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Fri Dec 7 15:16:04 EST 2007

Published on Thursday, December 6, 2007 by The Huffington Post
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/the-cia-war-on-bush-th_b_75559.ht
ml>  

The CIA 'War' on Bush: The New Neocon Ploy

by Marc Cooper

Extreme Right meet the Extreme Left. Now you both can agree. Whatever
happens, it must be the fault of the CIA. Sleeper cell members, Al-Qaeda
operatives, terrorists, foreign agents you can all rest easy. We've finally
found the enemy and it ain't you. Nope. It's our own subversive intelligence
services. If we don't have the Mullahs to kick around anymore, what better
substitute than the boys over at Langley?

As I mentioned
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/sorry-guys-wwiii-gets-c_b_75369.h
tml> just yesterday, the neocon pushback on the NIE Iran report continues to
be relentless. Now it has gelled into a visible, pointed strategy. It's all
about the "CIA's war on Bush" as the geniuses over at Powerlines
<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019196.php>  have put it. On
the same blog, long-time Kissinger Krony and current employee at the
American Enterprise Institute, Mark Falcoff,
<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019197.php>  argues the same
line, explaining to us dunderheads that the CIA is divided into two clear
factions. The action/operative types are just like the cool
straight-shooters in the movies. And then, oh heavens, are all those
pointy-headed analyst guys who.well. you just can't trust. Says Falcoff:
"The estimates guys are mostly academic types who couldn't find a job
teaching at a university when they got their Ph.D. Politically and
culturally they are absolutely indistinguishable from the career people at
the State Department. You can imagine what that means in the present context
of Bush-hatred."

Oooooo, how scary indeed! If the CIA guys are so twisted, incompetent and
duplicitous, what must the resident "scholars" at the lower-rung AEI
think-tank be like? Mark?

And the beat goes on. The Wall Street Journal editorialized
<http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010946> , going
way over the edge, by fingering the alleged three authors of the NIE report
as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials." Why, natch. How come the rest of us
didn't figure this out? Sixteen separate U.S. intelligence agencies, working
for more than a year to figure out what's really going on Iran, colluded to
put their names behind what is, in reality, a Democratic election-year ploy
to discredit the administration they all serve! How obvious.

Having finally exhausted the re-runs of the 2007 World Series of Poker, I
flicked on Charlie Rose late last night who was chatting away with Fred
Thompson. And there was Uncle Fred nimbly tapping out the same dance as the
Powerline guys. I'll admit that Thompson pushed me too close to a state of
narcolepsy to have actually taken notes, but I was awake enough to notice
how dutifully he was trashing the CIA. If they so botched up Iraq, Thompson
drawled, how on earth could we believe what they have to say about Iran?

Which doesn't answer, of course, the question of why Thompson is currently
supporting a war based on the same intelligence he now dismisses. But then
again none of this is about providing answers - only excuses. Excuses to
continue a tilt toward war in Iran, no matter the reality.

Journalist and author Marc Cooper <mailto:cooper at huffingtonpost.com>  is a
Special Correspondent for The Huffington Post and a contributing editor to
The Nation magazine. He is also a member of the faculty at the USC Annenberg
School for communication and Associate Director of its Institute for Justice
and Journalism.

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/06/5660/

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