John Kerry and His Role in the Undermining of U.S.
Intelligence-Gathering
Written by Karen Pittman
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Victims. That's what we've become. A society of victims.
But when we wallow in victimhood, we deny natural law. We shun nature. We reject the simple truth of cause and effect. But we do so at our peril.
Consider the current brouhaha over the intelligence failures preceding 9/11 and leading up to the war in Iraq. (Case in point: If we blame the CIA, we--we who voted the CIA-degraders into office--cleverly sidestep taking responsibility. Thus we anoint ourselves victims. How convenient. How conscience-salving.)
Here's how the tortuous illogic goes:
First, we strip the CIA buck-naked, then say, ''Why weren't you wearing your clothes?''
Next, we build a wall between the CIA and FBI, then say, ''Why weren't you guys talking?''
And when the CIA is embarrassed by its nakedness; when the FBI is caught hunkering down behind that wall; when those inevitable chickens come home to roost, whom do we blame?
Do we blame ourselves? Do we blame the people who took the CIA's clothes off and who laid that wall brick by brick in the first place? Do we blame the legislators, like John Kerry, who--in the nineties, under Clinton--hamstrung the CIA by eviscerating its human intelligence-gathering capabilities (which now must be painfully and painstakingly rebuilt, even as the wall between that agency and the FBI is being loudly torn down)?
No. We blame the people who were working on the day when the system--which the strippers and separators by their actions flawed--''failed.''
Let's say you're a craftsman and your specialty is plaster. Let's say, for whatever reasons, you can only get your plaster from one source--and that source has decided to water down your product. (The manufacturer says it's cheaper, more profitable, and possibly more humane to the production workers because the process requires fewer chemicals.)
The point is: When you water down plaster, you get mud. Your plaster is now undeniably weak. It ain't what it used to be. It might now make a hut, whereas in the past it would have made a castle.
But you don’t have any choice: It’s all you’ve got to work with. So you dab it on anyway, hoping against hope nobody will notice. And the whole time your hands are tied because you can’t get the kind of plaster you really need to do the job right. Nobody makes it. You aren’t allowed to use it. It’s illegal. (Remember, it contains “potentially” harmful additives. It might give offense.)
And so you apply your flimsy film, layer by layer. But over time the cracks begin to show. The cheap plaster degrades and starts to craze. Eventually, the entire structure crumbles.
Now, who's responsible, you or the plaster manufacturer? Who do you think John Edwards would hold accountable in a court of law--you, ''the little plaster worker,'' or the big corporate mill who decided for you how the plaster would be made, and which (not irrelevantly) had a monopoly on its design and manufacture? Whom do you think he would sue for those huge horty-torty damages?
I rest my case.
The question before us is simple: Having made obviously wrong choices in the nineties, will we make them again, in 2004? Having seen close-up the consequences of those choices, are we brazen--are we foolish--enough to take the chance?
And if we are, and if those choices turn out to be wrong--dead wrong, yet again--will all the excuses and defenses in our psychic arsenal ever be enough to grease our collective guilt? Will any commission or panel answer the fury of grief? Will our victimhood help us then?
Knowing all we know now, are we really going to vote the very man who was one of the principal drafters of the CIA’s Plaster Disaster into this nation’s highest office on November the 2nd?
If we do, then we had better not wail in five, ten, or twenty years when the sticky (stinky) stuff hits the fan. We had better not whine about how ''miserably'' the CIA and FBI "failed." It is we who failed. We failed ourselves--miserably. And for God's sake, whatever we do, we've got some nerve if we blame the poor stiff who happens to be on watch, as president, when the big one strikes.
Please. The people who work for the CIA aren't idiots. They didn't ''fail.'' They weren't allowed to succeed! Their tools were taken away! Their plaster was watered down.
By whom? By the idiots in Congress, that's who. Idiots like John Kerry.
I'm tempted to say the people who elected these idiots are idiots, too. But they can be forgiven for their transgressions--if they don’t repeat them. Anybody can make a mistake or misjudgment once. But if you make the same mistake twice . . . well, you're the one at fault, then. You get the government you deserve. The next time the planes hit, don't act shocked and appalled. Don't caterwaul to the heavens as if you hadn't a clue, ''How on earth did this happen? Why do they hate us?''
If the American electorate does it again--if it votes Democrat while talking Republican ("We need a strong defense and reliable intelligence!")--then this time it can't be forgiven. And--in the face of such naked inanity--we as a people will have no choice: We’ll have to call a spade a spade. We’ll have to admit we’re idiots.
Michael Moore knows this. He knows we're gullible. (Actually, his word for it is "stupid.") He knows he can make us believe a silk purse is a sow's ear--just by saying so, often enough and loud enough, on film. (Ah, you see, for the unwashed rabble, the image is the key: Put it on [M]TV!)
Well, when you get what you wanted all along, don't bitch about it when it turns out not to be everything you thought it was going to be!
Today we're suffering the consequences of poor governance. On 9/11 we paid in blood for the bad choices made under Carter and Clinton, with their encouragement. Kerry personally yanked the pants off the CIA. And now he wants you to absolve him. He wants you to pretend you didn't see him do it. He wants you to believe it was Bush who undid the belt. No: He wants more than that. He wants you to make believe it was Bush who undid the belt--even if you know better (as does he, as does Edwards, as does Moore).
And he wants you to get rid of Bush, who is outfitting the CIA as never before, so he can yank its pants off all over again! But he will do this only after a respectable period of time has passed. You see, he must first make you believe he really wants the CIA fully clothed. Then, when your defenses are down, when you aren't looking, down come the pants again, too!
People, get a clue! In a democracy, the government you get is the one you earn. If we go back on Bush now, we go back to the era that brought us 9/11. We then set in motion the next 9/11.
Actions have consequences. No matter how good a trial lawyer you are, no matter how persuasive your argument, you cannot alter this immutable law of nature. As night follows day, effect follows cause. You vote for Clinton and Kerry, you get a stripped-down CIA. You get a stripped-down CIA, you get 9/11. You get 9/11, you get exaggerated data about WMD. You water down plaster, you get mud. Go figure.
We are not victims. We make choices, and then we live--or die--with the consequences of those choices.
You have a choice to make. You can, if you choose, choose change. Or you can choose the path of least resistance. You can choose stasis. You can choose to take us back down the same dead-end road that got us here.
It's up to you. All I can say is: If you get in Kerry's car and you end up upside-down in a ditch, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And this time, you've forfeited your right to whine. |
