MONDAY MORNING LINKS

CONTRADICTION:
Abuse of intelligence process dangerous to nation

From today's usually conservative Houston Chronicle editorial staff:

Failure to locate or learn the fate of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction lends credence to the notion that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. More troubling, however, are reports leaking from congressional staff members that administration officials pressured U.S. intelligence officials to trim their analyses to conform to administration expectations.

If Saddam had chemical or biological weapons ready to assemble and use, those weapons or their ingredients already could be in terrorist hands. If he did not, either U.S. intelligence agencies got it terribly wrong, or administration officials misunderstood or distorted intelligence reports and misrepresented them to the American people.

It's a pretty damned good sign when the conservative newspaper from right smack dab in the middle of Bush country starts talking sense. Here's hoping we get some more good sense in the days and weeks to come.

Click here for the rest.

Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq

From AlterNet:

Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field.

The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth.

What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody.

This may very well be the most important top ten list you'll ever read. Click here.

Thomas Jefferson's
Wall of Separation Between Church and State

Counterpunch's Lenni Brenner meditates on my favorite founding father's views on religion and government:

Jefferson believed there was a God. However he was learned in the history of religious fanaticism and separated church and state because he believed connecting them was corrupting for both. Thanks to him and Madison, if America wasn't perfect in this regard, it was the best there was. But he never tried to convert anyone to his religious skepticism and it never took root among the people. They didn't read Greek and Latin or study law. They knew little science. Most were barely literate. Once separation was established, religion flourished. Eventually the two 'Jeffersonian' parties became bywords for corruption, and pandering to religious voters became normal. "In God we trust" got onto our money, "under God" into the school Pledge of Allegiance, and now the US simultaneously militarily protects Islamic fundamentalist Saudi Arabia and Israel, an Orthodox Jewish state.

Click here.

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