Iraqis. Powell's
presentation was not a case for war; it was part of
the war itself, and should be understood as such. 

The problem all along with a level-headed assessment
of the Bush Administration's myriad justifications for
an overt invasion and "regime change" --
justifications that have been frequently shifting, at
times contradictory, and often demonstrably false --
is that they have been in the service of a
predetermined conclusion. Regardless of whether a
decision to invade had been made, and when, there's
never been a question that Bush and his circle of
hawks have wanted war, the bigger the better, and that
the question in their minds was less whether it was
justified than how to sell it to allies and to the
public. 

The White House's arguments for war all along have
been less conclusions based on evidence than evidence
based on conclusions -- less like the determination of
a judge, and more like the lawyers arguing to the
jury. Powell's presentation to the U.N., with its more
concrete evidence and its more sober demeanor, should
be considered every bit as critically, and
skeptically, as those of the more hyperbolic
prosecutors preceding him. 

And, to quote the late, wondrous Peggy Lee: Is that
all there is? [...] "

from:
At last, evidence
Colin Powell presentation to the Security Council, and
other arguments for war
by Geov Parrish 

<http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14465&CFID=5061671&CFTOKEN=46970557>



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