We're Going to Cover That In Phase 2

I’m currently reading a book titled Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War by Bob Drogin which is making me even more angry than the NYT piece about Afghanistan I posted about yesterday. I cannot believe that America went to war with Iraq over such totally and utter bullshit – in case you were wondering, 3973 Americans have died thus far. Don’t even get me started on the civilian fallout.
I would like to quote page 160 where the author refers to the grand UN dog and pony show that our lovely senior government officials (we pay their salary keep in mind) put on in 2002:

[Sr. BND (German Federal Intelligence Service) official Werner] Kappel had expected to see photographs, hard evidence. [U.S. Secretary of State Colin] Powell’s illustrations weren’t proof. They were hearsay. Kappel couldn’t get over it. Powell had used artists’ conjectures based on analysts’ interpretations of Arabic-to-German-to-English translations of debriefings reports of a manic-depressive defector the Americans had never talked to.

Please re-read that passage and tell me you feel good about paying taxes right now. The book details all the people who knew the intelligence being used to go to war in Iraq was bullshit but no one really did anything to stop it. Some people covered their asses but for the most part no one did anything.
If you pay taxes like I do you are culpable – you pay into this system like I do. You pay for the government, which includes petty people who would rather protect their pension than admit a mistake. I’m embarrassed, again.