I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
---Poe, Tell Tale Heart
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Intelligence Report
for release 09-03-06
Washington D.C.
Here is the premise: Saying something makes it true.
This is a fallacy of course. Simply saying that something is true does not make it true. But surprisingly this fallacy can work in many instances. Case in point: The Bush government. The policy seems to be to state the picture of a reality that they want to see and to assume that just by the might of their authority and position it will be so.
In Virginia today there is a Lady Rain. We are just on the tail of the hurricane. It's a day that makes you want to squeeze your suspicions. I could tell you it's a pretty day. Would that make it true? It depends on your point of view. The lawn needed water. This is a good soaking rain. The grass probably thinks it's a pretty day. But there is no sunshine or blue skies and our teenager wants to go swimming before the pool closes on Labor Day. She doesn't think it's a pretty day. So it's all a matter of point of view.
The US government spends somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars a year on what they laughingly call 'intelligence.' The problem is that you can't buy intelligence. If you could, our government would be the smartest in the world, but it just ain't so. George Bush could spend a hundred billion a year on intelligence and he would still be as dumb as a fire plug because he doesn't listen to the information that our money is buying. He has a grander vision of the world.
It appears that when Bush invaded Iraq he thought that there would suddenly be a free democratic government in a country that has never known democracy in its four-thousand year history just because he decreed it. Sorry, Georgie. Buy mobetta intelligence.
I'm not an expert in geopolitics. I don't even play one on TV like Pat Buchanan. I've never been to Iraq or anywhere in the Middle East. I don't have fifty billion dollars worth of spies. I have to make my conclusions based on comparative observation of variously biased news organizations. But before we made the colossal blunder of invading Iraq, The Poet's Eye saw what was bound to happen and predicted it. Any simpleton with a modicum of history and current events could have predicted what was going to happen. Exactly what is happening. We strolled into Baghdad because the enemy forces disappeared into the countryside and regrouped to harass the occupiers to death. Now we have the very expensive privilege of babysitting a civil war.
Which brings me to another example of the axiom that you can't buy intelligence. How can this administration continue to deny that there is a civil war in Iraq when there are standing militias and insurgent groups and sundry criminals killing each other, innocent civilians and American soldiers on a daily basis? That sounds like a civil war to me. Maybe I'm not hip to the 'new kind of war' way of thinking.
For Iran this is all just dandy. With Saddam gone and Iraq in disarray and American forces caught in a quagmire, they are free to pursue their ambition to promote a Shia nationalist movement in the region which would include Syria and parts of Lebanon and the southern part of Iraq. Call it Greater Iran.
If I was Dr. Phil talking to George Bush about his foreign policy, I would ask, "How's that working for you?"
Every organization, like every person, has its strong points and its weak points. The Bush administration mostly has talking points but it has it's strong points too. Some of these are stealing elections, placing PR over policy and lying with a straight face (unless you count The Smirk). It's a staying in power machine.
Then there are the weak points such as: they can't govern, they have no coherent foreign policy, they rob from the poor and give to the rich, they can't secure our borders and ports, they can't manage recovery from natural disasters and did I mention lying with a straight face?
The Poet's Eye sees that simply saying something does not make it true, no matter if you are in high office or if you have talked to Jaysus Himself. I have intelligence for sale.....cheap.
We're gonna keep on driving till it kills us
We're gonna keep on shooting till there's no one left
This is what we call intelligence
--Fifteen
