CT Blue

I prefer to stay away from conspiracy theories, and I admit that, though I have expressed a lot of disappointment with Obama, I've held on to a belief that he is qualitatively different than Bush. I have, in short, a tough time accepting that he, like Bush, would lie us into war, but alas I may be very wrong.

The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, observing the time honored tradition of blaming the King's faults on his courtiers, have written to Obama, warning him that his advisers may be steering him wrong. I'd like to believe Obama is being poorly advised or actively misled, but…

Anyway, the VIPS wrote to Bush before the Iraq war telling him that his folks were lying us into a war, and now they've written to Obama:

Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.

We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.

Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?

That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.”

This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”

via Consortium News

More here and here. This is truly depressing, particularly because the objective in this escapade continues to be undefined. At least with Bush we knew that the point was to take out Saddam so that Bush could say he was a better man than his Daddy, but the definition of victory in this war (and bombing a sovereign nation is an act of war) is still elusive, and, to anyone with half a brain that fact alone compels the conclusion that the outcome will be a disaster, as we seek some way to declare victory as things escalate out of control.

We can only hope that Obama will wake up and subdue his inner Bush. We thought, or hoped he was a better guy that this, but if he is in fact lying us into war (and claiming certainty without good evidence is lying) then he's no better than Spurious George. It is to be hoped that he and Kerry will take the face saving diplomatic approach currently on offer from Putin.