November 9, 2007
When cataloguing George W. Bush’s lies – even if you stick just to his fabrications about the Iraq War and the “war on terror” – there are so many to choose from, it’s hard to pick a favorite.
There’s the one about how before Sept. 11, 2001, Americans thought that “oceans protected us” – although perhaps not from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, which during the Cold War had school children hiding under desks and homeowners buying bomb shelters.
2 comments:
Of course the Bush Administration lies blatantly again and again... but its lies were never in a vacuum.
Ignoring President Clinton's earlier wanton breaches against international law and his campaign against Iraq which left hundreds of thousands dead, let's start with the coup of 2000 which was instigated not by the military but by the Supreme Court.
Osama bin Laden (at first, and his subsequent statements have been studiously inauthenticated) denied having any responsibility for 9/11. Why continue to blame him, as Bush blamed Hussein for harboring weapons of mass destruction? Does he or his al Queda remnants truly reside in a caves on the Afghan/Pakistani border-- or were they simply CIA creations that were manipulated into one of the truly greatest hoaxes of our time?
In 2004, we had leading intellectuals signing statements pleading with the one notable antiwar candidate Ralph Nader not to run for president and concerted legal harrassment efforts by Democrats to foil his campaign (totalitarian bullying). There was never any real debate in the media about the war in Iraq-- in spite of huge public opposition to it. John Kerry promised to send in 40,000 more troops and conduct the war more smartly.
Of course we have been duped time and time again by Bush. But we who have opposed him have never stood on firm ground because we also have been ignorant about or have denied more obvious truths.
No alternative media would have made a difference so long as it, like the media that cheerleads Bush's extremist-right agenda also buries or ridicules the most obvious questions we have.
It is extremely curious to me how our most obvious questions about the events of 9/11 have been buried under an avalanche of poor reasoning and deflecting rationalizations.
For instance, Carolyn Baker, a prominent and thoughtful blogger, recently extolled the virtues of Naomi Klein's recent book The Shock Doctrine-- but pointed out how Klein's brilliant book described conspiracy upon conspiracy-- while oddly describing the cause of 9/11 itself in officially sanctioned terms. http://tinyurl.com/3yo54k
Klein's negligence is as odd and curious to me as Mr. Parry's continuing brilliant observations which also gloss over or compliment a lying administration's perspective of the most uncomfortable of facts regarding 9/11.
Going out on a limb now, it is my opinion (here without facts to support it) that Kerry allowed Bush to steal the 2004 election in Ohio because he likely stole his own nomination from Dean in Iowa. Further, I believe Kerry's campaign was advised to failure, sabotaged to give Hillary Clinton her glimmer of hope to soon become president herself. Isn't it odd that the neocon cabal has now hardly built a framework for a succeeding Republican administration? The most uncomfortable question I have is: why should it?
If only Mr. Parry's dear Albert Gore could emerge to help put the brakes on the next infamy that is now "going down"! But to really do that, wouldn't Gore have to confess his own past complicities in aid of the corporate kleptocracy? I believe he could possibly do it-- but it would take a courage that would necessitate putting aside past personal loyalties for the sake of the American People.
I am sure many will consider my opinions eccentric-- but I would dearly like to be corrected.
I believe our country is has been perhaps irredeemably compromised by traitors from within. I cannot understand for the life of me how Nancy Pelosi, in spite of her words of opposition, can continue to rationalize that keeping impeachment off the table is a sane course while she and other leading Democrats can provide the phoney executive all the keys it needs to expand its colonialistic War on Terror which is a War of Terror.
I cannot for the life of me understand why leading intellectuals, writers, and voices against the neocon cabal cannot see that the cabal's membership extends into the highest rungs of the Democratic Party and its media and foundational support, even as it appals more traditional conservative Republicans who have become silenced.
I can only agree with robert b livingston perceptive comment ; the Bush/Cheney administration's lies do not exist in a vacuum, and lies with dire consequences for both that portion of humanity that resides in the United States and the rest of us will not come to an end on 20 January 2009 - in the event that we, against the odds, manage to live that long. Let us hope that many readers reflect - and reflect deeply - over what Mr Livingston has to say. For my own part, I should like to suggest that in the future Robert Parry abstain from such cheap rhetorical devices as the characterisation of Osama bin Laden et consortes as «a bunch of crazed misfits» - a phrase which is also used, with still less reason, to characterise others of whose opinions «we» do not approve, like the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad. By dismissing others in this contemptuous fashion, we conveniently blind ourselves to the plethora of beams in our own eyes, a parlous guide to strategy, as historical evidence clearly shows. There are perhaps others much nearer to us and who exert far greater influence on our daily lives who deserve the epithet «crazy misfit» as least as much than Mr bin Ladin....
Henri
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