Hypocrisy On Parade Yet Again

The parade continues.

Consider:

Democrats lash Bush 'lunacy' on missiles
Tuesday September 11, 2001

The future of missile defence, an array of anti-missile missiles likely to cost over $100bn, is expected to be one of the major political battlefields of the Bush presidency. The Pentagon has requested a budget of $8.3bn for the scheme next year. The Democrat-run Senate armed services committee has voted to cut that total to $7bn, which would still mark a $1.7bn increase over the current year's budget. But the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said over the weekend that he would advise the president to veto any spending bill that cut the scheme's budget.

Senator Biden said yesterday that the proposed spending on the unproven technology would draw resources away from programmes aimed at confronting other more serious threats, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "The very day they send up a budget that tells they are going to increase by eight-point-some billion our missile defence initiative, they cut the programme that exists between us and Russia to help them destroy their chemical weapons, keep their scientists from being for sale and destroy their nuclear weapons," the senator said in a speech at Washington's National Press Club.

All emphasis mine.

That was then, this is now:

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

Indeed, despite the most damning report imaginable (given that David Kay was their hand-picked inspector) regarding WMDs, VP Cheney is trying to spin it into a justification for war based on the mere possibility that Iraq could have produced them:

Cheney outlined several findings from the Kay report yesterday that, while finding no actual weapons of mass destruction, found items that could have been used to create such weapons. The vice president cited equipment "suitable for" chemical and biological weapons research; prison laboratories "possibly used" for human testing of biological weapons; a microorganism "which can be used" to make biological weapons; "BW-applicable" materials; "not fully declared" aerial drones; and "design work" for missiles and "attempts" to acquire missile technology.

Never mind that any industrialized country has the same "capacity," we had to go to war to protect America from this terrible danger.

However, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

The only recipient of a leak about the identity of Wilson's wife who went public with it was Novak, the conservative columnist, who wrote in The Washington Post and other newspapers that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

The entire excuse for the Iraq war was its supposed weapons of mass destruction. Theoretically, strategic goal #1 in the War on Terra is to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorists. If it's politically expedient, however, burning a CIA operative (yes, operative) to threaten dissenters is more important than protecting America from massive, deadly attacks.

Both before and after the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration has proven just how much they really care about really fighting terrorism.

(/) Roland X
War On Terra: Bush vs. the Earth