Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill nails what I have been thinking:
“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
He also says the White House is run with concentric circles of disinformation and fantasy: "The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of 'a praetorian guard that encircled the president' to block out contrary views. 'This is the way Dick likes it,' says O’Neill."
The inner circle of belief around the leader, built as a tool to screen ideology from any check from reality, is a key element of the totalitarian state. Hannah Arendt says it better than I do.
Al Qaeda = Eastasia/Eurasia? I guess you might think so if you read this Guardian article. The country Oceania is at war with is a convenient scapegoat to keep everyone in fear. They also provide a "reality insulator" .. designed to distract and distort the reality, which is a state of endless war. Al Qaeda seems to work in much the same way: the rotating enemy of the week, which can never be defeated and will never change. War is Peace, indeed.
Posted by Chris at January 11, 2004 09:39 AM