To opponents of the war in Iraq the indictment of Irv (Irving?) Lewis Libby should be welcome news, even better news than the hoped for indictment of Bush's political brain, Karl Rove.
Scooter Libby is a secretive character not especially well-known to the public. What we do know about him, however, can be summed up succinctly:
- Libby is a charter member of the "Vulcans", the group primarily repsonsible for planning and implementing the invasion of Iraq.
- Libby "... was among the administration's fiercest proponents of the invasion..."
- Libby's office prepared the remarks delivered by Colin Powell to the U.N. on the existence of Iraqi WMD's.
- Libby is a devotee (with his boss Dick Cheney) of Hoover Institution "classicist and military historian" Victor Davis Hanson, "...who posits that warfare is an inevitable part of civilization, evil is a basic condition of humanity, and tyrants must be confronted by the harshest possible means." (Hanson's op-ed pieces are regularly inflicted upon the readers of the Oregonian.)
Hanson is a conservative ideologue who has written pieces like this defending the torture and mistreatment of detainees in Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison:
"Right now we see only revolting pictures that properly shock our sensibilities. But because we do not know the circumstances of the interrogations, the conditions of confinement, or the nature of the acts that warranted imprisonment, we are also ignorant to what degree, if any, these men were responsible for horrendous acts -- or if their clumsy interrogators were trying to shame and humiliate them to extract information to save other lives."
Libby is to White House foreign policy what Rove is to it's political strategies. He may indeed be the most influential of the neocons within the White House. One could argue that without the proddings and encouragement of Libby, the war in Iraq would never have happened.
In that sense, his indictment and resignation as Bush Administration advisor is indeed good news for the opponents of the militarism unleashed on the world by George W. Bush.
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