Silence scarier than loud fanatics

Charles Krauthammer is right in his criticism of George Tenet’s self-serving book that “Everyone has the right to renounce past views. But not to make up the past.”

This applies to Krauthammer as well.

“The Project for a New American Century,” the neo-conservative think tank chaired by William Kristol, includes, among others: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby and Charles Krauthammer.

George Tenet was a sycophant bureaucrat at the center of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Krauthammer was a syndicated cheerleader at the center of the propaganda for it.

Krauthammer is right to remind us it wasn’t just the neo-cons urging Bush to commit Shock and Awe. Colin Powell and many Democrats were indeed key to the enabling support of Congress and the press for a preemptive invasion of a country that had neither threatened nor attacked us.

So, what the hell happened?

Dan Rather characterized the media’s subservient complicity to the Iraq invasion: “You go along to get along.”

This is uncomfortable insight into Hannah Arendt’s “The banality of evil.” The silent, submissive aspects of condoning, enabling or inflicting violence, injustice or deception.

The loud righteous fanatic (neo-con or Islamist) is much easier to spot.

Wayne C. Evans

Bothell