At What Point Do They Stop Listening?by
Bill Barnwell With some people, no matter how much evidence is put in front of them, they refuse to believe the facts. This is especially true in our political climate today, where blinded partisans refuse to deviate from the official script and talking points handed down from their trusted leaders. Today’s mainstream conservative is forced to defend the Bush administration and its phony excuses and evidence (all thoroughly discredited) for invading Iraq. They are also forced to defend the botched occupation that ensued and the continuing chaos that still exists over three years later. To such people, the facts, no matter how glaringly obvious, do not matter. In their delusional world they are not the ones who have a problem. It’s the ones pointing out the facts to them that have the problem. From the beginning there were those of us who argued against an invasion of Iraq, who contended that it was not in our nation’s best interest to fight a war in Iraq, and who also cast doubts on the assertion that Iraq posed a physical threat to America in the form of "WMD’s." The assertion, popular amongst administration apologists today (and hypocritical opportunistic Democrats who critique the administration policy today now that it is politically convenient, but who were silent in the run up to the war) is that "everybody thought that Saddam Hussein was a physical threat prior to the invasion." Not so fast, guys. There have always been detractors to the popular assumptions about Iraq and many of us argued before the invasion that Iraq was not a physical threat to the United States. Because of that, the "mainstream" publications, public figures, and opinion makers out there cast us as "extremists" and "outside the mainstream." Well, as the evidence continues to pour in, it turns out that us nasty "extremists" – who simply argued rationally against a war that we felt was not in our best interests – turned out to be right after all. Instead it was the "mainstream" war apologists, government officials, high-ranking intelligence officers, etc., that were wrong. Rather than simply admit the obvious, the "mainstream" has chosen to continue to wall itself off from reality and continue to defend a failed policy where everyone is losing and nobody is winning. Instead we simply hear tired platitudes that we "stay the course" and not "cut and run" (and presumably just cross our fingers, keep doing what we are doing and hope everything will eventually work out). And for whatever reason, the conservative masses have not yet fully woken up to this scam and realized that they’ve been taken for a ride. Instead, the enemies, the bad guys, of course, are the ones who want to separate fact from fiction. I highly recommend every single person who still believes in this administration’s handling of the entire Iraq situation to read Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq. There is only a small amount of editorializing and great deal of a presentation of the facts. The facts were that before the invasion, Iraq was not an imminent threat. The only problem was that the people in charge did not want to see such facts and chose to believe in their own version of reality. There’s also documented facts showing just how mismanaged the occupation and present situation has become. This book is not "anti-troops" unless we consider any critique of war strategy as not "supporting the troops." In fact the book gives credit where credit is due to the average American solider, most of whom did the best they could and continue to do the best they can under difficult circumstances. Instead Ricks gives the reader a "fair and balanced" picture of the run-up to the war all the way up to the present. I challenge anyone who gets angry at this article and continues to believe in the past and present Iraq policy to read this book and dispute the facts that are presented. Most likely that won’t happen, and instead Ricks will just be labeled as a "traitor" by such individuals, just as they have slandered the many other "extremists" whose sole crime is failing to buy into their false version of events and false reality. This isn’t about the "blame game." Most of the critics of this administration’s foreign policy are not happy that their bleak predictions came to pass (though of course, there are some hardened ideologues that enjoy the death and destruction since it makes the President and others look bad). This is about continuing to give credibility to people who should have been long ago discredited. When George Tenet receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his great service of giving bad intelligence, and Donald Rumsfeld continues to be defended as "the best person for the job," and the same crowd that promoted invading Iraq is now making noise for their next great cause – Iran – we have much reason to be concerned. This is not about politics or childish "I told you so" arguments. This is about credibility. Conservatives and the general public, if they haven’t done so already, should stop giving so much credibility to the government officials, journalists, talking heads, etc. who have been so very wrong and refuse to ever admit their error. They instead want to continue to compound their errors with more bad decisions. And these are the same people that call us extremists? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
September 8, 2006 Bill Barnwell [send him mail] is a pastor in Flushing, Michigan. He has completed a Master of Ministries degree and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |
At
what point will you stop taking this crowd seriously?