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Which brings us back to:
You might say that PNAC developed a "road map" based on mentally defective thinking, even though it appears to have been "critical" thinking in it's own context. In turn, the PNACkers conditioned GW Bush, who seemed to have not been a part of the decades of defective critical thinking (perhaps not being a habitual critical thinker in any case), but was easily conditioned into decidering poorly.

After making a few broad circles around the concept, "They rationalize, they deceive themselves and they lie to others. But in their own minds those decisions seem appropriate and necessary", there seems to be no base to land upon except that humans live in varying degrees of fantasy. Does living in a deep fantasy excuse anyone from being responsible? Or is the attempt to hold folks responsible a futile engagement of an alternate fantasy?

To this (and to pretend to tie back to the topic) I say, "Off with their heads!!"

Well trained individuals, in almost any endeavor, practice until they do not have to think about their reaction, but use "muscle memory" to respond. In this instance, I think there was a conditioned response by Bush administration members to any threat. They had thought for so long that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and how they could respond, that they could not accept any other outcome. It is unfortunate that hundreds of thousands of others had to pay for that reaction, but that is the way of the world. More unfortunate is that the instigators of that travesty have never had to face consequences for their actions, much like those that created the crash (oh wait, many were the same people!).

There I is, I believe, a concerted effort by those with nefarious intent to condition the electorate to believe all kinds of nonsense in order to achieve their goals. There are dozens of "think tanks", PACs, and even less savory organizations with no other purpose. This approach has gone mainstream with both political parties, and, indeed, as far as I can tell, is the ONLY purpose of the GOP. It may be too late to wake up the electorate at any rate. They are now conditioned to respond and it takes much more effort to "unlearn" bad habits, especially bad thinking habits.

No, I do not think anything I have written is to excuse anyone.


OTOH, it does seem to me that there is no benefit from promoting irrelevant connections.

Here, let me invent an absurd connection. Bush invaded Iraq because he ia a racist. I simply say that what ever else may be true, there is no evidence that bush invaded Iraq because he waS a racist. Denying that connection does not excuse Bush, it is simply an argument against inventing hallucinatory connections.

I propose that the poster who mentioned Wilsonian policies had not much idea of what were Wilsonian policies, or the context of those policies, and that I have seen no evidence that George Bush started out with a Wilsonian perspective on foreign policy which led him to invade Iraq.

IMO it is counter productive to say "x" happened because of "y" if the two things are unrelated. And if people generally accept that "x" happened because of "y", then they stop looking for why "x" actually happened.

IMO it is beyond dispute that the invasion of Iraq was poorly planned and executed. The invasion was "sold" to the american public though propaganda, spin, misrepresented facts, etc.

What remains in dispute is what was the underlying motivation for that invasion. IMO it is worth being clear about that in order for our nation to avoid similar misadventures in the future,

This all become relevant to our current situation because we have to decide what if anything we should do about radical islamist groups around the world.

Clearly the "invade Iraq" approach has been shown to be disastrous. OTOH the pre 9-11 approach of letting AQ fester in Afghanistan has large downsides as well.

I do not think we can ever make the world "safe for democracy."
OTOH the world contains real and disturbing threats that do not become inconsequential by following a policy of ignoring those threats.

Well, I take it all back. Apparently there was a mass beheading in my neighborhood. My neighbor got out his lawn mower, and took the heads off thousands of dandelions.

Indeed. Examples include Fox News and conservative talk radio which is increasing its market dominance. These outlets push partial/incomplete/inaccurate information which then become memes for the low-information bloggers who then spread said memes further and farther afield in the sole effort to make non-conservatives look bad. This behavior is very much relished and appreciated in the Wingersphere™.

And IMO, the first among those goals is to achieve and maintain power.

Take the issues of religion, guns, abortion and gay rights. Each of those are hot button issues that are rolled out on a regular basis. My conjecture is that these are m often just expedient issues to get the public excited. These issues can be used to achieve political power, which can then be used to serve a multitude of interests which constitute the big payoff for the power structures.

Headline, Townhall: "Dan DeLion first of thousands beheded[sic] under Obama scheme to kill conservatives."

Dandelion? Townhall? Not The Onion or Daily Current?

Oh, is there a difference?

Supposedly.