Eight months before UN inspectors returned to Iraq, Colin Powell asserted:
"Even if Baghdad readmits United Nations arms inspectors, the United States will still pursue a 'regime change' policy, with or without the support of its allies," The Iraqis never had a chance.
The Duping of America
by Maureen Farrell
"Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," former CIA counter-intelligence head Vincent Cannistraro told the Guardian last October. [LINK]. This was a month after the Pentagon's intelligence agency reported it lacked credible evidence that Iraq had chemical weapons, despite the Bush administration's many assurances otherwise. Yet here we are, nine months later, and these allegations are just making their way into America's mainstream. [LINK]
There is a sense of deja vu in all of this, of course. Well before George Bush delivered his ultimatum to the United Nations, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed the president's true intentions. "Even if Baghdad readmits United Nations arms inspectors, the United States will still pursue a 'regime change' policy, with or without the support of its allies," Colin Powell asserted, eight months before UN inspectors returned to Iraq. [LINK] And, true to form, nine months before the American media reported on John Poindexter's new role at the Pentagon, [LINK], the Guardian had it covered. [LINK]
And so, as people across the globe invariably wonder why US citizens are so naive and malleable, reporters and pundits are either stunned to learn that the Bush administration hyped the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, or even worse, assure Americans it doesn't matter, because in this particular version of democracy, the ends justify the means. The implied assertion is: You don't need to know the truth because quite frankly, you can't handle the truth.
Or perhaps it's something deeper? More than forty years ago, John F. Kennedy addressed this phenomenon at a commencement address at Yale University. "For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic," he said. "Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." [LINK]
With the latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll showing that 79 percent of Americans believe that "the war would be justified even 'if the U.S. does not find conclusive evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction'" [LINK], it seems, for the moment at least, that we don't mind being lied to -- as long as we continue to feel good about ourselves and our role in the world. Truth isn't nearly as important as is the oft-staged and contrived mythology of America saving the day. Why wouldn't we give the president the benefit of the doubt -- particularly when pundits tell us it's the all-American thing to do? The mantra is readily memorized: the foreign press habitually out-scoops the US media because they are "anti-American" and Americans aren't easily and readily duped, but merely enthusiastic and optimistic. Until one looks deeper, that is.
Remember the hyped aluminum tubes/Iraq nuclear program story that broke in September 2002? While the Guardian immediately reported, "White House exaggerating Iraqi threat," Paula Zahn towed a pro-administration line. Introducing former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, with a "we report, you decide," flair (after informing viewers that Ritter had waffled on his stance, and asking, "So, what do you think of Scott Ritter now?" before adding, "Well, he joins us from Baghdad and you can make your own assessment.") If that weren't leading enough, Zahn's interview with Ritter shows a "prefabricated set of interpretations:"
ZAHN: I want to have, hear your reaction to the whole range of Bush administration officials yesterday who essentially came out and have said that Saddam Hussein has been trying to obtain materials to build nuclear weapons, particularly trying to buy thousands of aluminum pipes that could be used in the manufacture of a centrifuge and ultimately used to manufacture weapons. What do you make of that?
RITTER: What an absurd statement. Thousands of aluminum pipes, and we're going to go to war over thousands of aluminum pipes? Even the ISS report that you cite says that if Iraq was to have trying to do uranium enrichment, it would take them many years before they could do it. This is patently ridiculous. These are aluminum pipes coming in for civilian use. They are not being transferred to a covert nuclear processing plant or any covert nuclear activity whatsoever.
But the best way to figure this out is to send the weapons inspectors in. If they, if the United States has this evidence that Iraq has these pipes, why not, heck, give me the data. I'll come to Iraq, hunt it down and we'll bring it to a close. That would save us going to war, killing thousands of people and destroying our reputation in the international community. We cannot go to war because Vice President Cheney's worried about some aluminum pipes. This is ridiculous.
ZAHN: But, Scott, why are you so convinced that these pipes would be used for civilian use when so many other people out there are absolutely convinced these pipes could ultimately be used to build a centrifuge? I mean that is true. These pipes could be used that way, right? [LINK]
A few days later, Zahn told Ritter "People out there are accusing you of drinking Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid." [LINK]
Of course, this is just a wee sampling of ways the media serves the White House's interests and ignores their role as guardians of the public trust. Countless claims about mushroom clouds and other dangers were issued unchallenged on various "news" chat shows [LINK] and snide comments about "drinking Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid," were matched by "conspiracy" claims which discredited other investigative attempts. With the media spotlight shining on Martha Stewart, for example, the unresolved George Bush/Harken scandal has resurfaced, and in this exchange with Paul Begala, Crossfire's Tucker Carlson shows exactly how it's done:
BAGALA: Well, home decorating mogul, Martha Stewart today, took out a full-page ad in "USA Today" to defend herself against charges of securities fraud. Stewart, a near billionaire, stands accused by the government of risking her liberty, her reputation and her vast fortune for a deal that netted her all of $45,000. Big whoop, I know an insider who dumped $850,000 of stock just before it collapsed, but the SEC let him go. They never interviewed him. They never interviewed CEO or a single director or single officer of the company. Some investigation, huh? Now, instead of doing time in the big house that man is doing time in the White House. As George W. Bush might say, it's a good thing.
CARLSON: The implication of what you just said is that the president ought to be in prison or could have gone to prison.
BEGALA: He should be out by now on work release.
CARLSON: But truly for insider trading, it's a completely outrageous allegation. Moreover, the idea that simply because Martha Stewart is rich, she didn't engage in insider trading, come on. How many examples can you think of rich people who, for very small sums of money, destroy themselves.
BEGALA: George W. Bush, for 850 grand got cleared without an investigation.
CARLSON: A mass conspiracy of the Justice Department?
Think about what you're saying. Think about what you're alleging.
BEGALA: The Security Exchange Commission cleared him was run by his father who was the president at the time.
CARLSON: So it's an a conspiracy, that's such outrageous thing to say.
BEGALA: It's an understated fact. His father was the president. The SEC did not interview anybody and then they cleared him, magically.
CARLSON: Jim Garrison here on CROSSFIRE. [LINK]
Of course, anyone who's been paying attention realizes Begala's comments are not outrageous [LINK], especially given that the general counsel for Bush #41's SEC was also Bush #43's personal attorney during his Texas Ranger deals. [LINK]. Though US News and World Report covered the Harken story in 1992, concluding that "George W. Bush has less in common with his father than with his younger brother Neil," in that they "also benefited from some questionable but less well-known business associations," it was essentially a non-issue during the 2000 election.
Recently, a group of Harvard University students uncovered further Harken outrages, which they deemed "certainly more significant than Whitewater," but few newspapers picked up on the story, and those that did, like the Wall Street Journal, downplayed Bush's role. "I think a big part of the story is a fear mainstream reporters have to deal with the consequences of information that would undermine their own current worldview about the president," Ian Simmons, Director Of The Citizen Research Network At Harvard University said. "If the story had the implication the president had been lying to the American people, it's a story that the mainstream reporters are not prepared to handle very well, I think. And in many cases, if they ran a story like that they would get ostracized by the White House." [LINK] Or, of course, they'd be ridiculed as "conspiracy theorists" by the so-called liberal media.
Simmons' group also covered the Enron saga, which Simmons asserted, "had a lot to do with manipulating the markets." How did politicians and the mainstream media react to this story? Before the release of internal Enron documents uncovering market rigging strategies nicknamed "Death Star," "Fat Boy" and "Get Shorty," Charles Krauthammer informed Washington Post readers that only "silly" Californians thought "that the rolling blackouts are a conspiracy by the power companies to raise rates" and Dick Cheney reported that, "We get politicians who want to go out and blame somebody and allege there is some kind of conspiracy, whether it's the oil companies or whoever it might be, instead of dealing with the real issues." Meanwhile, Idaho Senator Larry Craig called complaining Californian officials "conspiracy theorists" and Ken Lay told Nightline, "Every time there's a shortage or a little bit of a price spike, it's always collusion or conspiracy or something. I mean, it always makes people feel better that way."
As Joe Conason later reported, "Now we have seen proof, in memos written by Enron's own lawyers, that the West Coast energy crisis was exacerbated by the powermongers, perhaps by criminal means. Now we know about the trading schemes used by Enron to game the California system, even at the risk of dangerous blackouts. Now we are learning that deregulation permitted Enron, and apparently other firms, to "launder" electricity and falsify congestion on the power grid, in order to rob tens of billions of dollars from California consumers and businesses." [LINK]
But make no mistake, many Americans choose to believe the country's Krauthammers over its Conasons. For some reason, it seems, some don't want a watchdog press, but prefer a freshly-minted world in which George Bush (who acted more like Snidely Whiplash than an American Dudley Do-Right during his Texas Rangers stint [LINK]) is America's great protector -- despite ample evidence to the contrary.
So while John Dean mulls over whether or not Bush should be impeached [LINK], many are either unaware or unconcerned about a multitude of Bush sins. If polls are to be believed, most Americans don't care that he lied. It's not as if he misled us about something really serious, like sex with an intern, for God's sake. At this point, Dan Rather could report outright that thanks to Bush administration stonewalling, victims' families will never get a serious investigation into September 11; that John Ashcroft hopes to declare the Bill of Rights null and void; that the Iraq war has been planned since 1992; that many in the Bush administration are reaping huge profits from forever war; and that the White House tried to hide Halliburton's $7 billion in no-bid contracts and many Americans would shrug and wait for the next American Idol.
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology," author Michael Parenti wrote. It's all part of the duping of America, which has escalated steadily since November 2000, thanks to Katherine Harris, Database Technologies and the wind beneath Enron and Halliburton's wings [LINK]. While some have suggested that the government was willfully negligent before the September 11 attacks [LINK] and ex-CIA officials wonder if the Bush administration will plant WMDs in Iraq, [LINK], the truth is that Americans are rarely told the truth. [LINK]
It's clear that the Bush administration hyped the threat Iraq posed to the United States, [LINK] but did they also lie about how the number of American troops needed to win the peace? Did they fib about how long it will take? Or how much it will cost? And have they lied about how most Iraqis view this occupation? The attitude seems to be as long as it's someone else's kids in jeopardy, and Americans erroneously feel safer, why would anyone want to know?
Yet "somebody else's kids" are, in truth, our own, and they will pay dearly for our apathy and gullibility. History is a long line of actions, lies and consequences, and while most don't remember the Maine or the Gulf of Tonkin or even babies in incubators, each lie has changed America's course. This time around, we're being duped on domestic issues, too, [LINK], but as long as we can buy a new DVD, why complain?
"A strange feeling overtakes the British journalist in Washington these days as he chronicles the rebirth of the imperial presidency under George Bush. . . ." the Independent's Rupert Cornwall recently wrote. "Like many others in my trade, I was brought up to believe in the superiority of the American system, with its vaunted checks and balances. . . . What is so striking in America right now is the absence of accountability. The administration has led the country into an unprovoked war against a sovereign foreign state for reasons that were certainly overstated and quite possibly deliberately mendacious. It has mistreated detainees after Sept. 11 with a disregard for basic civil rights that worries the inspector general of Bush's own Justice Department. But look not to Capitol Hill for remedies. . . . National security, in whose name all is permitted, nothing has to be explained, and no one need provide a serious account of their behavior." [LINK]
And so it goes. Perhaps, as has been the pattern, US citizens will be as alarmed as Cornwall in eight or nine months. Or is the duping of America so complete that we simply don't want to wake up? I fear the latter, but sadly, this version of the America dream, based upon lies, myth and distortion, insures our children will inherit a nightmare.
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