Jon Stewart Interviews Douglas Feith

Have you ever wanted someone to ask Douglas Feith real questions. You remember, Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense under Rumsfeld and architect of the Iraq War invasion? The man who wrote a bang-up PowerPoint linking al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein? The man who Tommy Franks called "the stupidest f***ing guy on the earth?"

Well, someone interviewed Feith and actually asked probing, legitimate questions. There were even some follow up questions to boot! Of course, it wasn't a real journalist. It was Jon Stewart. And it is definitely worth a watch:

[WATCH THE UNCUT VERSION]

Comments

[FarmworkerLawyer]

01:00 PM on 05/16/2008

Kudos, Jon Stewart. It's too bad that the mainstream media has lost all of its real reporters. If even ONE of the simpering scumbags had asked half of the questions that Stewart asked and didn't let them off the hook in their answers instead of the softball, 'let's go to war' questions that were asked, we wouldn't have 4000+ dead soldiers, untold thousands of permanently maimed soldiers and millions of maimed and dead Iraqis. War criminal is too polite of a term

[zizyphus]

02:13 PM on 05/14/2008

It is sad that someone who obviously had some intellectual gifts was so utterly corrupted by the Zionist extremist ideology of the right. How much heroin money has he taken from the Turkish government?

[cuchulain]

01:50 PM on 05/14/2008

For still interested in the historical comparisons issue:

I'll dial down my challenge. Name a situation in which two powers with the relative strengths and weaknesses of Iraq and America (as of 2003) were involved in a war started by the weaker power. Name a single instance wherein the weaker of the two powers launched a first strike against the more powerful nation. Remember, there is an ocean between the countries, the weaker nation has no air force, the stronger nation controls its air space, and the weaker nation has no allies.

Again, we're talking about a field mouse and a tiger. With an ocean between them. That field mouse would never attack the tiger.

[scottymac11]

02:36 PM on 05/14/2008

Precisely. I believe one of the reasons Iraq was chosen to invade, was because it was so defenseless to a power great as us. They had been inspected and sanctioned for over a decade. We prevented them from significantly re-arming. We were determined to place a sizable military ground force in the area. Feith, and Rummy,Wolfie,and Cheney didn't care how. They gladly sent others to die where they would never dream of fighting themselves. Lying into the conflict would be a minor vice for them

[HippieChick]

01:47 PM on 05/14/2008

That Jon Stewart can intice a war criminal to come to his show is a testament to Jon's diplomacy and debate skills. Jon gets credit for asking questions that should have been asked years ago by this nation's "free" press. Time constraints being what they are for an interview on The Daily Show, I understand how so many questions we would like responses to would not be brought into the discussion. Regarding the "intelligence" that the neocons used to whip this nation into war mode, I would really like to see an honest discussion of the role of Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi in the neocon propaganda machine. Too many questions...too little time - but your effort is appreciated, Jon. Hopefully, international war crimes trials for all the neocons involved in this travesty of leadership will reveal the secret war machine behind the Bush administration.

[scottymac11]

01:37 PM on 05/14/2008

Why is it that a comedian with intelligence and integrity gets a more informative interview than any of the msm pundits who supposedly have journalistic expertise? Maybe the issue is the afore mentioned intelligence and integrity? Not many of these bought out, corporate picked, talking head bloviators are capable of discussing the Iraq debacle logically. Their focus seems to be on self promotion above anything else. Sad. The comedian has the sharpest political eye. The pundits are the most ambitious performers.

[Horst]

01:05 PM on 05/14/2008

Americans are truly stupid. They elect morons like Bush, let people like Feith draft foreign policy and then get their news from comedy shows.

[rich3324]

12:34 PM on 05/14/2008

Gen Franks was right. Does this guy have any military experience?

War is sweet to those who have no experience of it. But the experienced man trembles exceedingly in his heart at its approach.
Greek poet Pindar, 518-438 BC

[lthuedk 1]

12:31 PM on 05/14/2008

Feith's OSP was a living breathing outgrowth of the PNAC conspiracy and Bush Coup. Does Feith not know he was being watched by more than millions of on-line citizens? Does Col Karen Kwaitkowski ring a bell?

The best place for Feith's kind is in a court of law with right hand raised. Mistakes, indeed. Being mind-melded to an undisputed dictatorship starring Dick and George links all Neo Cons to other "mistakes," like shutting down the CIA's Brewster Jennings, which had some very bad news intel for Project ideologues. 'Just kidding' won't work when all Neo Cons are on the same page 24/7.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/cheney_v_wilson.html

Feith's ideology was and still is alien and caustic to American Reality. This goes for every breathing Neo Con. The Internet and cable has been one long nightmare for Neo Con media control freaks who continue to conceal the truth any way they can. Pay attention, CNN, Neo York Times, and Neosweek.

Of course, Feith's Office of Special Plans was created to concoct foundation-less precepts for invasion. He magically transformed waste intel into preemption gold.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/the_feith_filter.html

[cuchulain]

12:27 PM on 05/14/2008

Actually, it's not a tangent at all. It's essential to all of this.

Each of the cases you mentioned are not valid in this context. You speak primarily of potential and capacity, rather than actual military might at the time of the invasions. In each case you mentioned, those who launched the attacks believed they had stronger military forces AT THE TIME, and could defeat the nations, empires, etc. etc. they attacked. Or, at the very least, damage them enough to make it worthwhile to some larger tactical or strategic aim.

Japan was mobilized for war, for instance. America was not. It took a great deal of time for America to get up to speed, and before that happened, Japan continued to defeat it militarily.

In the case of Hussein. There was nothing he could gain by attacking America. Nothing but his annihilation. Sheeeesh. Bush attacked him for the mere possibility of a remote chance that he might possibly be considering to possibly, maybe, one day, possibly, maybe launch a suicidal attack. What did Hussein expect from us if he actually DID attack? We launched 500,000 troops against him for attacking Kuwait!

There was never any threat from Hussein.

[rbloom]

02:51 PM on 05/14/2008

Historical analogies aside, I agree wholeheartedly that Hussein was no threat and that was clear before the invasion. His mistake was keeping up the pretense that he might have WMD, thinking it would deter an attack. He didn't count on the fact that Cheney is insane. By the time Hussein backed down and agreed to unrestricted inspections, the neocons had been able to buffalo everybody into supporting the imminent attack.

[VicksieDo]

12:04 PM on 05/14/2008

That was the best journalism I've seen on this war. Way to go Jon, and shame on the MSM for NOT ever covering this war with the tenacity Jon showed.

[GKJames]

10:43 AM on 05/14/2008

I thought the interview was a disappointment. Not a mention of the Feith-led intelligence unit at DOD because the stuff coming out of Langley wasn't consistent with the playbook. Nor of Feith's role in abrogating the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture. Certainly no reference to the assertion by Feith's boss, "We KNOW where the [WMDs] are." And while one understands the difference between being an incompetent and a liar, was there really no urge to ask this nitwit whether the buffoonery on display with respect to Iraq wasn't of such murderous magnitude as to rise to the level of deliberate indifference?

[WWWexler]

08:37 AM on 05/14/2008

Stewart should have picked up Feith's book, thrown it at him, and told him to pack up his lies and get the f--- of the stage.

Find the nearest wall. It shouldn't be too hard to put a squad together.

-Wexler

[dadw5boys]

08:27 AM on 05/14/2008

Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the Iraq conflict. August 2007

[solarenergy]

06:42 AM on 05/14/2008

Feith, and many other war criminals, should be telling their side from the defendant's chair, in a court room, under armed guard, in an orange jumpsuit, with ankle bracelets and handcuffs clamped tightly.

After conviction, life in prison, with no opportunities to be interviewed by anyone.

[cuchulain]

01:45 AM on 05/14/2008

Normathumb,

Another reason your example doesn't work. You're talking about a civil war. It wasn't one weaker nation-state attacking a much stronger nation-state. It was a rebellion against the federal power for a single nation-state. Within a single nation-state.

I was talking about no incident in recorded history of a weaker nation-state or kingdom or empire launching a war on a much more powerful nation-state or kingdom or empire. There are no examples of that in history.