How Do They Get Away With It?

[Guest guest]

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=3431

 

August 23, 2004

 

How Do They Get Away With It?

 

by Paul Craig Roberts

 

It is not an enjoyable experience watching the

Republican Party descend into the depths of propaganda

and falsehood. Today's disaffected Republicans once

believed the GOP to be the party of principle. Any

remaining claim to principle ended with Bush's

invasion of Iraq.

 

No informed person believed that Saddam Hussein had

weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections

to al-Qaeda and involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

 

It is not possible that the president and vice

president of the United States, the secretary of

state, the secretary of defense, the director of the

CIA and the national security adviser could have

believed such rubbish. Yet, each one of them told the

American people, the U.S. Congress, the United

Nations, and our allies that they did believe it.

 

Did U.S. intelligence agencies actually convey totally

false information to the highest government officials?

If so, these agencies are the greatest threat to

innocent people abroad and to the U.S. government's

credibility. Such incompetence is more dangerous than

terrorism. The agencies should be immediately

abolished.

 

Contrary to Bush administration propaganda, Saddam

Hussein was precisely the type of secular Arab ruler

who would feature large on Osama bin Laden's hit list.

Hussein brutally suppressed Islamic leaders, knocking

off cleric after cleric, including Moqtada al-Sadr's

father, a grand ayatollah.

 

If Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to

give terrorists, the terrorists would have used them

on Israel. The U.S. is a derivative target because of

our alliance with Israel against the Palestinians.

 

Bush and Rumsfeld claim that they believed that Iraq

had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it is certain

that the joint chiefs and commanding generals did not

believe the falsehood. No general, no matter how

incompetent, would have concentrated his invasion army

in a small area adjacent to an enemy armed with WMD,

when one weapon could wipe out the entire U.S.

invasion force.

 

No one has been held accountable for the unjustified

invasion of Iraq that has destroyed America's standing

in the world and has cost tens of thousands of Iraqi

lives and thousands of American dead and wounded.

 

Don't expect a demand for accountability from the

public. A poll released August 20 by the Program on

International Policy Attitudes [pdf] at the University

of Maryland found that 54% of Americans continue to

believe Iraq had WMD; 35% believe that Iraq was

closely linked to al-Qaeda, and 15% believe Iraq was

involved in the Sept. 11 attack.

 

What does the persistence of such extraordinary

falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free

people with First Amendment rights be so totally

misinformed? The answer is that an independent media

no longer exists in the U.S.

 

Formerly independent media are now submerged into

corporate chains where focus on advertising revenues

means zero tolerance for controversy. In the run-up to

the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media served as a

propaganda arm for the Bush administration. The New

York Times and Washington Post have since published

mild apologies for neglecting their responsibilities,

but the U.S. media has been muzzled by the

" you-are-with-us-or-against-us " mantra.

 

Anyone who tells the truth is in the " against-us "

camp.

 

Having gotten away with one invasion based on

deception, the Bush administration is eager to repeat

the offense. Last week Undersecretary of State John

Bolton used a Hudson Institute forum to repeat before

a live C-SPAN TV audience the same lies – only this

time it is Iran that has WMD:

 

" Today I'd like to speak about Iran, which has

concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons

program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is

one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges.

All of Iran's WMD efforts – chemical weapons,

biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and ballistic

missiles – pose grave threats to international

security. "

 

The grave threat to international security is posed by

the Bush administration's relentless war propaganda.

Does Bolton really believe that a nuclear weapons

program, with all its extraordinary requirements,

could be concealed for 18 years?

 

There is a total failure of U.S. diplomacy. Is the

failure intentional? Does the Bush administration

desire more war in the Middle East?

 

Every indicator reads yes. The U.S. has struck an

aggressive stance toward Iraq, Syria and Iran – the

three Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by

American puppets on the American payroll. Now that the

Soviet Union is no longer a check on U.S. intrusions

in the Middle East, the Bush administration intends to

complete the colonization under the cloak of bringing

" democracy " to Islam.

 

This is the neoconservative agenda. The same neocons

who control the Bush administration have put forward

this plan in written and spoken form for all to read

and hear. They have informed us of their war

intentions, and we are paying no attention.

 

If you favor the return of the draft and war without

end, vote Republican.