In this OpenDemocracy forum, ronr327 wrote:
>In the debate over the run up to the war, I consistently
came across quotations from an U.S. millitary officer who was represented
as being on the "inside" in regard to the administration's jiggery-pokery.
She was Karen Kwiakowski and she was indeed in the middle of it: a first
hand witness to the functioning the Defense Department's Office of Special
Plans. The webzine Salon has just published the
first extended commentary from Ms. Kwiatkowski I am aware of. You can
find it here:
> Apparently, the moveon site has arranged to present
the piece in such a way as to evade the injunction to subscribe to Salon
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:: I updated my LiveJournal item on this topic as follows:
In an OpenDemocracy.net forum, ronr327 wrote, "In the debate over the run up to the war, I consistently came across quotations from an U.S. millitary officer who was represented as being on the "inside" in regard to the administration's jiggery-pokery." (That's the material that's covered in this video: Streaming video of Karen Kwiatkowski, and also in Mother Jones' "Lie Factory".)
ronr327 points out that "Karen Kwiakowski was indeed in the middle of it: a first hand witness to the functioning the Defense Department's Office of Special Plans. The webzine Salon has just published the first extended commentary from Ms. Kwiatkowski I am aware of. (Apparently, the moveon site has arranged to present the piece in such a way as to evade the injunction to subscribe to Salon Premium.)"
(New: LA Weekly Interview; see also "The Misinformers" and The Intelligence Chain [chart]).
In a previous LJ post of mine, I called out the following resources:
Karen Kwiatkowski was in conversation with Saul Landau on "Hot Talk" (see also Cal Poly Streaming - In Conversation).
Past articles by Karen Kwiatkowski on LewRockwell.com
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erinleonard2 wrote:
I especially appreciate Karen's closing paragraphs which read:
"Now we are told by our president and neoconservative mouthpieces that our sons and daughters, husbands and wives are in Iraq fighting for freedom, for liberty, for justice and American values. This cost is not borne by the children of Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld and Cheney. Bush's daughters do not pay this price.
We are told that intelligence has failed America, and that President Bush is determined to get to the bottom of it. Yet not a single neconservative appointee has lost his job, and no high official of principle in the administration has formally resigned because of this ill-conceived war and poorly implemented occupation of Iraq.
Will Americans hold U.S. policymakers accountable? Will we return to our roots as a republic, constrained and deliberate, respectful of others? My experience in the Pentagon leading up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq tells me, as Ben Franklin warned, we may have already failed. But if Americans at home are willing to fight--tenaciously and courageously--to preserve our republic, we might be able to keep it."
And man am I there!
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::What I found most chilling were those sections where Kwiakowski describes the group think; intellectuals and experts whose input should have been absolutely required, for the sake of national interests, were vetted out if they showed the slightest inclination to discussion, debate, or discourse: the conclusions were fore-gone, and the process was intended to roll out doctrine by the pound. Kwiakowski puts it well:"I was extremely shocked ... I was really shocked to see how the process, the normal process of using intelligence in forming and developing policy was subverted, ignored ... [shakes her head] ... it just wasn't followed. [...]"
"For neo-conservatives reality is never a constraint. [...] If the American people or the UN didn't agree, they just needed to be convinced. [...] I saw a lot of propaganda substituting for accurate facts and intelligence."
She defines neo-conservative: "You would think it means new conservatism. ... It doesn't draw from roots in traditional conservatism ... a short way to summarize neo-conservative thought would be "big state at home, empire abroad".
She goes on to describe the social dynamic, which she lables "group think", and how analysists were picked who agreed with the conclusion. (This is the dynamic that I've been tracking for so long ... folk call me paranoid when I try to describe the way it shuts down any serious analysis by rejecting dissenting opinion.) "They had taken over the policy making apparatus and were running their own show. Let me tell you the sort of folk who were excluded from this process ..."
It's all about misleading the public ... like selling shoddy software, or rusted out cars! Just another way to make a fast buck? The worst kind of colonial empire-building.
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