Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The lies...
This week is the fifth anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq.
As we all have long since learned, if we didn't know it to begin with, it was a invasion based on lies. Lies about what weapons Iraq possessed. Lies about the threat it posed. Lies about its links to terrorism.
Just as the Vietnam war was justified and initiated with lies so too was the war in Iraq.
Yet five years on the powers that be in the United States don't want to fess up to that - they don't want to delegitimize the war in their public's eyes. After all the morning talk shows are now full of interviews with U.S. soldiers in Iraq where the commentators tell us how these "brave" people are "fighting for us", defending "our values", and "protecting our country".
A clear example of this is the New York Times inviting some military and political "experts" to write about what lessons they have learned over the past five years and what they would do differently.
The dimwits they have writing tell us "there is no freedom gene" (to explain why Iraqis would fight someone bringing them democracy) and "so much for good intentions" (of course, the U.S. never does anything that doesn't have good intentions!!).
However, what these cheerleaders and apologists for the war write is not what is of interest. What IS noteworthy is that THEY were the ones chosen to write about this war. Without exception, they all supported the war. Many of them were regulars on TV before the war began telling us how necessary the war was and how grateful Iraqi's would be to be liberated.
So the question must be asked, why are only people who supported the war allowed to reminisce? Why aren't people who opposed the war from the beginning allowed to give their observations? Maybe, for example, Scott Ritter who was the chief weapons inspector in Iraq for years and who said before the war Iraq almost certainly didn't have any such weapons.
Of course, he was pretty much banned from the media before the war so why would it be different now? Those who were watching will remember when he was on CNN and instead of discussing how he thought that Iraq didn't have WMD the host insisted on talking about some court case about in him in home town.
Sadly, five years on the same people who brought us all the lies that led to this war are bringing still more lies and more distortions to the American public. Those who brought us the lies, falsifications and gross distortions of Judith Miller and John Burns are no more willing to allow other viewpoints to be heard now than they were then.
As the saying goes, the first casualty of war is the truth. And somehow it never seems to recover.
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As we all have long since learned, if we didn't know it to begin with, it was a invasion based on lies. Lies about what weapons Iraq possessed. Lies about the threat it posed. Lies about its links to terrorism.
Just as the Vietnam war was justified and initiated with lies so too was the war in Iraq.
Yet five years on the powers that be in the United States don't want to fess up to that - they don't want to delegitimize the war in their public's eyes. After all the morning talk shows are now full of interviews with U.S. soldiers in Iraq where the commentators tell us how these "brave" people are "fighting for us", defending "our values", and "protecting our country".
A clear example of this is the New York Times inviting some military and political "experts" to write about what lessons they have learned over the past five years and what they would do differently.
The dimwits they have writing tell us "there is no freedom gene" (to explain why Iraqis would fight someone bringing them democracy) and "so much for good intentions" (of course, the U.S. never does anything that doesn't have good intentions!!).
However, what these cheerleaders and apologists for the war write is not what is of interest. What IS noteworthy is that THEY were the ones chosen to write about this war. Without exception, they all supported the war. Many of them were regulars on TV before the war began telling us how necessary the war was and how grateful Iraqi's would be to be liberated.
So the question must be asked, why are only people who supported the war allowed to reminisce? Why aren't people who opposed the war from the beginning allowed to give their observations? Maybe, for example, Scott Ritter who was the chief weapons inspector in Iraq for years and who said before the war Iraq almost certainly didn't have any such weapons.
Of course, he was pretty much banned from the media before the war so why would it be different now? Those who were watching will remember when he was on CNN and instead of discussing how he thought that Iraq didn't have WMD the host insisted on talking about some court case about in him in home town.
Sadly, five years on the same people who brought us all the lies that led to this war are bringing still more lies and more distortions to the American public. Those who brought us the lies, falsifications and gross distortions of Judith Miller and John Burns are no more willing to allow other viewpoints to be heard now than they were then.
As the saying goes, the first casualty of war is the truth. And somehow it never seems to recover.
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