People's basic ideas about the world get stuck in their heads at a pretty young age, unless you're willing to go through the painful process throughout your life of un-sticking them. Andrea and Jan and I, for instance, grew up in households packed to the gills with political scientists, diplomats, scientists, intelligence specialists, and the like. Our father's best friend was a lifelong intelligence officer and diplomat. He wrote the book on effective interrogation techniques for the US War College. Another family friend was a long-time CIA analyst turned highly esteemed historian. Our own father got his graduate degree partly courtesy of US Army Intelligence. We listened, not talked, because that's what children are supposed to do in those situations. We learned early on, in very tactile fashion, that politicians like to make stuff up, and make self-serving statements on a regular basis. We learned that intelligence analysts often face enormous amounts of pressure from their civilian leadership to... Make stuff up to suit a political end. We learned that the measure of a self-respecting intelligence officer is how much he resists that pressure, and how much the insists on the truth, no matter if he's fired or not. Thus, my "groupthink" led me, early on in the run-up to the war, to essentially pay little attention to what various politicians were saying about Saddam's threat. To that end, I spent quite a bit of time listening to the folks at the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers, and similar linked websites, which unfortunately are not available to most people, who dont get the benefit of being exposed to them. But the consensus, early on, in spite of some chest-beating by some of the more hawkish RIOs, became clear. The White House was "cherrypicking", and "stovepiping" intelligence results to suit their desires. One of the challenges that an intelligence analyst faces is determining the quality of information received.. This is imperative for two reasons... 1) Self- interested informants often make stuff up for their own betterment, or the betterment of a group theyre involved in;, and 2) Other governments often make up their own lies about one thing or other, and try to get those lies into other intelligence agencies' files to confuse and subvert operations. The first is called self-interested lying. The second is called disinformation. Disinformation is relatively easy to spot, on a propaganda level, at least, because it is designed for the ears of the relatively uninformed. (Television news, and Fox News paticularly, is an example of that kind of a propaganda organ) Another type would be the "Command propaganda" organ, an organ designed to effect the opinions of opinion leaders, like politicians, media insiders, etc... The WHIG, or White House Iraq Group,was that type of disinformation organ. They specialised in ignoring A: credible intelligence that reflected poorly on the White House's goal to link Saddam to 9/11 and WMDs, and B: to promoting unfounded statements from self-interested liars, and foreign disinformation specialists who were willing to support the Saddam/WMD/9/11 mythology. Like Achmed Chalabi, for instance, who was well- known to run a document forgery factory somewhere in Eastern Europe, and who later turned out to be an Iranian intelligence asset. (D'oh!) WHIG staffers would have lunch with Chalabi, and say something like, "Gee, we wish we could find some proof that chemwar weapons are being stockpiled in Kirkuk"... Chalabi would run off to his communicattions room and tell his forgers to cook something up about chemwar in Kirkuk. Those forged documents were "stovepiped", ie sent to the highest offices in the land without being vetted by an experienced professional analyst..

This was obvious from the start to anyone who grew up paying attention to this sort of stuff.

It was also obvious to folks who grew up paying attention to this stuff that the US in particular, and Western democracies had a serious problem regarding "blowback" from our anti-Soviet adventures in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, SCIRI, Hezbollah, etc... were all strengthened, trained, and supported by American clandestine services in Afghanistan and other countries in the region. They didnt like us, really the mujahideen, and it was only a matter of time before we started feeling the effects, like the USS Cole, or 9/11.

What the professionals wanted to do, to combat this very real problem was to conduct a very rough and nasty intelligence/police action... Cooperating with allied intelligence agencies, grabbing known Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc...organizers and their chief aides and start peelling intelligence out of them, which could then fit in with intelligence gathered in other areas and provide police with the information necessary to arrest them and bring them to trial.

The realities of that kind of operation are pretty unpleasant to the recipients of that kind of interest.

In some cases, the grisly realities of that operation might even appeal to the emotionalist, revenge-driven motivations of the "Kill the Raghead" crowd.

But it would not involve high-altitude bombings, for the most part, and certainly not on civilian centers.

It would not involve large-scale troop movements, or artillery assaults. It would not involve indiscriminate horrors such as Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo, or any of these "rendition" destinations.

It would not involve back room deals with the likes of Chalabi or Musharraf.

Anyway, I could go on for days, but I know how you like your little soundbites, Dale, and find it hard to absorb things that take a bit of time. Suffice it to say that I am indeed a product of my upbringing, inclinations, and environment as much as anyone else.

What did you grow up listening to, Dale? Are you possibly a product of your upbringing, inclinations, and environment as well?