There must have been a memo...

As if on cue, we at DSM.com started receiving numerous emails this week pointing out former president Clinton's support for regime change as somehow offering a pretext for the war his successor undertook. I was asked the very question on Monday on MSNBC's "Connected Coast to Coast" by host Monica Crowley. As I pointed out to Ms. Crowley, the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act that President Clinton signed did express a desire for regime change. It made $8 million available to democratic opposition groups within Iraq, and that even included military assistance. But the Act specifically restricted such assistance to equipment and training. The idea that Clinton's signing of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act means he supported regime change through invasion is simply not supported by anything in the Act.

The other counter-argument to surface this week was the non-issue of the meaning of the word "fixed" as it is used in the DSM. As I understand it, the argument goes something like this: that the word as it appears in the DSM does not mean "manipulated" but rather simply "placed", that the intel was not adulterated but rather simply arranged to support the policy of regime change through military action.

What makes this argument so preposterous is that it is based on acceptance of the idea of selectively choosing intelligence that supports the policy of invasion. Adulterating intel is bad, but cherry picking the good parts is OK? This distinction amounts to little more than a bald-faced lie versus a lie of omission. Either way, we've been misled.

Completely lost in the semantics discussion is the irrefutable fact that, as the DSM states, the facts were being fixed AROUND the policy. The policy of invasion was already set--the intel was being fixed (placed, whatever) AROUND something that already existed. You don't have to be a professor of English to grasp the meaning of that.