Tuesday, April 8, 2008

"Elections" Have Consequences

Remember: They Are Liars By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Columnist
Tuesday 08 April 2008
___________________________

No one is such a liar as the indignant man.- Friedrich Nietzsche
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, along with a slew of administration underlings and a revolving-door cavalcade of brass hats from the Pentagon, have been making claims regarding Iraq for many years now.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, "enough to kill several million people," according to a page on the White House web site titled Disarm Saddam Hussein.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 500 tons, which equals 1,000,000 pounds, of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of nearly 30,000 munitions capable of delivering these agents.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of several mobile biological weapons labs.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was operating an "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq had been seeking "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa for use in this "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons."
They lied.
They claimed America needed to invade, overthrow and occupy Iraq in order to remove this menace from our world. "It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country," went the White House line, "to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."
They lied.
"Simply stated," said Dick Cheney in August of 2002, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Liar.
"Right now," said George W. Bush in September of 2002, "Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of nuclear weapons."
Liar.
"We know for a fact," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in January of 2003, "that there are weapons there."
Liar.
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction," said Colin Powell in February of 2003, "is determined to make more."
Liar.
"We know where they are," said Donald Rumsfeld in March of 2003. "They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, south, west and north somewhat."
Liar.
"The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about," said Paul Wolfowitz in March of 2003. "Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."
Liar.
"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were," said Condoleezza Rice in June of 2003, "where they were stored."
Liar.
"I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country," said Gen. Tommy Franks in April of 2003. "Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure."
Wrong.
"Before the war," said Gen. Michael Hagee in May of 2003, "there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."
Wrong.
"Given time," said Gen. Richard Myers in May of 2003, "given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."
Wrong.
"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do," said Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton in May of 2003, "because I think there's a lot of information out there."
Wrong.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, is about to give testimony before the Senate regarding the current state of affairs in that battle-savaged country. He is a political general, one of many America has seen and heard over the last five years, one who would leap nude from the Capitol dome before telling the real truth about matters in Iraq ... or who would speak using words fed to him by liars, and thus be wrong.
Remember: they lie. They all lie, from the top man down to the bottom. If their lips are moving, a lie is unfolding. If they say water is wet, get into the shower to make sure.
They lie.
Period.
End of file.


Gonder's note: Remember their lies have now cost 4,026 dead U.S. soldiers, at least 30,000 maimed and wounded and untold numbers of Iraqi citizens killed.

Question for the Little Mind: How do you sleep at night?

6 comments:

shirley baird said...

Great article. It is obvious that you have done your research.

John Gonder said...

It is a good article. I hope you didn't overlook the author of it: William Rivers Pitt. His work often appears on Truthout.org along with many other interesting and informative writers.

John Manzo said...

Increasingly I'm aware of the fact that John McCain and Hillary Clinton both drank the Kool-Aid on this war. Phil Donahue has done a documentary on this and he has shown clips of speeches on the faux Senate debate leading up to it. The most damning evidence was their own words...

John Gonder said...

The most worrisome aspect of where we are and how we got here, for me, is the complaisant demeanor of the American people.

The Constitution has been abrogated. Our highest officials have knowingly and openly lied. Young Americans are dying or suffering tragic lifelong wounds because of the lies. Some estimates place the number of Iraqis, also known as fellow human beings, we killed at about one million.

All this and much, much, more goes on right under our noses and we proceed through our lives as though nothing's wrong.

Beyond being serial liars, most of the Bush foreign-policy team members should be labeled as what they truly are: war criminals and fascists.

Look in any city in the land. Where are the people protesting the loss of democracy?

Look into the future. Can you see Americans putting down the remote long enough to take back their country?

G Coyle said...

A country of mind-less consumers is exactly what the political elite hopes for, and has received. TV, sports, drugs, we produce more mind-numbing product and therefore, numbed-out people, than anything. There should be a new index on Wall St we can invest in, maybe call it the Dumb Industrial Average?

John Gonder said...

g.coyle:
Short selling in that market would be particularly problematic.

In the futures pit don't count on the long term prospects for Democracy.