When I first heard of Paul Krugman's unfortunate comments in yesterday's Times, I was incredulous. How could anyone (let alone a Nobel laureate) find in the occasion of 9/11/11 a source for American "shame" ? Adding insult to injury, he punctuated his journalistic cowardice by disallowing comments and throwing yet more un-BLOG-like/no-comments-allowed salt in the wound: i.e., by recanting the historically-inaccurate indictment on American leaders' response (in both the wake of 9/11 as well as its 10-year-later commemorations). See More About 9/11
Dealing first with Krugman's (and many others) "historical inaccuracies": America's response to 9/11 was not an invasion of Iraq. While a different BLOG could argue (either way) what combination of the longstanding problems with Hussein (and the UN), fears of WMD, bad intelligence,...whatever ultimately did (or did not) justify that move later, what we actually did do in the months following 9/11 was demand that Afghanistan's Taliban-controlled government assist in an international pursuit of Al Qaeda; and, upon being stiffed, and with the full support of virtually all other nations (as well as Democrats here), we invaded that country (it was a full year and half later that the world's attention turned back to Iraq). Indeed, Obama still insists that (Afghanistan) was/is the good war!
Again, rehashing Iraq is far beyond the scope of this particular post. That said, it has always sruck me as curious how many Americans (and others) seem willing (if not eager) to accept the following contention: that our leaders are, at the same time, capable of the most vile deceit; but, somehow, the same leaders are just incongruously scrupulous enough not to mask it! For example, how is it that we can believe that the neocon's (Chaney, Rumsfeld et.al) could trump-up a case for WMD but decline to actually plant some? How easy would it have been for the CIA to drive a tractor-trailer load of anthrax into the Iraqi desert and, then (just in case), tip off Geraldo Rivera and camera crew where to find it?
In short, contentions of Asymmetric Deceit (an ability and willingness to lie big but, then, refrain from covering it up) is ontologically illogical: In other words, it just doesn't make walking around sense when you think about it. So, why do so many want to think so little about so many of our leaders?
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