Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

On the fourth anniversary of the invasion begun with a Donald Rumsfeld "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad, Australian scientist Dr. Gideon Polya has stated that the combined death toll since the Iraq disaster is significantly higher than the biggest previous estimate of 655,000 by a Johns Hopkins University research team.

According to Dr. Polya's study the death toll in Iraq since the American invasion to "democratize" the Middle East nation could be as high as 1 million.  

A spokesman for the Stop the War Coalition called the figure "astonishing", adding, "Four years after the start of the conflict in Iraq we can now see what a disaster the war has been.  Everything we predicted would happen has taken place, but this is far worse than we feared."

Barry M. Lando, a former investigative producer for 60 Minutes, has written Web of Deceit, a book detailing major power misadventure in Iraq from Britain and Winston Churchill following World War One to the present.  The focus has been and remains on Iraq's lucrative oil resources.  Bush claims of an idealistic pursuit to implement democracy there are ludicrous.

Lando cogently traces the rush to war on the part of the Cheney-Bush team in which the facts were contorted to realize the Administration's objective.  

During that period, when anyone asserting the real dangers of such an invasion along with the fact that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and was not the danger being posed was denounced as unpatriotic by ranting right talking heads, General Amer al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein's scientific advisor, was given an opportunity on CNN to answer Administration charges.

Remember CNN?  That's the network that right wing propagandists proclaim to be "too liberal" with Fox being a "more objective" alternative.

After that interview CNN anchor Paula Zahn introduced her next guest, James Rubin, a former State Department spokesman, with the words, "You've got to understand that most Americans watching this were either probably laughing out loud or got sick to their stomachs.  Which was it for you?"

"Well, really, both," Rubin responded.

One quote from Lando's book demonstrated the tragic significance of the Administration's rush to war:

"With no real resistance from CIA leadership, the process of massaging intelligence continued.  In January 2003, according to an analyst in the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division, their unit chief gave marching orders to his staff.  `He said, "You know what - if Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so."`

An analysis of the Nuremberg trials following World War Two in which operatives of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime were tried for crimes against humanity revealed a standard that, if currently applied, could not help but convict Cheney and Bush, along with other major figures such as Rumsfeld, of crimes against humanity.   Lesser lights of that power hungry regime were tried, convicted, and sent to the gallows.

From experts such as Lando, Seymour Hersh, and even an establishment journalist such as Robert Woodward, an unmistakable pattern emerges of manufacturing and massaging  intelligence to fit pro-invasion circumstances.  Among the on the scene Administration figures who have also attested to the burning desire to invade Iraq from the time Bush took office are Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill.

The circumstances are clear.  It is time to cease diversionist strategy to confront the Administration ogre of the moment and begin impeachment proceedings immediately against Cheney and Bush.  Remember that the neocon objective of Middle East hegemony remains paramount and that currently Iran is next on the list.

Should we not do all in our power to prevent a calamitous invasion of Iran by aggressive forces with an insatiable lust for power?