substitute

Because I am having a bad work day and I didn't sleep, here's a cranky political bit.

I read and hear and see various thoughtful "analysts" and "pundits" and political types discussing the Iraq war lately, and they keep saying things like this: "How did this intelligence failure occur?" and "How is it that we proceeded on bad evidence about weapons of mass destruction?" and "How can we improve/reform/rebuild our intelligence services to avoid these blunders in the future?"

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The WMD rationale for the war was a deliberate lie from beginning to end. Anyone who stood up to the lie, especially in the intelligence services, was fired or sidelined. Parallel intelligence services were set up exactly to repeat the lie in official documents. An ugly revenge was taken on an official who stuck to the truth. This is all common knowledge.

So why are these beard-stroking collaborationists musing in a measured and dignified way about the strange and certainly unfortunate case of the not-quite-accurate intelligence estimate? Why hasn't Hillary or Obama or anyone at all with access to the microphones and the rabbit-ear TV come out and said "J'accuse, Mr. President: you have lied to us and done so deliberately, and you know full well there were no WMD, and you and your lackeys have sent us into a bloody unwinnable war out of pride and greed?"

I'm supposed to understand all the cynical reasons why politics is shitty but this one is just past me. These people have so much to gain from telling that truth loudly; what are they afraid of, exactly?

Watch out for hysterical urban legends, unconfirmed reports, and exaggerated nightmare scenarios about looting in New Orleans. There's looting and violence all right, and when all is told there are going to be some sad and frightening stories about it.

But who benefits from a lot of scare talk about masses of armed looters, snipers, and great crowds of the unwashed attacking rescue personnel? The people who want to blame the victims, that's who.

All those officials who failed us are going to talk long and loud about the breakdown in civil order and the need for zero tolerance and lots of soldiers with guns. Don't forget the real villains here: the people who didn't give the evacuation order in time, the local agencies that left people on their own without transportion to leave, the federal agencies that pulled the funding for the levees, the President who couldn't be bothered leaving his vacation until the corpses were floating already. They'd just love for you to concentrate on all those grimy underclass losers stealing beer and taking potshots at helicopters.

Keep your focus. The "grownups" in suits who were supposed to spend our tax money to save lives stood around while Americans died. If they try to look good later by shooting some pathetic losers for boosting a beer, it's doubling their own crime.