"The Man Who Worked Backwards..."

This government would like to be thought of for its position on tax-cuts and protection; more than likely, it will be remembered for its intransigence, its inability to govern and Katrina…



When you have so few legs to stand on, it would be a good idea to do your best on those issues that you suspect will define you.



Specifically, the issues have boiled down to Iraq which will define this presidency one way or the other.



In all fairness, we began with a loaded plate. Cheney did not believe George Tenant and Cheney was a warrior who hadn’t gotten it all out of his system during the Cold War. And the Neo-Cons thought that 9/11 could become the vehicle for changing the world if only they could switch the blame from bin Laden to Saddam.



Against this backdrop, there was the president who notoriously chaffed against the idea of understanding the background of not only this but any decision. He hated to read; hated to study; and, therefore, depended almost totally on his intuition which in most cases had previously proved wrong.



All of the qualities that were missing in our president wound up being reflected in our failed policies. From his lack of knowledge of the terrain to the tough-it-out mindset that suggested that nothing or nobody would ever change his mind. The trouble was that this mind-set was established before the information started filtering back and that which was incompatible with the desired result was simply rejected. And, from what an objective lens can gather, everything else was fudged or lied about, with little concern for honesty or the truth, and in the process destroying more than a few reputations.. This is the conclusion reached by anyone who has listened to the testimony of former analysts and CIA operatives who were party to the process, the Antiterrorist Czar, former appointees who resigned from this government and even Woodward’s reporting.



You can’t make decisions ahead of learning the facts based upon pure will and no insights, information or intel. You will come out just wrong; and that’s just what happened. But the president, ever mindful that his reputation hung in the balance, shot from the hip once again and blamed the analysts, the generals, whomever was a convenient whipping boy at the time and blamed everyone else for being anti-patriotic.

This was chutzpah operating on overdrive.



All of the information used in the formation of the prearranged decision then was tainted and should have been tossed; but, instead, it wound up in the State of the Union, the precursor to the loss of three thousand of our best and brightest.



Government by intuition and bias is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.



You don’t start out with the decision and they seek to justify it; not in a Democracy that follows the rules of law; not in the 21st century when your enemies are as well armed as you are…



What we were seeing was our Fuhrer rushing through Poland because there was no resistance; and Congress looking more and more like Western Europe, compliant and eager to please.



The rest was history: We were mired in a War we had no business being in the first place and no plan for a way out, a war that still exists and in trying to reason it out, we seem to forget that everything that led up to it was obfuscation, misdirection, smoke and mirror and need I say it, lies.



Les Aaron

THE COMMITTEE FOR POSITIVE CHANGE