And it's one, two, three, What are we fighting for?

That's what Country Joe and the Fish asked in 1968, and Wednesday, (I just heard it this morning on the SPAN) that fraud of an expert, Fred Kagan, when asked by the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs whether Iraq had posed a terrorism threat to the US before the invasion and occupation, told the subcommittee chaired by Mr Ackerman, No, they did not.

Now, I've heard of flip flops, but that one was a size 16 double E one, since bush and cheney and rice and powell et al were all telling us what a threat Hussein was prior to this disastrous for America War of Aggression. kagan, being one of the architects of this nightmare, and much to the surprise of Mr. Ackerman, repudiated all of those lies, the whole bush strategy, from Invasion to Mission Accomplished to the Surge, and nobody really seems to have noticed it. Ackerman paused after kagan's answer, he should have tossed in an oh really but didn't, then proceeded, but the words had been spoken, the lies revealed, the pointlessness, in the real world not bush/cheney's corporate fantasy world, of the death and destruction laid bare.

It's not often that I quote from bush's website, but here you go:

Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.

We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability -- even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Since we all agree on this goal, the issues is : how can we best achieve it?

There you have it, Hussein is terror and threat of the most horrible sort, yet, one of the brains behind this operation just told us he wasn't.

And that is the foundation of this most base and profound wrong this nation has undertaken, as bad as the mistreatment and genocide of the Native Americans, the Slave Trade, the War against Mexico, all of it. This time the lie was the justification, even though economic gain was the goal as in all the other cases, everybody knew that at some level. This time, all of the people were fooled all of the time, until now.