In response to Richard Cohen's stupid stupid column supporting the White House drive toward war with Iran I sent this letter to WaPo (which, needless to say, wasn't published):
Oh Richard, Richard, Richard. Haven’t you learned that you need to tune up your skepticism meter? Your column (Bush’s Legacy of Cynicism, 10/30/07) supports all the warmongering claims of this grossly warmongering administration, the very administration you supported right into the disastrous war in Iraq.
I learned from my skeptical born-in-the-show-me-state-of-Missouri mother that whenever someone begins to frenetically carry on about some topic or other, look for the underlying motive. So when certain evangelicals shriek about how their version of faith represents the only truth, look for the hand reaching out for money; or when certain political leaders rant about the evils of homosexuality, look for hidden homosexual desires; or when certain government officials repeatedly sound the alarm that a tyrant is threatening us with weapons of mass destruction, look out for a power-grab. Oh wait, I’ve just described the leadership of the Republican party over the last 6 years!
North Korea has nuclear weapons and is led by a crazy man who has openly threatened us. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is in serious danger of falling into the hands of our mortal enemies. And yet suddenly Iran is the gravest threat we’ve ever faced, other than Saddam Hussein, of course. Doesn’t that make you wonder, make you question what’s really going on? Could, perhaps, some of this have to do with which countries are oil-producing and which aren’t?
And the "evidence" that has you so thoroughly convinced of the Iranian government’s complicity in attacks on our soldiers – Iranian-made weapons in the hands of insurgents who have attacked our troops – well what about the American weapons we’ve captured that were in the hands of the same groups? Are those evidence that the U.S. government is officially supporting insurgents attacking American soldiers? While it might be true that "Petraeus didn't get his stars for nothing," he also didn’t get his current position by being willing to openly disagree with Messrs. Bush & Cheney on their Iraq policy. His presentation of "evidence" is strongly influenced by his eager willingness to support the White House.
Your piece de resistance, "the fact that the Bush administration says so does not make it otherwise," is also true in the reverse -- just because we’ve become cynical doesn’t mean that we’re not right in questioning the source and accuracy of this information.
UPDATE: I wrote this before Musharraf declared Marshall Law in Pakistan. It just supports my point that a real threat is a destabilized nuclear Pakistan moving into the hands of the Taliban, not an Iran that even Bush admin folks are saying doesn't have nuclear weapons. See http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...