Sound familiar?
"They've been busy in terms of their level of effort; they've been busy in terms of the actual weapons they 've been producing; they've been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they've been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they've been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they've been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They're purposeful about what they're doing."
When did Donald Rumsfeld, in his capacity as Secretary of Defense, utter that quote? Late 2002? Early 2003? Try 1976 and he is talking about the Soviet Union, not Iraq.
Thom Hartmann has written an amazing article on Common Dreams about a 3 hour documentary, "The Power of Nightmares," which was aired by the BBC in October. While I, like probably most of you, know that Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense and Dick Cheney was the Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford, I had never heard the story of how Rumsfeld and Cheney diligently subverted the progress, the détente, Nixon and Kissinger had achieved with the Soviets.
Although the CIA strongly disagreed with Rumsfeld's contention that the Soviets were amassing sophisticated weapons, Cheney and Rumsfeld were able to convince Ford to create a commission to investigate this headed by......wait for it......Paul Wolfowitz. Yes, what good military plot doesn't involve the old comb spitter?
From Mr. Hartmann's article:
The BBC's documentarians asked Dr. Anne Cahn of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during that time, her thoughts on Rumsfeld's, Cheney's, and Wolfowitz's 1976 story of the secret Soviet WMDs. Here's a clip from a transcript of that BBC documentary:
" Dr ANNE CAHN, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1977-80: They couldn't say that the Soviets had acoustic means of picking up American submarines, because they couldn't find it. So they said, well maybe they have a non-acoustic means of making our submarine fleet vulnerable. But there was no evidence that they had a non-acoustic system. They're saying, 'we can't find evidence that they're doing it the way that everyone thinks they're doing it, so they must be doing it a different way. We don't know what that different way is, but they must be doing it.'
"INTERVIEWER (off-camera): Even though there was no evidence.
"CAHN: Even though there was no evidence.
"INTERVIEWER: So they're saying there, that the fact that the weapon doesn't exist.
"CAHN: Doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means that we haven't found it."
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Although Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's assertions of powerful new Soviet WMDs were unproven - they said the lack of proof proved that undetectable weapons existed - they nonetheless used their charges to push for dramatic escalations in military spending to selected defense contractors, a process that continued through the Reagan administration.
It's all just a crazy mad-libs game to these guys, isn't it?
Mr. Hartmann closes by saying
Watching "The Terror of Nightmares" is like taking the Red Pill in the movie The Matrix.
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Whatever your plans are for tonight or tomorrow, clip three hours out of them and take the Red Pill. Get a pair of headphones (the audio is faint), plug them into your computer, and visit an unofficial archive of the Curtis' BBC documentary at the Information Clearing House website . (The first hour of the program, in a more viewable format, is also available here.)
For those who prefer to read things online, an unofficial but complete transcript is on this Belgian site.
But be forewarned: You'll never see political reality - and certainly never hear the words of the Bush or Blair administrations - the same again.
Geez, read the whole article. I'd love to crib the whole thing. My mouth was open in astonishment during the entire read. I haven't watched the documentary yet, but am putting it on the schedule for this weekend.
Note: I am reposting this from a diary I submitted last night. I'm sorry if this is tacky. I just think people need to read this and I would like to have more people see it and get a discussion going on it. You might also want to check out INMINYMA's diary on the same topic and thanks to chantedor for the suggesting the title.