Lieberman uses classic retrodictive logic as a proponent of the Iraq war. Basically, it goes something like this: “Yeah, sure there were no WMD – and yeah, maybe Iraq was neither a threat to us or even linked to 911 – but, hey, at least we got rid of Saddam Hussein, right?” Joe leaves out some facts, however.

First off, since the events of September 11, 2001, Americans have been indoctrinated thru fear, immunized against logic – and had their constitutional rights leveraged away from them in the name of security against a false enemy called terrorism. By shamelessly exploiting September 11, 2001 in order to “fearmonger” Americans, this group of neoconservative thugs have prosecuted a war – the overriding purpose of which was nothing less than one of co-opting Middle East oil. Lieberman fails to mention that this was all part of the PNAC’s grandiloquent goal of global corporatization.

Iraq, of course, was chosen for several reasons as a starting point. In the first place, the Iraq war could be more easily sold to the public – and the world – as a justified war. Who could deny that Saddam Hussein, in presiding over a nation noted for internecine tribalism, was a brutal dictator? (Never mind that the United States and other countries had provided Hussein, as a then US ally, with the WMD he later used on the Kurds – or that the history of American’s involvement in the Iran/Iraq conflict was duplicitous at best.)

Still, there were problems. The Iraq conflict could be marketed, Bush was informed, only by falsifying linkages between Iraq and 911. This was difficult, and even the unscripted Bush publicly admitted he never believed there were such links.

Then, there was the matter of both NIE and CIA intelligence leaks – data which showed that Iraq was not only NOT a threat, but that it likely had WMD. It was clear that a more clear and present danger needed to be created in the public mind – something around which to rally Americans. It was decided that simple wrapping the project in the American flag under the guise of democratizing Iraq would be inadequate to this task. Then, someone – doubtless Cheney (as is suggested in the many whistle-blowing books and leaked testimony) – got the idea to more fully exploit terrorism. After all, we were attacked by al Qaida (the fact that a majority of the highjackers were Saudis was glossed over).

The real problem was legitimizing the threat of terrorism itself. The major architects of the Iraq war – Wofowitz in particular – knew that terrorism was a statistically small and aberrant threat; any thinking American would realize that, in terms of sheer lethality, terror has never even surpassed the statistically greater threat of simply dying from a fall off one’s step ladder. For that matter, 40,000 Americans died from the flu in 2006 – more than have died from Islamist extremism since our country’s founding. The goal, then, would have to essentially be one of brainwashing America’s citizenry into “not thinking.”

For this, the neocons resorted to a little known D.O.D mind-control strategy, termed group polarization (A.K.A. “Incestuous Amplification.”) Essentially, group polarization theory and method, as applied to Iraq, involved an immensely well-coordinated effort by Bush and the neocons to lie to America. This meant, in practice, co-opting and conservatizing mainstream media and burying us in shibboleths and propagandistic catchphrases, (cut and run, stay the course, the global war on terror, Septemeber 11, freedom).

Group polarization theory holds that repeating a threat such as terrorism, and imbuing it with fearful imagery – already conveniently provided by 911 – the collective American psyche would hopefully begin to integrate and transform such imagery into recallable, but false memory.

In this effort, all clearly made their contributions: Bush used the terms Sept 11th and terrorism uncountable times in speeches; Condoleeza Rice evoked visions of mushroom clouds; Colin Powell lied to the UN about Iraq’s weapons acquisitions and Dick Cheney constantly linked Iraq with 911 whenever possible. These images, aided by the skillful polarization of Americans against what they came to see as the “Arab threat”, proved successful beyond even diehard D.O.D. skeptics. By 2003, a Pew Poll showed 73% of Americans believed the hype. Iraq, they believed, despite its secularist dictator (who would never tolerate loose cannon religious extremists in his country) was somehow connected to al Qaida.

So it was that, sometime subsequent to the run up to war, the so-called “Global War on Terror” was born, incarnate in the cinematic villain of Muslim extremism. The phrase quickly became Bush’s mantric chant – the final impetus needed to legitimize preemptive militarism in Iraq.

It is important to note that Lieberman is at no point forthcoming about the Iraq war’s true purpose. The theatre of war with Iraq had one goal: To co-opt Middle East oil reserves thru military occupation; Iraq was merely act one of this genocidal corporate drama.

The Iraq war, of course, was planned well in advance of Sept 11, 2001 – and its rationale already in place. The war itself, however – even after gaining America’s hedging support – presented 2 unique challenges: First, how does one go about the business of “grafting” a free market economy onto a country whose internecine tribalism was only barely contained by a dictator; secondly, once the dictator was removed, how would one control the aftermath of chaos.

The first question was easily answered – it had already been done by Pinochet in Chile: One simply creates a seismic upheaval in a country, like war; this in turn render it’s social and infrastructural moorings temporarily vulnerable to takeover. Pinochet called this his “shock” approach. (SHOCK AND AWE was a deliberate tribute to the Pinochet method.)

The ensuing and unexpected insurgency however, posed other questions: How does one build a nation out of such bitter inhabitants? Worse, Iraq – its infrastructure destroyed – has now become merely convenient staging area for al Qaida.

Lieberman is a fool, duped by his own specious logic and contaminated by lofty neoconservative, fascistic ambitions of world dominion.