Will They Ever Learn?

The inability to learn from past mistakes and a lack of understanding of the consequences of action are to of the main characteristics of the psychopathic personality.

It now seems that the White House has embarked on a path of "educating" the American people on the need to invade Iran. The evil of Iran has been a mantra for the US for some time now, but the time has now come to ratchet up the fear.

With similarities that are both laughable and chill the blood to the build up to the Iraq war, the US military has decided to present "evidence" of Iran's involvement with the militias in Iraq. A number of "explosively formed penetrators," or EFPs were displayed to which three nameless (of course) "experts" confirmed were manufactured in Iraq.

The display appeared to be part of the White House drive that has empowered U.S. forces in Iraq to use all means to curb Iranian influence in the country, including killing Iranian agents. All means includes invasion!

It is clear to me that Bush wants to invade Iran and exercise the same principle of "regime change" that has been such a success in Iraq, - oh, and of course, knock out a nuclear complex or two.

It will be interesting to see if the American people will allow themselves to be suckered again and swallow the nonsense pedaled by this regime. Certainly I expect my government to resist this latest bit of adventurism to the hilt and not cravenly fall in line as they did last time.

I am sure that Iran is stirring the pot, but the place for that to be aired is in open at the UN, not behind closed doors in the White House. Can the American troops, their families and people afford to open up a third front, baring in mind the lack of success in Afganistan and Iraq. Moreover, can they afford it in cash!

As one of the "experts" said; "We know more than we can show," said one of the senior officials, when pressed for tangible evidence that the EFPs were made in Iran. Of course they do, and I'm living in Groundhog Day.

Drip, Drip, Drip

"From the perspective of the White House, it was smart to blur the lines about what was acceptable and what was not in the war on terrorism. It meant that whenever someone was overzealous in some dark interrogation cell, President (George W.) Bush and his entourage could blame someone else. The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn't do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush Administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions." This quote was made by Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA's European division during an interview with the German current affairs magazine Der Spiegel in responce to a question about extraordinary rendition.

On how the White House viewed Europe after 9/11 he had this to say: "Elements of the Bush administration developed the view that European personal privacy laws were somehow to blame, that the Europeans are too slow. We can be very frustrating to work with. I always said, 'Stop preaching to them.' The Europeans have been dealing with terrorism for years, we can learn from their successes and failures. Its not a good spy story, but it's actually how you do this."

When asked how much the CIA was to blame for the amount of wrong information about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, he responded: "The agency is not blameless and no president on my watch has had a spotless record when it comes to the CIA. But never before have I seen the manipulation of intelligence that has played out since Bush took office. As chief of Europe I had a front-row seat from which to observe the unprecedented drive for intelligence justifying the Iraq war."

He was then asked about the critics in Washington who claim that the Germans, because of Curveball, an Iraqi dissident who gave information about supposed Iraqi biological and chemical weapons development, bear a large part of the repsonsibility for the intelligence mess. His reply: "There was no effort by the Germans to influence anybody from the beginning. Very senior officials in the BND expressed their doubts, that there may be problems with this guy. They were very professional. I know that there are people at the CIA who think the Germans could have set stronger caveats. But nobody says: "Here's a great intel report, but we don't believe it." .... The administration wanted to make the case for war with Iraq. They needed a tangible thing, they needed the German stuff. They couldn't go to war based just on the fact that they wanted to change the Middle East. They needed to have something threatening to which they were reacting."

At the time of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations, Drumheller said: "I had assured my German friends that it wouldn't be in the speech. I really thought that I had put it to bed. I had warned the CIA deputy John McLaughlin that this case could be fabricated. The night before the speech, then CIA director George Tenet called me at home. I said: "Hey Boss, be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that." He said: 'Yeah, yeah. Right. Dont worry about that.'"

He then adds: "I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech. We checked our files and found out that they had just ignored it." ..."The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this.""

The full interview transcript can be found here, but it is yet just another piece of evidence of the White House's comfort with using lies. When is impeachment going to be started?