ot blya global be

Today is june 23 2006 , and there is still people who believe or lies about WMD...

 

some even portrays hussein with nukes!

 

Apologies for the double post.  Not intended.

The Times story is just another of an apparently endless stream of information that repeatedly pops up after the fact to show that behind the veil of privacy our leaders scheme and lie and devise all sorts of deceit.  What kind of people are these then who lead our countries?  Why should we ever believe them?  You never find them engaged in conversations that express concern for the sons and daughters they will soon condemn to death.  They never express grief over the death and destruction they will inflict upon an innocent people.  They never express concern over how the infrastructure they destroy, which represents those people's lifeline to food, medicine and services, might affect the general population.  Nor do they for a moment hold out any hope whatsoever that WMD's might not exist and Saddam could do this or that to prevent the war; quite the contrary, they confess that their plans are now driven by military timetables, and that they must work hard on ways to provoke war through deceptive means, being bent upon it, almost proud of it.

No, they secretly plot and devise evil plans of deception, to deceive the media and their own people and other governments of a military plot that has already been hatched and readied for action.  And then they shroud all these talks behind the well-worn excuse of "National Defence". Our government is not an open, transparent government.  It is a government filled with liers who must move in shadows and darkness so that the light of truth might not be cast their way and expose them for what they really are.

The Times story is just another of an apparently endless stream of information that repeatedly pops up after the fact to show that behind the veil of privacy our leaders scheme and lie and devise all sorts of deceit.  What kind of people are these then who lead our countries?  Why should we ever believe them?  You never find them engaged in conversations that express concern for the sons and daughters they will soon condemn to death.  They never express grief over the death and destruction they will inflict upon an innocent people.  They never express concern over how the infrastructure they destroy, which represents those people's lifeline to food, medicine and services, might affect the general population.  Nor do they for a moment hold out any hope whatsoever that WMD's might not exist and Saddam could do this or that to prevent the war; quite the contrary, they confess that their plans are now driven by military timetables, and that they must work hard on ways to provoke war through deceptive means, being bent upon it, almost proud of it.

No, they secretly plot and devise evil plans of deception, to deceive the media and their own people and other governments of a military plot that has already been hatched and readied for action.  And then they shroud all these talks behind the well-worn excuse of "National Defence". Our government is not an open, transparent government.  It is a government filled with liers who must move in shadows and darkness so that the light of truth might not be cast their way and expose them for what they really are.

Paul, thanks for the reminder that the issue of WMD goes deeper than the single issue of whether or not they existed. I don't know how you can stand dealing with individuals such as the one you encounted in the hallway. It drives me crazy having to argue such points as these, when the issues go so deep you could talk for hours (explaining how we supported Saddam when he really did have WMD, and used them against Iran and the Kurds, how "democracy building" is a joke, etc..). These programmed institutional whores aren't worth my time or energy.

Yes, the story on the front page of the Times, barely above the middle fold, beneath a basketball photo.  On the basis of a five-page confidential five-page memo produced by Tony Blair's top foreign policy adviser, we learn that Bush told Blair on January 31, 2003 of his intention to attack and occupy Iraq regardless of formal weapons findings and UN resolutions and all that other fluff being entrusted to  Colin Powell and his revolting Pottery Barn ilk.  The meeting took place in the Oval Office. The new memo revalation is totally consistent with what we already know, including of course the Downing Street memo.  Somebody should go and look at the White House web site and read Bush's speeches and radio addresses to review what Dubya is saying to the mere American people from January through March 2003. The "royal brute" boy King George (Bush) ---- who may actually believe that God told him to invade Iraq --- speaks candidly about his real intentions regarding to the head of the state that once ruled the colonial North Americans in the name of King George and against whom we (the North American whites that is) revolted in the name of popular government and against the Divine Right of Kings.   Then he lies about his intentions  to "we the people" in "democratic" America. In the January 31 meeting, there is even casual conversation between the royal brute and his British pit bull about staging an Iraq assault on a US plane disguised as a UN plane and about assassinating Saddam.     

I think the Times article really should have finished by noting the obvious need for  mass insurrection and renewed democratic revolution by within both of the imperial nations. For the purposes of the rather limited goal of impeachment, which is long overdue, the bad news is that we don't yet have a presidentially semen-stained suitcoat worn by Tony Blair in that notorious bastion of illicit oral sex the Oval Office.  That's what we'll really need to get Dubya impeached. As a bumper sticker I recently saw put it: "Somebody Give Bush a Blow Job So We Can Impeach Him."  

 

 

It is quite clear that Mr. Bush was fixated on the invasion of Iraq with or without proof of the existence of any WMDs in Iraq.  WHICH lie is a good question indeed.  The lies began before the discussion of any WMDs, anyway.  What I find most disheartening, however, is that our fearless leader faced no resistance from Prime Minister Tony Blair (among others), who knew there was no evidence of WMDs and alligned himself (themselves) with this President's deplorable plan of war.

Today's New York Times reports on the behind-closed-doors meeting between Blair and Bush on January 31, 2003 wherein Bush makes clear his intention "to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons. . ."  Further, the official "start date" for the bombing well preceeded any alleged findings of WMDs.

I can't seem to go in and fix the wrong URL on the Palast URL, which should be http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=9969

Victor - the lies are hard to keep up with. One interesting sub-lie to add was recently voiced by Ted Koppel on the editorial pages of the "leftist" New York Times.  It admits that Iraq was about oil but then claims Uncle Sam wants to create stability to increase the free flow oil out of the region to the rest of the world.  For an I hope useful (though hardly original) correction to that high state li[n]e (arguing that US's oil interest is imperial in nature and is about controlling and restricting world use of ME oil), see my "It's About the Oil: Not-so Candid Comments from Ted Koppel," ZNet Magazine (February 25, 2006) at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=9798 and Greg Palast, "Bush Didn't Bungle, You Fools," ZNet Magazine (March 23, 2005) at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=9798  

One of the reasons that high state and related corporate deception is so ubiquitous in the U.S. is precisely that there is such a strong free-speech tradition in the U.S.  As I argued on this web site nearly a couple of years ago:

"An Invitation to Thought Control"

"It might seem paradoxical that large numbers of people in a land, THE land (if you like) of free speech - a country with strong democratic and especially civil liberties traditions - would fall prey to such disempowering, nonsensical, false, and authoritarian ideas. This becomes much less paradoxical, however, when you factor in broader interrelated forces of class and empire."

 

"Free speech and strong democratic and civil libertarian traditions are wonderful, glorious, inspiring things in and of themselves. But they are an invitation to thought-control when they exist side by side with the stark socioeconomic inequalities and the related expansionist imperatives of modern American capitalism."

 

"Currently in the United States, the top 1 percent owns nearly 40 percent of all household wealth. The top 10 percent owns two thirds of the wealth and a probably larger share of the nation's elected officials and policymakers. Many of us barely get by from one paycheck to the next while Donald Trump owns numerous luxury states and his own airplane and his own helicopter. At least 23 million Americans stood in food lines in the U.S. during the last year. Many of those "food insecure" Americans are part of the 'working poor,' a group that 'plays by the rules' and still can't keep their heads above water in 'the world's richest nation.'"

 

"Trump and his cohorts receive more income in one hour than these 'working poor' will in their entire lives. Meanwhile Americans can't fund their local schools adequately or properly fund drug treatment programs or provide basic health insurance to all its citizens. 'Their' country can however afford huge tax cuts for the already super-wealthy. It can pay for massively expensive Haliburton contracts and attack helicopters in Iraq, Saudia Arabia, and the West Bank and the 'reconstruction' of Iraq, required thanks to the massively expensive U.S. destruction of Iraq."

 

"The privileged American few aren't content to own a disproportionate share of the wealth only of the United States. They seek as much of the world's wealth as they can grab, which is why we have more than a hundred military bases around the world and a 'defense' budget that is bigger than the combined military expenditures of all conceivable U.S. 'enemy' states. It's why America sends its working-class sons and daughters to kill and die in foreign lands."

 

"The invitation to propaganda and thought control arises from two things. First, ordinary Americans are human beings endowed with a basic sense of moral decency. Since we are not born with some sort of masochistic, self-hating impulse us to like all this shitty interrelated empire and inequality, the majority of us (not privileged) have to be ruled. "

 

"Second, thanks to the British, American and French Revolutions and the living legacy of the Enlightenment, we are free to say that we don't like it. It's not generally legitimate to shoot us if and when we voice displeasure with the consequences and - in some cases even the existence - of empire and inequality."

 

"And precisely because we can't be dominated in purely coercive ways, we must be controlled more softly, through propaganda. Because we are free to speak our minds, our minds but be controlled. Thus, there's a huge investment in the U.S. in what Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman call 'manufacturing consent.' "

 

"It makes sense, then, that, as an American academic named Norman Meier noted in 1950, 'Americans are the most propagandized people of any nation.' That's what you'd expect in a nation that combines stark class inequality (the U.S. is by far the most unequal and wealth top-heavy nation in the industrialized world), concentrated (corporate and state) power, and remarkable private/corporate communications capacity (organizational and technological) with the world's strongest free speech and related civil-libertarian traditions and protections." 

 

 

 

Paul

There is the lie that Saddam had WMD and its associated sub-lies.

There is also the lie that the USA is promoting freedom and democracy in Iraq and thoughout the world. Our government desires not freedom and democracy, but governments, democratic or not, free or not, that are friendly to US econominc and political interests.

There is the lie that America desires peace throughout the world, especially the Middle East.  Peace means stability.  Stability pushes the price of oil down and decreases demand for weapons and military construction projects.  This means that Bush's oil, big construction and military bedfellows can no longer make their exhorbitant profits.  An unacceptable situation.

There is the lie that the US is the protector of the Free World, the good and gentle giant who wants only Truth, Justice and Freedom to prevail in the world, and who reluctantly takes up arms (to the tune of $500 BILLION per annum) on behalf of (and of course only at the request of) the little guy to fight aggressors wherever they be.  Of course it helps if those aggressors are small and relatively helpless countries.

There is the lie that there exists a War on Terrorism, which is being used as an excuse for the advancement of every anti-Constitutional decision being made by this President and his Gang of Thugs and Criminals.  It is this president who feels that he can do whatever he thinks is necessary to fight those evil terrorists (whom his predecessors created and encouraged in the first place) without regard to civil liberties.  It is this president who has pushed through the so-called Patriot Act at home (the most evil piece of fascist legislation this country has ever had to endure).  It is this president who feels he can spy upon his own citizens and others without recourse to the courts.  His arrogance is without match in the world. 

But the biggest lie of all is the lie that the United States of America is a free and democratic country, endowed with a free press and an informed citizenry.  In actuality its citizenry and its press lie in the hands of an immensely powerful ruling elite who constructed at the inception of the country an ingenious economic/political framework that will not likely be dismantled...at least not in our lifetimes - which is a horrific warning for the rest of the world as well as the citizens of this country.  When America's Government was being formed, Thomas Jefferson was deeply concerned about the possiblities posed by a ruling elite.  He felt that leadership of the country could best be served by an educated and informed citizenry.  But Hamilton was of an entirely different persuasion and felt that the masses were little more than a mindless mob in need of "enlightened" leadership.  In the end Hamilton got his way, and since then the capitalist "enlightened" elite have been, little by little (frogs in a pot of ever heating water comes to mind), pulling the net tighter and tighter over control of the country, and expanding their power well beyond the borders of the US throughout the world in the name of "free markets".

So it's all a lie, Paul.  The entire country has been a lie since its inception.    

Apologies for the emotive, but Ours is truly the Evil Empire.