Texas Size Lies and Ideologues
by Wayne Scallon
"We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force." - George W. Bush, Radio Address Mar. 8, 2003
It's hard these days to get very excited when George Bush or his minions tell another lie. They've lied to the American people and to the world at an astonishing rate. The lies are calculated, hateful, sometimes deadly and legion. Place them end-to-end and they could reach from the Oval Office in Washington to the bluebonnets of Crawford, Texas; -- and then there would still be plenty left over to reach the sun-drenched poppy fields of Afghanistan or the burning streets of Baghdad. His is a veritable factory of lies.
In their zeal for the ever-greater fib, they are taking the "Big Lie" concept to a whole other level. Not simply happy with telling the same lie so often that those listening eventually accept it as fact; they appear to have signed on to the vile theory that if you lie all the time, the lies will metastasize, multiply, and spread, like a cancer eating at the truth, engulfing and consuming all reason until the lies become a new reality out of sheer force of gravity. In Bushworld, lies are the new truth.
I am by no means the first to write of the mendacity of the Bush administration. Al Franken has done it with more humor and David Corn in far greater detail. The Bush proclivity for perfidy is well documented in print, film and on countless websites.
When the President tells us we aren’t torturing detainees or we aren’t sending them to other countries to be tortured, he’s lying. When the President peddles his social security snake oil, he’s lying. If you hear him talk about how he’s interested in protecting the air you breathe and the water you drink, he’s lying. And that energy plan – a high wattage, untapped gusher of a lie.
He’s got so much lying to do that he’s even outsourced his lying. Just ask the infamous lying "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" who managed to smear John Kerry’s war record in last year’s election. Or the pundits, two-bit actors and propagandists who’ve been paid handsomely to spread his lies in the form of phony newscasts and partisan commentary. Joseph Goebbels has nothing on this bunch.
Rather than merely produce a litany of Bush lies, I would rather use this opportunity to shine the light on one very big lie recently exposed.
Taking a country to war is one of the most solemn responsibilities we bestow on our President, on our Commander-in-Chief. It would be hard to imagine a greater act of deceit than that which takes a country to war on a lie. Sounds treasonous. No doubt criminal. Which of course makes it very difficult to understand why the President is still free to walk the halls of our White House and act the part of sanctimonious purveyor of democracy, freedom and moral clarity.
If you haven’t heard, and you may not have because the mainstream media outlets in our country have largely ignored the story, The London Times obtained a classified memo confirming that the U.S. and Great Britain had made a secret agreement in the summer of 2002 to attack Iraq. Also discussed was the need to create conditions to justify war and to “fix” the intelligence and the facts around the policy. Yes, the fix was in well before the President sought Congressional authority to go to war “as a last resort”.
The leaked document, now known as the ‘Downing Street Memo’, created little stir among major news organizations in the U.S. when its contents came to light in early May. In their defense, this was right around the time the “runaway bride” had captured our collective imagination. It would be foolish to think that we would preempt a story as newsworthy as that to report on a clandestine agreement between two allied Western powers to invade an oil-rich country in the Middle East.
The memo hasn't even barely achieved the “smoking gun” status in the mainstream media that so many pro-democracy advocates thought that it would when it came to light.
Joe Conason, writing for Salon, laments the barely perceptible impact of the story on the mainstream media and the American people and asks, "Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the evening broadcasts and front pages?"
British government officials do not dispute the authenticity of the memo. Nor does an unidentified senior American official. It's no surprise that the Bush administration has used their typical double-talk to cast doubt on the document while reiterating its position that the Iraqi regime and Saddam Hussein were a danger to the U.S. and to the World. They just wear you out with their lies, don’t they?
To his great credit, Rep. John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan, sent a letter to the President requesting answers to some key questions this disturbing development raises. Not the least of which is: “Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war?"
At least eighty-eight members of Congress have signed their names to the letter but as of this moment, the White House has chosen to ignore this bothersome request for information.
And in the absence of a willingness on the part of the media to follow up and demand answers to some of the critical questions surrounding the leaked memo, a few concerned citizens quickly created a website, [LINK], devoted to providing information and updates on what some might agree is damning evidence of abuse of power and worthy of further inquiry. Also, a new site, [LINK] has just appeared on the web, which takes the issue a bit further by offering an online petition of sorts. In essence, you can add your name in support of the letter sent to the White House by Rep. Conyers. It is designed to force a “Resolution of Inquiry”, which is the first step towards the impeachment of the President by the House of Representatives. The Resolution of Inquiry identifies a possible "High Crime" and asks the House Judiciary Committee to begin an investigation. As Giacomo showed us in the Kentucky Derby, some long shots come through in big spots.
The House Judiciary Committee is chaired by the Republican Congressman from Wisconsin, James Sensenbrenner, Jr., who was instrumental in wasting the country’s time with the Clinton impeachment proceedings. Based on the paucity of evidence to support impeachment in that case, you have to think the Downing Street Memo would fit the criteria for further investigation. Don’t bet a thin dime on that, though.
The ranking Democrat on that committee is the aforementioned Rep. Conyers who’s been one of the few in either the House or the Senate to speak truth to power during these dark days of the Bush regime.
It’s hard to digest the fact that the partisanship in Washington at the moment is such that the majority of the men and women we’ve elected to serve and protect us would so willfully allow our country to sink to the depths that George Bush and his neo-con mad scientists have plumbed.
Is this what September 11, 2001 has wrought?
As we observe another Memorial Day period, the greatest of all Bush lies has given us some 1650 more reasons for remembrance. It’s fair and just to remember and pray for those who’ve given their lives in the service of our country. It would be neither fair nor just to allow this Memorial Day to pass without pointing to the lies and duplicity of those who’ve sent them to their deaths.
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
-- Thomas Paine
BUZZFLASH NOTE: And this Memorial Day period, also remember the thousands of maimed American soldiers and the more than 100,000 (estimated) Iraqis killed and countless more thousands wounded. |
