Habitual Liar John Bolton Leads an Assault on the Truth

• John Bolton Leads an Assault on the Truth
  by Anhvinh Doanvo, https://intpolicydigest.org/
  John Bolton is an unusual pick for Trump’s national security adviser. As a Bush administration alum, he, in as recently as 2016, said that he would “still overthrow Saddam Hussein” if he had known everything that he knows today. His sentiment betrays President Trump’s condemnation against the Iraq war, and his advocacy of regime change (and, by extension, nation-building) in Iran and a first strike against North Korea jeopardizes Trump’s promises to put “America First.”
  –
  Hawkishness, on its own, isn’t always disqualifying. We can take opinions seriously so long as they are grounded in some semblance of the truth. But as a public servant, Bolton has failed at even this basic standard: Bolton is a habitual liar and has repeatedly stretched the truth on basic facts throughout his career.
  –
  In May 2002, Bolton, as the undersecretary of state for arms control, drafted a speech stating that the U.S. believed that Cuba’s biological weapons program “is providing assistance to other rogue state programs.” Yet the language that best reflected the CIA’s judgments said that the U.S. believed that “Cuba has provided dual-use technology to other rogue states. We’re concerned that such technology could support B.W. programs in those states.”
  –
  The difference is subtle but critical in international diplomacy. By highlighting how Cuba has provided “dual-use technology” that “could support B.W. programs,” the CIA (i.e., the US government) recognized that it was not sure if the dual-use technologies—technology useful for both civilian and military purposes—actually helped or were even intended to help foreign bioweapons programs. Bolton’s phrasing, “is providing assistance to other rogue state programs,” implied that the US government believed that Cuba intentionally supported our adversaries’ weapons programs.
  –
  Had this disagreement been resolved civilly, this might not be a cause for concern. But Bolton reprimanded and tried to fire the intelligence analyst who revised his speech—the very one who tried to tell him the truth so that Bolton could best represent the U.S. government.
  –
  Consider how Bolton might talk on this issue if he, and the intelligence community, used the same respective language for a hypothetical incident regarding Iran. The intelligence community might describe Iran’s export of medical isotope technologies used to diagnose cancer as something that could, but might not assist North Korea’s nuclear program. Bolton would instead condemn Iran to an axis of evil and essentially convey that Iran is assisting North Korea in nuclear weapons technology. The intelligence community issued a cautious warning of danger: Bolton called for war.
  –
  read more.

end