More Dots To Join...

In an excellent wrap-up of the reasons why Rove should be fired (well, don't hold your breath waiting for him to do the honourable thing and resign), Juan Cole ties the Rove-Plame scandal to Michael Ledeen, via the discredited Italian source of the discredited Niger uranium claim:

Ambassador Joe Wilson, who once dared Saddam to hang him while wearing a rope around his neck while acting ambassador in Baghdad in fall of 1990, was the first to let the American people know that the Bush administration lied about Iraq's alleged attempt to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. Wilson went to that country, investigated the structure of the uranium industry (which is mainly in French hands anyway), and concluded it was impossible. Bush and Cheney had believed a set of forged documents manufactured by a former employee of Italian military intelligence. (In the US, the only major public intellectual with close ties to Italian military intelligence is pro-war gadfly Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute).

Over at Smirky's, Jack Dalton introduces some rigourous investigation with this choice quote from Ledeen:

"Good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God. Like Moses, Machiavelli wants the law of his state to be seen, and therefore obeyed, as divinely ordered. The combination of fear of God and fear of punishment -- duly carried out with good arms -- provides the necessary discipline for good government."

Dalton then does a good job of tying Ledeen's teachings to his disciples in the Bush White House:

G.W. Bush may occupy the 'seat of power' right now, but he is not the architect nor is he the actual 'head' of this 'radical revolutionary movement' of 'Straussian' pro-corporate, theocratic ideologues within the Republican Party--who are determined to forever change what this country is, does and represents. Bush is the 'poster child' for that 'movement.' He is the 'puppet' who has been allowed to pick his 'puppeteers.' To a large degree it is what Strauss taught that is the ideology driving Bush & Co.

'Strauss believed that the role of religion was indispensable to the political success of a nation. For a political society had to hold together and act as a unit in lock step with the leader. Strauss believed that religion was the means to inculcate the desired ideas into the minds of the masses. He didn't care what religion -- just as long as it was a religion that could link itself to the political order.' Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Don Rumsfeld and Michael Ledeen did their doctoral studies under the tutelage of Leo Strauss at Chicago and it is they who brought Straussian ideology to government and have wrapped their 'policies' around that ideology. It goes without saying Bush believes this...

All of which puts this quote from George Orwell's 1984 in perfect context:

"The essence of oligarchcal rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same."

So now we have Ledeen using his Italian military contacts to find some totally FUBAR guy, code-named "Curve Ball", who was willing to go on record with these phoney allegations of Niger yellowcake. We have John Bolton at the State Department relentlessly pushing for an investigation, despite widespread intelligence dismissing the claims, we have George W. Bush using those "twelve words" about Niger yellowcake in his State of the Union speech, and then we have Karl Rove bringing the whole machine down on the head of Joe Wilson when he dared say it was all a big lie.

Sack the lot of them. Demand impeachment now!