Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail. Our president and his administration were arrogant during the lead-up to the Iraq war in that they listened only to those who would tell them what they wanted to hear. They were ignorant in the lack of scholarship and due diligence they brought to the matter of how the invasion would be received by those being invaded. And they were incompetent at almost every level in the execution of the war and its aftermath. What the political commentator Bill Maher described last year as "fuck-up fatigue" in regard to this administration has moved to the next stage. Around our kitchen table—and I suspect yours—the current stage is outrage fatigue, a simmering frustration and anger over what this administration has done in our good name. It begins at the top, of course, with a president who is now perceived beyond our shores to be one of the most dangerous men in the world. Indeed, many Americans have a similar opinion of him. We have our secretive, power-mad vice president, who can't decide whether he is part of the executive branch of government or the legislative branch. The president—now with one of the lowest approval ratings of any U.S. leader ever—has dangerously isolated us from the rest of the world. We have the beginnings of a new Cold War with the Russians. We are out of favor in South America, never mind the Arab world. The French and the Germans don't have much time for our opinions—although they will take our money. A majority of our English-language confederates in Britain, Canada, and Australia think the invasion was a horrible mistake. And Americans themselves are weary of the constant fearmongering, the gut feelings of impending doom, and the absence of any advance in the true war on terror—the one against al-Qaeda along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
[From Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse
by Graydon Carter
VANITY FAIR
September 2007]
Graydon Carter is the editor of VANITY FAIR
His books include What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Knopf).
Tell a lie over and over and that lie appears to be true.
The Bush administration attempted---and succeeded---with one of the most effective campaigns of propaganda in history.
Bush does not equal Hitler.
But Bush does equal deception and dishonor.
And this American president's Iraq war was conceived with falsehoods that were able to conquer and control the Fourth Estate.
Almost all of us were deceived.
Almost all of us bought it.
The American people and the world now know the truth.
The Republicans---and now subservient Democrats---were the willing and unwavering patsies of Bush.
They permit his lies to remain unaccounted for and uninvestigated
(Oooh no...can't have political and partisan oversight right now... there's a war going on...and an election is coming!)
What to do about the war in Iraq has more clarity (but without a solution) than what to do about why and how that war was engendered.
Americans whose memory lasts for only about a fortnight should watch Bill Moyer's documentary Buying the War and/or read its script.
Then become sick and angry at what has been done to them and the Iraqi people.
By Mad Plato
The Washington Post editorialized in favor of the war 27 times, and published in 2002 about 1,000 articles and columns on the war. But the Post gave a huge anti-war march a total of 36 words. "What got even less ink," Moyers says, "was the release of the National Intelligence Estimate."
What comes out of watching this show is a powerful realization that no investigation is needed by Congress, just as no hidden information was needed for the media to get the story right in the first place. The claims that the White House made were not honest mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors.
By David Swanson
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-04-16 14:28:
The Nazi's launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Poland, on 09/01/39. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and was the catlyst for WWII.
The Bush Regime launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Iraq, on March 20, 2003. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and could be the catlyst for WWIII or at least a regional conflict in the Mideast.
After a real "Coalition of the Willing" defeated the Nazi's in 1945, the German's responsible for that invasion were tried at Nuremburg, Germany. One of the charges they were convicted on was that Germany had launched an illegal, agressive war against a sovereign state, Poland. Several were executed and other sent to prison.
When Bush claims that his war is like WWII guess he might have a point after all, except for the trial part that is.
[From Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse
by Graydon Carter
VANITY FAIR
September 2007]
Graydon Carter is the editor of VANITY FAIR
His books include What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Knopf).
Tell a lie over and over and that lie appears to be true.
The Bush administration attempted---and succeeded---with one of the most effective campaigns of propaganda in history.
Bush does not equal Hitler.
But Bush does equal deception and dishonor.
And this American president's Iraq war was conceived with falsehoods that were able to conquer and control the Fourth Estate.
Almost all of us were deceived.
Almost all of us bought it.
The American people and the world now know the truth.
The Republicans---and now subservient Democrats---were the willing and unwavering patsies of Bush.
They permit his lies to remain unaccounted for and uninvestigated
(Oooh no...can't have political and partisan oversight right now... there's a war going on...and an election is coming!)
What to do about the war in Iraq has more clarity (but without a solution) than what to do about why and how that war was engendered.
Americans whose memory lasts for only about a fortnight should watch Bill Moyer's documentary Buying the War and/or read its script.
Then become sick and angry at what has been done to them and the Iraqi people.
By Mad Plato
The Washington Post editorialized in favor of the war 27 times, and published in 2002 about 1,000 articles and columns on the war. But the Post gave a huge anti-war march a total of 36 words. "What got even less ink," Moyers says, "was the release of the National Intelligence Estimate."
What comes out of watching this show is a powerful realization that no investigation is needed by Congress, just as no hidden information was needed for the media to get the story right in the first place. The claims that the White House made were not honest mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors.
By David Swanson
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-04-16 14:28:
The Nazi's launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Poland, on 09/01/39. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and was the catlyst for WWII.
The Bush Regime launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Iraq, on March 20, 2003. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and could be the catlyst for WWIII or at least a regional conflict in the Mideast.
After a real "Coalition of the Willing" defeated the Nazi's in 1945, the German's responsible for that invasion were tried at Nuremburg, Germany. One of the charges they were convicted on was that Germany had launched an illegal, agressive war against a sovereign state, Poland. Several were executed and other sent to prison.
When Bush claims that his war is like WWII guess he might have a point after all, except for the trial part that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment