Ron Suskind: Friend or Foe?

Ron Suskind has been thrown into the spotlight over his new book The Way of The World. In his book, he asserts, among other things, that the CIA was ordered by the Bush administration to forge a letter dated prior to 9/11 from Habbush (at the time an Iraqi Intelligence Chief) stating that Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, had trained in Iraq, as well as allegations regarding Saddam's attempt to obtain yellow cake from Niger with the aid of Al Qaeda. Habbush had previously told not only US intelligence officials, but British officials as well, that Iraq in fact did not have any WMDs. Of course he was a member of Saddam's regime, so I'm sure it wouldn't be wrong for those intelligence officials to not be certain of his trustworthiness. British officials stopped contact with him because they did not think he was credible; however, no one had any real evidence that Saddam had the weapons either. It is fact that the letter exists. It has long been suspected that there were large amounts of misinformation fed to the public leading up to the war, but as of yet no solid proof, other than the fact that no WMDs have been found despite the drum beat that they would most certainly be found.

It is not a stretch for me to believe Suskind. First, Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He has never been shown to be dishonest. If a person does any amount of research on him it becomes clear that his sources haven't ever been truly discredited and that the "gutter" journalism he is being accused of by the Bush administration has no fact to back up the assertion. This is; however, just the latest in a string of explosive books regarding the past 8 years, several of whom have been written by people who were right in the core of the administration. It is also no surprise that the administration has gone after these people.

It is no surprise that the sources to whom Suskind spoke in order to write this latest book would try to distance themselves from it. Unlike the other books and articles that Suskind has written, this book contains actual impeachable, punishable by law, offenses. I can imagine the backlash from the Bush administration would be considerable. It is; however, surprising that people would be so quick to dismiss the book as fable. I have not read the entire book. I also cannot say for certain whether the allegations posed in the book are factual not having been in the interviews with the sources, or heard the tapes, or seen any other evidence to support the assertions made by Suskind. The main reason, then, to not dismiss this as fable so quickly is that it is nothing new to see these types of claims. The people making these claims aren't all liberals, or Democrats either. As mentioned they are made by people who were close to Bush and who have worked in the government during the ordeal.

I think that the main reason people would rather try to discredit Suskind than try to get to the bottom of the whole thing is because they can't wrap their minds around it. A good portion of people still believe their government is mostly there for the good of the people and that the President of the United States should be respected, regardless of whether or not he actually deserves it. Then there are the people that actually believe 9/11 was carried out by Saddam because they were led to believe that was the case and have never read past the headlines that turned out not to be true. There are people who just don't WANT to believe because believing would mean that the country they have so much pride in is actually the bad guy in this situation and that their government acted illegally. It would mean that service men and women died for no reason other than Bush's vanity and greed (this is in NO way saying that the troops are to blame for this, the full blame is on those who sent them to die). People don't want to believe those things. Some are die hards who still believe Bush is a decent, honest, Christian man who sticks by his ideals because he believes them to be right and good. There are still others who believe every part of everything is a conspiracy waiting to engulf us all. Then there are those, such as myself, who are simply looking for the truth. People who see the toilet the country is being flushed down and hoping it can be saved before it hits the cesspool. People who know something isn't right and are just waiting for the door to be blown wide open on the whole deal.

We are the people who have to have the guts to stand up and say that these types of things cannot continue. We are the people who have to stand up and demand that these serious allegations be taken seriously and investigated. We have to say that we are no longer willing to watch our fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins die for a lie. We are no longer willing to watch the United States' name being dragged through the mud throughout the world.

Ron Suskind, friend or foe? Only time will truly tell, but we owe it to ourselves, our country, our future to find out.