Songs of Experience

"And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;" - William Blake

This morning begins a series of "conversations with people of long experience"(!) Steve Inskeep interviews Iraqi exile and professor,Kanan Makiya, who was a key champion for the invasion of Iraq. Makiya was the person who assured Bush that US invaders would be greeted with "sweets and flowers" (yum.)

This interview continues the campaign of blaming the Iraq horror on the Iraqis and not on the criminals who launched and prosecuted this war of aggression. From Makiya we get "Did I really think there could be democracy? Yes. The failure lies in the leadership – Iraqi leadership above all." That's convenient, isn't it? Not Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Feith, Wolfowitz, etc., but the hapless Iraqis! As the interview goes on we get this enlightening interchange:

(Inskeep): "Are you on some level saying that Iraqis were unable to see the opportunities that people like you were pointing to?"

(Makiya): "I had a hope; that hope turned out to be wrong...I don’t know the language; I can’t find the words in which to say it was wrong to support the overthrow of that particular regime. I don’t have the moral language to say that and I challenge anybody to give it to me."

Challenge accepted! God knows you won't get "the moral language" from Steve Inskeep. Here's my answer to to NPR and Makiya:

Makiya, you are supposedly an intellectual, a person familiar with history. So what were you thinking in looking to the US government and military as agents of "liberation?" With the exception of the liberation of countries under Nazi rule in WWII, I challenge you to name one US-led military operation that has led to liberation? In places like Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Grenada the US has acted to crush democratic forces with extreme violence. In fact the very forces you turned to for the "liberation" of Iraq were those who had propped up the dictator you wanted to see deposed.

Secondly, as a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies you have no excuse for having ignored the many persuasive arguments given against the invasion by activists, scholars, and even the senior Bush's advisor. Eerie how prescient those arguments are, isn't it?

Of course we get nothing of this history from NPR. As in the past they seem happy to pretend that the US did nothing fundamentally illegal and immoral, and in fact launched the war on noble principles.

The "Long View" series will apparently only get worse--tomorrow NPR promises to feature the villainous Doug Feith...ugh.