If Rachel Maddow had been on MSNBC in 2002, would the Bush Administration have been able to be so successful in making the case for war with Iraq?

Every piece of information that comes out about the ginned-up case for war increases the horrible reality of how sick, depraved, and cynical the people we Americans allowed to lead this country for eight years were.

Last week, Rachel Maddow connected all the dots we have so far, and it's not a pretty picture:

I wonder if the same people who are willing to accept the legitimacy of torture in the nonexistent "ticking time bomb" scenario are as willing to accept it if the primary reason for torturing captives is to obtain not truthful, but FALSE information in order to gin up a false case for war?

Because if we as a people are willing to do so, even within the "context" of the climate here in the U.S. in 2002 (a climate whipped into a frenzy by the very same Bush Administration that resorted to the tactics of the worst tyrants in history in pursuit of a war they wanted so desperately), then there is in fact nothing in America that's worth saving. We are just another lost empire gasping its dying breaths in our lifetimes.

With Dick Cheney out on the hustings crowing about how torture kept us safe after the 9/11 attacks, one has to wonder why, with people like Richard Clarke trying to tell the Bush Administration what was coming, and with the now-infamous August 6 PDB screaming that Osama Bin Laden was "determined" to strike in the U.S., Dick Cheney was not "able" to "keep us safe" that day in 2001. I keep going back to this -- what some of us called LIHOP over the last seven years -- because every bit of information that comes out about how the Bush Administration used torture not to prevent another attack, but to gin up a case for war that George W. Bush had said he wanted even before being selected to the Presidency on December 12, 2001, points to my worst notions of a cost/benefit ratio being calculated in the Oval Office of what the potential negative fallout would be of allowing an attack to play out versus the potential gains in terms of support for the Iraq War.

This is why we now have the ridiculous spectacle of Newt Gingrich, who opposes any kind of investigation of the Bush Administration that ORDERED the use of torture techniques, running around demanding a Congressional investigation of Nancy Pelosi for claiming that the briefings she received about "harsh interrogation techniques" in 2002 and 2003 were incomplete and inaccurate. "Don't look here," he seems to be saying. "Look over there! Shiny object!"

Because the more information that comes out about why torture techniques were used by the Bush Administration -- to falsify a case for war -- the more it begins to look as if there really ARE no limits to which these people would have gone to go into Iraq. And if there are no limits, then you have to look at Dick Cheney in his underground bunker on 9/11/01, with George W. Bush conveniently out of town, ordering fighter jets to stand down while four planes are hijacked and head for the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Everything that came out of the Bush Administration from that day on can be traced directly back to that day -- a day which served them so well that suddenly the "inside job" people start sounding not quite so crazy. I'm not prepared to go that route, but if ginning up a fake case for an invasion of Iraq was that important, and since we know that Donald Rumsfeld ordered Richard Clarke immediately to find a link, is it really beyond the realm of possibility that allowing what they thought would be a 1993-style attack to play out would serve the needs of the Administration? Once you know just how depraved this bunch is, can you really draw a line and say "This is where they will not cross"?

I'm not going to go to the mat for Nancy Pelosi -- or any of the gutless Democrats who allowed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to run amok for eight years -- a free pass on this. I know full well what the climate was in this country in 2002, but it is Congress' job to provide oversight -- and there was none. When I heard John Kerry's impassioned speech against a rush to war -- and then he voted for it anyway -- I knew that we could not rely on any kind of opposition to provide oversight. The Democrats allowed themselves to be cowed by bullies for eight years, and so were complicit in the ruination of this country.

And now we have the Obama Administration backtracking on all its promises in regard to cleaning up the worst offenses of the Bush Administration. So at this point I wonder: With what have they been threatened?



(h/t)