Shorter Doug Feith
- Condi Rice’s assertion that Saddam Hussein could soon blow us all up with a nuclear weapon was demonstrably true even though Saddam didn’t have a nuclear weapons program.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
ABOVE: America’s newest Hitler.
UPDATE: You know, this will probably go down as one of the great “I-can’t-fucking-believe-he-wrote-it” passages of the last 50 years:
While emphasizing the disparate estimates about how close Saddam was to a nuclear bomb, Rice was saying that the CIA would not necessarily know when Saddam acquired one. She was warning that we might not learn this until after a detonation. This was an important and accurate statement.
Sure it was. Similarly, the CIA suspects that the citizens of Belize could try to summon the ancient Mayan death god Ah-Puch to eat the first-born male child of every American household. And while we have no idea when the Belizeans plan to unleash this ancient fury from the underworld upon us, we don’t want the smoking gun for their plot to come in the shape of a giant rotting Technicolor corpse eating our children.
Thus, it’s time to invade Belize.
You will get different estimates about precisely how perverse Feith is. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire and blow goats. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mohair strewn capric harem of debauchery.
It was in fact, a very well tuned, highly calibrated statement meant to inspire the greatest amount of fear for the least amount of evidence.
Has anyone mentioned to Feith that France has nuclear weapons?
Rice was highlighting the limits of U.S. intelligence.
Oh ho ho, was she ever!
His “point” seems to be that anybody could have anything, we just don’t know, so better to kill everybody just to be safe.
Actually, that’s Republican foreign policy pretty well summed up.
And it made the unarguable point that we would not want that surprise to take the form of a mushroom cloud from an Iraqi weapon.
Which was going to get to the US how? Besides the pink unicorns, of course.
Wingnuts’ canonization of this asshat as some sort of a modern Pepys is some high comedy. Yeah, fellas, keep standing behind Dougie Feith. We certainly won’t laugh at you for years to come.
we should wait until January. it’s hot as fuck in Belize this time of year
I wonder how that happened.
On the plus side, Ah-Puch The Flatulent One uses MUAN, the evil bird of bad tidings, as his messenger. To this day the legend persists that when an owl screeches, someone nearby will die. So we should be safe so long as we get rid off all the screech owls, and get someone smart and diligent to head up the Muan-Watch – someone like Douglas J. Feith.
I think something in the update has messed with the page’s template. Comments have extended out and under the right-side column.
Thus, it’s time to invade Belize.
Makes more sense than invading Iraq.
Beaches, beaches!
What’s that, RB? I can’t quite read you.
What made it worse was that, in the absence of CIA information, there was no way to find out how close Iraq was to having any weapons of mass destruction. If only we could have gotten some sort of inspectors in, some kind of group that could look around to determine exactly what kinds of weapons Iraq had, and report back to the international community so we’d all know.
Oh well. Woulda coulda shoulda, right? Feith’s a genius.
Yeah, too bad there wasn’t a CIA agent who was tasked with keeping tabs of different middle-eastern nation’s attempts at obtaining nuclear weapons.
The CIA could have used someone above reproach, say an ambassador’s wife, and set up a business front for her to operate under. If only the CIA had the foresight to do that, then Sec. State Rice, would have had a clue as to what Iran has been up to.
And if the CIA DID have an agent doing that work, the Bush Admin would certainly keep that agent’s identity a secret, they would never release the name of an agent doing such incredibly important work in keeping America safe from Rice’s the magic mushroom cloud.
I wonder why the CIA doesn’t have an agent out there keeping tabs on Iraq and Iran’s nuclear weapons programs? Makes it almost sound like the Bush Admin doesn’t want to know exactly what Iraq had been up to as an excuse to start an Illegal War of Naked Aggression. Makes it sound like Rice LIKES to sound like an ignorant fool in front of the whole world.
OK, guys, I think I fixed the code.
Thanks, Brad. Works for me now that I’ve refreshed. (Firefox 3, if it matters.)
Yeah, too bad there wasn’t a CIA agent who was tasked with keeping tabs of different middle-eastern nation’s attempts at obtaining nuclear weapons.
Agreed. And too bad there wasn’t a chief weapons inspector who told us from the start that Iraq didn’t have anything. We really could’ve listened to a guy like that.
I recommend we start the war on fire, a merciless and indiscriminate killer of Americans.
I suppose Feith is going to pretend he never heard of PNAC, of which both Cheney and Rumsfeld were members?
Anyone remember this one?
But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
Paul O’Neill, remember him?
Indeed, this is central to his point.
Wow, I never knew before that in English “Douglas Feith” is a synonym for “slimy weasel.” Learn something new everyday.
Agreed. And too bad there wasn’t a chief weapons inspector who told us from the start that Iraq didn’t have anything. We really could’ve listened to a guy like that.
What the Blix are you talking about. You make it seem like there were weapons inspectors in Iraq as late as 2003 or that Saddam wasco-operating with them at all.
(It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on erroneous intelligence – though they did so in good faith.)
Where the hell is the evidence that they did it in good faith? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that you really really want this to be the case, Dougie?
Projection: it works both ways for wingnuts.
Feith is clearly slandering Rice. She never said that Iraq might develop a nuclear weapon*. She said “We wouldn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” and that is very true. For example, I would really like solid smoking gun proof that Bush ordered Cheney to order Libby to blow Plame’s cover. However, I don’t want that smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
For another example, I wouldn’t want my wife to be an iguana. Now I am not saying that there is any great risk that she will become an iguana, but I sure wouldn’t like it if she did.
There was no implication about what was likely or even possible. Rice was just reflecting on our preferences. Do you want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud ? If not, why do you claim to disagree with Rice ?
*I’m lying
I only wish that the Administration had a terrorism expert close by – someone who had worked for past administrations who had his finger on the pulse of bin Laden for years. If only someone like this had INSISTED that the president pay attention to what bin Laden was up to.
We must fight the Belizeans there or we’ll have to fight them over here.
It was a kind of unclear to me how the great mass of pundit wingnuttery would handle it as their house of cards came crashing down. Would they make like rats and get the hell off the sinking ship? Well, a few have, from Richard Clarke to Scott McCellan. That would be both intelligent and honest. But sadly, no… most of them are going to continue, like Feith, to prop up their delusions and continue to try to sell them to a rapidly shrinking customer base. Failure will not dissuade them, it will only drive them on to greater and more desperate efforts to move the Overton window. Which will, in turn, alienate more and more of their potential audience.
And provide ever more comedic opportunities for Sadly, No!
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” – Mark Twain
I, for one, welcome my new Ah-Puch worshiping overlords.
Which will, in turn, alienate more and more of their potential audience.
They’ll always have Fred Hiatt.
I hungrily await RB’s recipe for Smoking Mushrooms on a cloud of Rice.
I am aware of all ancient Mayan traditions. The death god only eats gerbils. Beware, Doug.
I think if the President had only been warned, with a big important report shortly before the attack, maybe if it had one of those eye-catching headlines like Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States, something really, really hard to ignore, maybe things would have been different!
OK you’ve covered your ass now, WereBear.
OK, guys, ya gotta be a little more careful.
The comments here broke Firefox 2’s Sarcasm Plug-in. Not everybody has updated to Sarcastifox 3.0 yet!!!
Lucky for us there wasn’t a separate office in the Department of Defense tasked with phonying up the intelligence around Iraq’s capabilities and intentions. It’s also really fortunate that there was nobody foolish enough to fall for a bunch of bullshit from a well-known Iraqi expat weasel.
Otherwise, our congress might have been suckered into supporting a foolish war. And then the asshats who got us into such a mess would have to lie their asses off to justify themselves.
If Feith could twist his body as much as he distorts the truth, he’d be able to vomit up his own asshole.
There’s music and fried jacks in Belize.
And monkey-eating eagles, too.
The British Government has learned that unnamed death-cults in Belize recently sought significant quantities of screech owl corpses from Africa.
Well, a few have, from Richard Clarke to Scott McCellan
Richard Clarke was not a Kool-Aid drinker.
Dude, lay off Belize. I have an off-shore shell corporation and a number of bank accounts located there.
Huh?
Wait, no I don’t.
When did being wrong ever convince a wingnut that he/she wasn’t right?
Whatever convinces a wingnut that he/she wasn’t right?
I can’t think of a way to snark that Doug Feith actually penned the phrase “… highlighting the limits of U.S. intellgence…”
…
… but let’s try anyways, shall we?
…
Doug – Alannis Morrissette called. She wants her irony back.
Whatever convinces a wingnut that he/she wasn’t right?
9/11 conspiracy theories.
Ya know, it’s eerie how he actually looks better with the beanie.
Without it, the beady eyes and tight-assed smirk makes him look totally untrustworthy.
I mean, who in their right mind would let that face have an important job like the Under Secretary of Defense or something like that?
Unless it was wearing a beanie.
You can see why General Franks called Feith “the fucking most intelligent and perceptive guy on the face of the earth.”
What do we call the people of Belize, whom we will shortly be liberating from what must surely be a totalitarian dictator?
Belizeans?
Belizards?
Belizecks?
Belichecks?
Bedazzlers?
“What do we call the people of Belize, whom we will shortly be liberating from what must surely be a totalitarian dictator?”
Terrorists. It’s easier for the fragile wingnut mind that way.
We call them “totally fucked.”
hnnyukk, nyuk nyuk.
Y’know, I wonder where my life went wrong. I did not need talent or ability to get on in life. I did not need to struggle, as I have. All I needed to do was lie through my back teeth, be obtuse to the point of verticality, and spout delusional nonsense for my masters. I could have been a contender, been somebody, if only I’d fallen in with the rich and powerful and compromised my soul to become as black-hearted as they, and covered for their crimes by uttering the most almighty bullshit.
I wish I was a conservatard fuckpig. I could have fallen bass-ackwards into money like Dougy here. I could be living the high life. I clearly made a mistake.
Integrity is for paupers.
the citizens of Belize could try to summon the ancient Mayan death god Ah-Puch to eat the first-born male child of every American household.
You stand accused of stealing plots from Charlie Stross. How do you plead?
I waiting to hear what mikey can do with rice and mushrooms. Mmmmm!
Due to the limits of U.S. intelligence there’s no way to tell how close Feith is to blowing a goat. Therefore we should take him out before he gets our goat.
What do we call the people of Belize, whom we will shortly be liberating from what must surely be a totalitarian dictator?
Pre-Invasion: The Ah-Puch opressed people of Belize
Friedman 1: The recently liberated people of Belize
Friedman 2: Our new allies in the Global Struggle Against Mayan Death-Gods
Friedman 3: Perpertrators Death-Sectarian Violence
Friedman 4: Backwards people that don’t recognize Freedom when it’s shoved down their throats with smart bombs
Friedman 5: Insurgents / Ah-Puch-ia in Belize
Friedman 6: Ingrates / Death Cult Jihadist/ Ah-Puch-ia in Belize
Friedman 7: It’s is so not a Civil War / Ah-Puch-ia in Belize
Friedman 8: Stay the Course against Ah-Puch-ia in Belize
Friedman 9: The Surge Against Ah-Puch-ia in Belize is Working
at this point start recycling from Friedman 5.
Awesome scuba diving in Beliize, I’m told. I haven’t gotten closer than Cozumel. All those scuba tanks probably look like things that could possibly be used in centrifuges… Or, lacking that, maybe those damn Belosians just plan on stuffing the scuba tanks in our mouths and then shooting them with a high powered rifle, sort of like Roy Schieder, thus making our heads explode.
This could be really bad. We don’t want evidence in the form of exploding scuba tanks. Better get someone on MTP, ASAP.
Richard Clarke was not a Kool-Aid drinker.
I believe he was the only other person to drink Captain America’s anti-aging super soldier serum or he’s a robot…oh not that Dick Clark.
Douglas Feith: dumbest fucking guy on the planet or stupidest fucking guy on the planet?
Once again we are reminded that the best way to show your genuine concern about covert weapons programs and hard-to-quantify threats is to insist on the removal of the IAEA inspectors who are there on the ground quantifying them.
Note that in this case, the less certain you are of your evidence, the more serious your allegations can be. If they actually had enrichment-usable aluminum tubes they could claim a potential enrichment program, but since they had bupkes they could claim a potential viable device. Also note, if they had ties directly between Saddam and Osama they could claim potential Al Qaeda operatives delivering said potential device, but since they had bupkes they could instead leave that step out and let everyone assume that the smoking mushroom would be in their hometown.
If only there were a group of people who could investigate serious government claims and report to the public what they found out. Some sort of combination between an investigator and someone who does reportive work. Maybe they could keep journals of their findings…
We must invade them over there so we don’t have to pull this car over and give them something to cry about!
Intriguingly, Dougy Feith is taking questions about his book:
“A warm welcome to Doug Feith who dropped by “The Corner” earlier. He’s taking questions — about his book, about his interview with Peter Robinson, about the war at dfeith215@gmail.com.”
Go for it, Nosians. My question:
In an earlier statement on the Corner, you wrote the following:
“(It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on erroneous intelligence – though they did so in good faith.) Rice deserves credit for stressing here the gaps and uncertainties in U.S. intelligence.”
How can a sane person write those two sentences one right after the other? Your second sentence claims that she was emphasizing the uncertainties in US intelligence; your first sentence claims that she relied on that intelligence. Did she rely on US intelligence in spite of her knowledge of its weakness?
P.S. Dougy, are you one of the “top administration officials” who relied on “erroneous intelligence”?
Note that in this case, the less certain you are of your evidence, the more serious your allegations can be.
The Easterbrook paradox.
But it wasn’t his fault, you know. Rockfeller! New York Times! British Intelligence!
It’s wasn’t his fault!!
Yes, thank heavens we didn’t base any of our intelligence on the words of a pathological liar of an expat who was such a moron he couldn’t hold a job flipping burgers, just because we couldn’t find anyone more credible to say what we wanted, or anything. Because that would have been bad.
Also, Dougie is second only to Bloody Bill in my book when it comes to “smirks that would best be wiped off with an F40PH at speed”. Seriously. Both of those fuckwits just squeal with an oh-so-fourth-grade “I know I’m doing bad stuff, and youuu caaan’t geeeet meeee” to the point where my normally placid and serene self is reduced to thinking of violent solutions merely by looking at them. I know, if there’s a Hell, there is a very special corner reserved for these two. I don’t care. I’d even consider cutting them some slack in the hereafter if they could be made to suffer outrageously in public for the rest of the years they spend corporeally. I just think it would send the right message to the children. “Now Danny, be nice to your sister. You don’t want to end up like Doug Feith, now do you?”
I almost hesitate to mention that Belize has oil.
http://www.lovefm.com/ndisplay.php?nid=7942
Just imagine what kind of damage Ah-Puch could do to us with 400 million barrels of oil helping to finance his evil schemes.
Our claims about cold fusion were not fraudulent. They were based in good faith upon the results of the experiments that we’d designed and carried out to prove them.
Wait. I think Ah-puch is Dick Cheney.
The fact is, Doug Feith has a very intelligent look to him, and he’s highly intelligent. Far more intelligent than you liberals.
Ah Pook, the destroyer is here
“We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule, or rule of aristocracy, or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They are representatives of abstract forces who’ve reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.”
At this point I’d settle for Gozer the Destructor from Ghostbusters.
It can’t be any worse, and at least we’d have marshmallows to eat.
See, what my brother means is, you got a nice civil society here, an’ it would be a shame if, ah, someone was to ah, set fire to it. Fires happen, you know. Things burn. Wouldn’t be good for business.
No, the whole premise is silly and it’s very badly written.
ARE YOU THE GATEKEEPER???
You know, this Feith fellow may very well have been secretly working for the terrorists all along. I don’t think there’s much evidence for that, but that could be because they’re very clever about concealing things, like all those WMDs that were spirited away to Syria or wherever. Really Douglas Feith could have been an agent for the super-double-secret Al-Qaeda-In-Iran (if that doesn’t make sense to you it’s just because you don’t have all the facts I have and no I cannot share them with you as that would compromise our own intelligence activities).
Again, I am taking pains to stress that this is not something that we can formally prove, but on the other hand I wouldn’t want the proof to come in the form of us being blow’d up real good by Feith’s (formally possible) terrorist associates.
So just to be on the safe side, we should probably waterboard him until he talks, and then waterboard him again until he stops lying about it, and then waterboard him some more just in case.
“Everyone now knows that the CIA’s intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed.”
Also that “respeck” is something there’s so little of in this world, the word isn’t even in the dictionary.
We must fight the Belizeans there or we’ll have to fight them over here.
No War for Belikin!
One of his nicknames is ‘The Flatulent One’
Hey!
That’s, like, INFRINGEMENT!!
I’m gonna have a Very Large New York Law Firm™ send out some C&Ds!
mikey
She was warning that we might not learn this until after a detonation. I mean, those of us who weren’t actually at the detonation, obviously. This was an important and accurate statement. And we have to act on all potential threats, however far-fetched they may seem, no matter how much evidence there isn’t, if it means furthering our pre-existing policy goals.
Everyone now knows that the boat is leaking; everyone now knows that the captain lied. It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on the erroneous intelligence they asked Paul Wolfowitz and me to cherry-pick for them — though they did so in good faith (by the way, I’m using “in good faith” here in the sense that they really, honestly wanted to see the evidence that way, not in the moral or legal sense). Rice deserves credit for stressing here the gaps and uncertainties in US intelligence, while Paul and I deserve credit for using those gaps and uncertainties to promote an unsubstantiated, misleading but technically not quite fraudulent per se picture of Iraq’s capabilities that scared enough of you stupid, stupid shits into doing what we wanted.
The comment about the mushroom cloud was a way of telling the American people to shit themselves in fear, to not to expect their officials to know the state of Saddam’s nuclear program at any given moment. It was a clear and proper warning that our country was subject to surprise attacks by an enemy so sneaky we still can’t find it (but don’t worry, I’m sure those weapons are around here somewhere, ha-ha). And it made the unarguable point that we would not want that surprise to take the form of a mushroom cloud from an Iraqi weapon. Funny story, we originally had that as “the smoking gun could be the smoking guns of the Iraqi Army from when they shot us all after crossing the ocean with their … um … invisible magic carpets or something” but later Mike [Gerson] was like “you stupid fucks are you fucking high [1]” and he gave us the line we arguably sold the war on.
Rice’s reference to the mushroom cloud has been widely denounced as a gaffe or a lie. But it was neither: a gaffe reveals a truth, while Rice was obscuring the truth. Her statement was an allusion, and also a submerged metaphor, because a mushroom cloud is analogous to the smoke from a gun, not to the smoking gun itself.
[1] We were, on some primo Afghani shit!
Fixed link.
ARE YOU THE GATEKEEPER???
If it means having sex with Sigourney Weaver, sure, I’m the Gatekeeper.
I keep getting Belize confused with Brazil.
There are too many similarities with the odd combination of letters – there’s the “B” and the “z” and an “l” thrown in together. What other words, what other countries, include that weird combination?
Maybe we can just take them both out. The names of countries should not include fucked up combinations of letters. It isn’t right.
Brazil is big.
It’s got more oil.
And jaguars!
[…] Don’t bother me with your stupid facts. […]
Sorry, DKW, She was the Gatekeeper. It’s the Keymaster what gets to boink her.
I bet if there was more smoking of mushroom in my hometown that things would look a lot better.
Re: winger trackback:
Apparently someone’s redefined the term “fact” since I last read the dictionary.
The guy also has comment moderation turned on. I don’t expect my comment to make it out.
There’s a Belizean restaurant in my neighborhood. I’m not sure if it’s just a little place to get tamales or an Ah-Puch cannibalism cell. I’m not certain if the patrons are folks from the neighborhood or zombie owls in disguise. Should I burn it to the ground just to be safe? The owners of the Mexican restaurant around the corner assure me it would be the right thing to do.
Damned Belizards.
You scum, how dare you malign a figure such as Feith, it just proves your craven antisemitism. I have it on good authority from a certain Christopher Hitchens, that Douglas is beyand reproach. now away and tend to you weed and get on with plotting with the enemy, you hippy scum!!!
“If only there were a group of people who could investigate serious government claims and report to the public what they found out. Some sort of combination between an investigator and someone who does reportive work. Maybe they could keep journals of their findings…”
Nothing about cocktail parties, passing along lies “off the record”, or gassing self-importantly about Teh Clenis on Sunday morning TeeVee, so just forget it.
Damn! If only some government agency, charged with compiling intelligence, had sent not one, but two messengers to Our Dear Leader’s disused pig farm manly cattle ranch, where he was breaking broncos clearing brush, and read to him a clear warning about that bin Laden fellow, we might have avoided all of this!
(You guys do know that mocking D. Feith with S,N!-level snark is like crushing a hamster wheel with Truckasaurus, right? Have you no shame? I hope not…)
Sorry, DKW, She was the Gatekeeper. It’s the Keymaster what gets to boink her.
Gatemaster, keykeeper, weird Alien thing with a head that comes outta my mouth, (wev). Even if I have to pretend to be some crazy drunk anti-semitic super devout Catholic. Note, she’s closing in on sixty now, so I’m just referring to 80’s Sigourney.
Too bad Jesus’ General’s dougfeith.com parody page is gone from the Internets tubes. That was pretty funny.
Wow – that mental yoga would make a Jesuit blush.
Feith Template : you fools, my ideology is impervious to your silly reality!
Simba,
There are still some remnants on the internets:
[…] than of "necessity."Veterans for Common Sense – http://www.veteransforcommonsense.orgShorter Doug FeithOf Rice, Mushrooms and Lies. Condi Rice’s assertion that Saddam Hussein could soon blow us all up […]
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