If Bush and his admin pressured the intelligence agencies to come up with data which supported what they wanted to do (and we know that happened, it's in the reports), and suppressed data that did not, then no, it does not make that argument hollow. Of course if the republicans in congress refuse to look in to the matter further, as they have been doing, we'll never know anything close to the truth on this, will we? And refusing to investigate something makes it look as if there is a reason for not investigating. Generally innocent people don't stonewall investigations, but I say "generally", not "absolutely".
There was, and still is (typified by some on this thread), an hysterical "If you're not with us, you're with the enemy" attitude in this country with regard to the "ideas" on how to respond to terrorism after 9/11, especially at the time this silly war was started. That kind of attitude, combined with poor access to good intelligence, and structured disinformation, makes a real opposition almost impossible. Sure, the democrats could have tried to grow some balls and stand up to all the PR the White House was putting out, but 9/11 was used so effectively to cow the country and the congress, I find it hard to blame people too much for their stupidity. It's the old madness of crowds problem. If you say the opposition to a political idea makes people "traitors", it's unfortunate, but true, that few people are going to stand up and oppose something, even if that sort of thing is desperately needed in a real democracy. Unopposed and unexamined ideas are often sloppy and stupid. Lucky us, now we're stuck with sloppy and stupid. |
