Last night Chris Matthews said he was shocked by a suggestion McCain made in a speech that the Iraq war was waged for oil. Matthews commented, So this means it wasn’t about spreading democracy or defending Israel! Let’s hear this right: Matthews was saying that helping Israel was one of the stated reasons for the war.
Cuddly Michael Scheuer says the same thing in cleverly denouncing Douglas Feith’s book on antiwar.com:
[T]here seems to be a newly emerging iron law
of history; to wit; everything the Neocons do in the name of helping Israel
– such as hyping the threat from state sponsors of terrorism, invading Iraq,
and urging war with Iran – digs Israel’s grave a bit faster and a bit deeper.
There is more than a bit of poetic justice in that.
And Glenn Kessler said as much in his fine 2007 biography of Condi Rice:
The invasion of Iraq had been promoted in part as a way to bring democracy to the region and help Israel.
Well I’m sorry, I never got the memo. I was told it was about WMD, then about democracy. George Bush specifically said it wasn’t about Israel.
If it was about Israel–and I believe it was, in good part–the public should have been told. Bringing it in the back door now is irresponsible journalism. Acting as if it was true all along is a sly way of avoiding what we need here: open debate about whether Israel’s treatment of Arabs is in America’s interest. MSNBC and Kessler’s employer, the Washington Post, owe us that discussion.
P.S. McCain’s speech underlines the main reason that Obama, or Hillary, will clean his clock in the fall: he’s addlepated.
