Monday, January 09, 2006
A little lie slips out
For a couple of years now the U.S. government has been telling its public that things are going well, they are winning the war, and that the troops in the field have everything they need. Further, it is said that there are sufficient troops to fight the war effectively. Of course, this always was doubtful as there were many journalistic reports of commanders in Iraq complaining of not having enough troops.
Now, some of the truth slips out. The former administrator of the U.S. puppet government wrote a memo to U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld saying that he thought they needed 500,000 troops in Iraq to win the war (coincidentally, that is the precise number of U.S. in Vietnam at the peak of that war). This request was promptly shot down and never publicized.
The purpose of this post is not to talk about U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The last thing I want is for the U.S. to get the troop levels right and win the war. What the point is though, is that the war is based entirely on deceit. First, they lied about why the U.S. needed in invade Iraq and now they lie about the actual conduct of the war and what the prospects are for U.S. victory. And unfortunatly, a large section of the U.S. populace still believes in what they say. It should be interesting some day when the Iraqi version of "The Pentagon Papers" comes out and shows what all the lies were and how top officials talked about which lies would be best to decieve the public. But, of course, that, while interesting, will be too late to stop the enormous amount of death and destruction that will occur before then.
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Now, some of the truth slips out. The former administrator of the U.S. puppet government wrote a memo to U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld saying that he thought they needed 500,000 troops in Iraq to win the war (coincidentally, that is the precise number of U.S. in Vietnam at the peak of that war). This request was promptly shot down and never publicized.
The purpose of this post is not to talk about U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The last thing I want is for the U.S. to get the troop levels right and win the war. What the point is though, is that the war is based entirely on deceit. First, they lied about why the U.S. needed in invade Iraq and now they lie about the actual conduct of the war and what the prospects are for U.S. victory. And unfortunatly, a large section of the U.S. populace still believes in what they say. It should be interesting some day when the Iraqi version of "The Pentagon Papers" comes out and shows what all the lies were and how top officials talked about which lies would be best to decieve the public. But, of course, that, while interesting, will be too late to stop the enormous amount of death and destruction that will occur before then.
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