I greet the demise of The Weekly Standard with great joy.
Just hours after Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution in October 2002, an opinion column in the Washington Post propagated The Weekly Standard line that, “having explained why war is necessary,” a case that had been made with “an impressive clarity of presentation and lucidity of argument,” President Bush had become “a war leader.”
Despite the fawning description by war celebrant William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, it has now become apparent to most people that the war was not “necessary” but only elective and ruinous; that rather than “clear” and “lucid,” Bush’s arguments were merely transparent. Bush himself was more buffoonish warlord than war leader.
Kristol had begun lobbying for war with Iraq long before 9/11 created a pretext for the invasion. He had even urged President Clinton years earlier to make war on Iraq because of the “grave threat” Iraq posed. Iraq, he insisted before the war, was “past the finish line” in developing nuclear weapons. Furthermore, once the war was launched, Kristol said it would be “a two-month affair.”
Pieces from other Weekly Standard writers were equally unhinged. Senior Editor David Brooks, now a New York Times columnist, wrote that if we succeeded in deposing Saddam Hussein, “we will be a nation infused with confidence. We will have done a great thing for the world, and other great things will await.”
Kristol’s reverie about Bush’s war resolution bore a title both chilling and revealing: From Truth to Deception. He explained that defeating Saddam Hussein “will require the president, at times, to mislead rather than to clarify, to deceive rather than to explain.”
No such encouragement is needed in the Empire of Lies.
With war effusiveness splashed across its pages, it is little wonder that Vice President Cheney had 30 copies of The Weekly Standard delivered to the White House each week.
Speaking of Cheney, the forthcoming motion picture VICE features a stunning portrayal of Cheney by Christian Bale and a more realistic depiction of the former vice president than anything most Americans have seen.
Reprinted with permission from LewRockwell.com.
