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This morning, on Democracy Now, I had a chance to engage in public dialogue — which quickly turned into a debate — with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. I found some of his comments to be insightful, others jaw-dropping in their evasions. Maybe you’d like to take a look at the video.
Debating war and impunity with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff |
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| By: Norman Solomon Wednesday February 6, 2013 5:39 pm | |
29 Comments
Excellent post…! Recc’d…! Here’s a great follow-on post written by ex-CIA Analyst, Melvin Goodman… How The Iraq War Was Sold…
Btw, It’s Déjà vu… Iraq, Iran, Redlines, And Headlines…
Well done Norman…but while we are here lets remember that Democrats were significantly behind the Invasion of Iraq.As a matter of fact for all those Democratic libruls who were blaming Nader for the defeat of Gore,and then postulate that Gore would have never gone into Iraq….well,that’s complete baloney as it was BClinton & Gore who were the main supporters of 1998-10-31 – Iraq Liberation Act.
This enduring mess we have created for ourselves is a product of both main political parties.We have an AA Prez and the list of abuse that he is dishing out on us,well lets just say all those who were boisterous about GWBush lunacy are silent about Obama’s abuse.
Mahalo for frontpaging this so quickly, FDL…! *g*
I heard you on dn this morning, Norman. I had to turn it off midway thru. Wilkerson’s another PoS whose only job in the past 8 years has been to see if he could revive Powell’s reputation. Those 2 got both raw ends of W’s stick. They had to do his dirty work bc no one else had any creds, then they got ignored, then they got canned. I’ll bet they never even got a thank you.
I had figured out there were no WMD in Iraq but the time of Powell’s UN presentation. I remember having an email exchange with some NYT govt mouthpiece. Same talking points as Wilkerson still has. But but but typed NYT guy, Colin Powell spent hours at the CIA going over the info. He even threw some out that wasn’t well enough sourced. blah blah. Powell’s UN presentation didn’t pass the giggle test,* but held everyone spell bound. It was the most memorable examples of mass hypnosis in my senior lifetime.
*Fuzzy “sat” photo of 4 rectangles ovaled in red. Mobile bioweapons labs. Are you sh*tting me? No one in his right mind would cart dangerous stuff like that around the country in a tractor trailer truck.
I’m surprised and disappointed by Wilkerson in this. At least in contrast he now appears to be sanding down the sharp corners on the war crimes in which he was too close for comfort. The one surety seems that all these officials are going to spend the rest of their lives covering each other’s ass.
Norman I loved the interview. Had to giggle when Wilkerson insinuated that it was your fault we went to war with Iraq, cause you hadn’t bothered to call him and tell him he was being fed lies. Of course, in the next breath, he went on to describe the impenetrable bubble those in the upper echelons of power live in. Oh the irony.
And if he is so god damn mad about Obama’s drones, etc., why is he not screaming about it somewhere other than on DN?
How you doing eCAHN? Come to Over Easy some morning.
I remember watching Powell’s UN presentation and thinking what a pale comparison it was to Adlai Stevenson’s Cuban Missile Crises Speech.
Wilkerson is still an apologist but his heart is in the right place.
Iraqi Child Asks Tony Blair and George Bush: Are you happy now?
Well done, Norman. I found Col. Wilkerson’s consciousness of the “bubble” interesting but disconnected from why exactly it was they your voice could not be heard either inside the administration (they didn’t want to and would screen you out) or the media (the propaganda effort marginalized critics). And that is exactly what is going one with the Obama administration as well.
And it also applies for citizens and their relationships with members of Congress. The communications is set up for marketing to constituents but not listening to constituents on policy, only on “constituent services” (narrow personal concerns). Congress is also in a bubble.
And that bubble is dominated by Village communications.
I’m impressed that you know what is in Wilkerson’s heart.
I can only know how he behaves (don’t believe a word anyone inside Beltway sez) and I haven’t seen Wilkie do anything that warrants respect.
Yes, those bioweapons labs. The only ones who believed that guff were the ones who wanted to believe. The best part of your exchange, I thought, was your defense of the American people who had a right to know but only folk like Amy Goodman were telling them what they needed to know, and interviewing people like you. I well remember those two hour democracynow radio shows – Amy deserves a Pulitzer for those. Unfortunately, we now seem to need a repeat performance.
Let’s hear it also for Hans Blix, Joe Wilson and all who bravely spoke truth to power in those days, enlightening those of us fortunate enough to have access to them. We need to remember them, not Colin Powell who sold his soul in front of a curtained Guernica.
Recommended. Thank you for posting it here.
Search Colin Powell My Lai. He’s always been the go-to guy for coverups and other unpleasant chores. That’s how he got where he was.
And then there was Curveball. I can’t remember the timing but I think GDR was warning U.S. off of using his “intel” bc he is not mentally stable. I think that was known bef UN presentation, but not sure. So not only was mobile bioweapons labs laughable from first principles, it was know that the “source” was unreliable.
touche’
I am almost as cynical as you.*g*
*heh* eCAHN sets a mighty high bar, JC…! ;-)
Col. Lang asked today… Why not in the US…?
Also, Amy Davidson asks… What Americans Are Targets?
Should be interesting to see what happens at Brennan’s confirmation hearings, btw, did y’all know that Carl Levin delayed todays vote on Hagel’s confirmation…?
Hmmm. Unless I was missing something Wilkerson used to be pretty good as a sometime guest on the Alyona Show a year or so ago. I wonder if something has happened.
The Norman Solomon on DN this a.m. was the Norman Solomon I voted for. Just sayin’.
Wilkerson:
What an arrogant, prideful, irresponsible, and bombastic worm. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. This man pretends to be a quality representative of American military advisors. The poor intellectual discipline of he and that other exemplar, Bacevich, are examples of that cause of America’s decline.
Pathetic.
Mr. Soloman and I feel the same: Why is it we knew and you didn’t?
Wilkerson’s response: Everyone else was doing it. This pitiful excuse doesn’t cut it. The propaganda was easy to see though at the street level. He should be charged, but war crimes are legal now– it will continue to happen. Don’t believe anything, including hard evidence, concerning our constructed enemies. It boils down to an ongoing massacre of brown people. Over a million in Iraq alone.
Speaking of neocon propaganda, the following segment with Glenn Greenwald starting at 41:30 was interesting also.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Glenn’s article mentioned in the segment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/02/brooklyn-college-bds-alan-dershowitz
Indeed! One need look no further than Gore’s go-to man on foreign policy, Kenneth Pollack, who was advocating war on Iran well before G.W. Bush was appointed POTUS by SCOTUS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Pollack
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-weiss/kenneth-pollack-iran-expe_b_20248.html
Sorry, Mr. Solomon, but the political party you’ve associated yourself with and the current murderer-in-chief you helped re-elect are utterly fraudulent and far more dangerous to global democracy than the GOP.
Recommended
No Profiles In Courage politics on Capitol Hill post 9/11 between Ds and Rs allowed March 2003 American Empire attack on Iraq to shift thru several higher gears while the brakes were little / not applied.
Bipartisan R + D Pro Empire was on full display during this episode of WashingtonDC Wants A War.
American Empire being / getting done in WashingtonDC along central lines and hubs similar to how One Party Ruled China is conducted by Chinese Communists.
American Empire from end of WW2 onwards has not been curbed on global premised / based militarism regime it has expanded ceaselessly or on the multi sided state security regime it has incubated and propagated. With trillion plus $$ overt / covert annual budget add ups now routine.
Ds and Rs as national political parties are both on the American Empire bandwagon with minimal alternative perspective(s) allowed / tolerated.
Bush and Cheney WH should have been crucified by Ds on Capitol Hill over and about 9/11 taking place but instead were given what they wanted/needed to illegally attack Iraq in March 2003.
Whatever transgressions Colin Powell is guilty of can be assigned to many D and R U.S.Senators just for starters during this period of imperial bellicosity, fearmongering and warmongering.
Bush and Cheney letting 9/11 happen was fertile ground to diminish and demolish them on for the Ds. The Ds passed and ten years later Iraq Debacle is undeniably one failure after another X 10 X 10.
Senator Feinstein(D)(War/Security)(Corporatism / Empire) will be chairing John Brennan’s confirmation hearing to become CIA Director which is being sponsored by POTUS Barack Obama,Obama WH and the CIA Sith Lords. Some rarely seen “transparency” as to who/what Barack Obama likes to do CIA business with since becoming POTUS on Jan.20,2009.
So what is Diane Feinstein anyway? — a M-I-C Baroness? Isn’t it long pass time Feinstein stepped down as a U.S. Senator and out of U.S.Senate and went into secluded retirement ?
Ah, yes. So many Democrats, even those who are very disappointed with the Presidency of Barack Obama, look back with great fondness and nostalgia at the wholly imaginary Presidency of Al Gore.
Gore was a founding partner of the DLC. Marshall and From were the first two full-time employees of the DLC. Marshall signed the 2003 PNAC memo, urging Dim Son to invade Iraq.
Gore’s run for the Presidency was not only endorsed by the DLC, but Gore’s pick for Vice President was fellow founding member of the DLC and perhaps the most neocon of all the founding members of the DLC, Joe Lieberman.
But, ah, if only Al Gore had been President on 911, eh? Everything would have[b] DEFINITELY [/b]been completely different. I just know it in my bones.
Congrats on your experience.
(As an aside, if Colon Powell endorsed me, I would cringe.)
Killing people remotely with drones where you are at no risk , you do not experience the visceral impact of your act is the most cowardly act a human being can do. It is worse than killing and it is worse than murder, it is EXTERMINATION. The last government to practice this extermination as an official policy was the Hitler regime. To do this without due process of law even on Americans and With such callous disregard for human life that it is conducted with the same lack of precision we use when we spray bugs, is the worst obscenity in American history.
Good shown, Norman, you did good. Wilkerson’s rebuttals were just plain pathetic. The government’s propaganda was obvious during the entire run-up to the Iraq invasion. They willfully ignored the facts that were being exposed by those outside the bubble; they willfully ignored the reports of the UN inspectors and Joe Wilson.
And his tactic of attacking and blaming you for not phoning him (as if you had Wilkerson on your speed-dial or something) was an obvious attempt to deflect the failures of both Wilkerson and Powell and their role in this entire tragedy. It reads like a Greek play – those poor two guys were hopelessly fooled and manipulated by the hands of fate.
I’ve given Wilkerson props in the past for some of his interviews, but his performance on DN yesterday was shameful. So now that Wilkerson is concerned about the drone program, I think the question should be put to him: what has he done to stop it? Has he phoned Hillary’s chief of staff? And if so, what were the results, was he ignored (as surely a Norman Solomon would have been by Wilkerson, had Norman phoned him)?
Thanks for the comments everyone… What concerns me as much as anything is the continuity of impunity — legal, political, cultural. If past lying for war has no penalties for those who’ve done the lying, all the easier for other top officials to lie for war in the present and future.
You did a great job in the Debate.