The first and most pervasive lie of the article is this: When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.
The final and most pervasive lie of the article is this: So Bush may be telling the truth. In the light of history, however, we would be making a long-odds bet to believe him.
He implies in this that George Bush is lying.
I suppose that is an opinion, but one that I don't agree with.
Certainly, given a choice to believe Higgs or to believe Bush, I go with Bush....
Now President George W. Bush is telling the American people that we stand in mortal peril of imminent attack by Iraqis or their agents armed with weapons of mass destruction. Having presented no credible evidence or compelling argument for his characterization of the alleged threat, he simply invites us to trust him, and therefore to support him as he undertakes what once would have been called naked aggression.
Well, David Hume long ago argued that just because every swan we've seen was white, we cannot be certain that no black swan exists. So Bush may be telling the truth. In the light of history, however, we would be making a long-odds bet to believe him.
Indeed, this is the problem with most goofy theories about a war: They reveal a profound naiveté about how government works. If Bush were doing this for oil or for money or for "revenge" against the man who tried to kill his dad, he wouldn't be able to say so in a single meeting. He couldn't say such a thing to his inner circle, let alone his senior staff or the hundreds of people below them who make the policy. Word would get out. Opponents would leak it. Ambitious men would blow the whistle and become heroes. Decent men would blow the whistle too.
In other words, Bush would have to keep all of his motives secret from the people he'd have to convince to go along. Now, since most of these anti-Bush, antiwar types also think the commander-in-chief is an idiot, it's hard to imagine how they think he'd be smart enough to pull off a con like that.