-Caveat Lector-
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer4mar04,1,6834172.column
Bush Pushes the Big Lie Toward the Brink
We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such
systematic
manipulation of the American people, since the war in Vietnam,
- John Brady Kiesling
By Robert Scheer
Even some in government can no longer be silent in the face of falsehood.
So the truth is out: George W. Bush lied when he claimed to be worried
about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, Iraq's
stepped-up cooperation with the U.N. on disarmament would be stunningly
good news, obviating the need to rush to war.
Instead, the U.N. weapons inspectors' verification of Iraq's destruction
of missiles, private meetings with Iraqi weapons scientists, visits to
locations where biological and chemical weapons were destroyed in 1991
and a series of unfettered flights by U2 spy plans have been met with a
shrug and sneer in Washington. The White House line is that even if the
Iraqis destroy all their slingshots, Goliath is still bringing his tanks
and instituting regime change. The arrogance is breathtaking. We have
demanded that a country disarm -- and even as it is doing so, we say it
doesn't matter: it's too late; we're coming in. Put down your guns and
await the slaughter.
Abraham Lincoln once observed that even a free people can be fooled for a
time -- and this, mind you, was long before Fox News existed -- and in
his chaotic two-year presidency, Bush has pushed the Big Lie approach so
far that we are seeing dramatic signs of its cracking: an international
backlash, a domestic peace movement and whistle-blowing from inside our
own intelligence and diplomatic corps.
We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such
systematic manipulation of the American people, since the war in
Vietnam, wrote John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year veteran of the U.S.
Foreign Service in his letter of resignation last week to Secretary of
State Colin Powell. Kiesling, who was political counselor in U.S.
embassies throughout the Mideast, added that until this administration,
it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my
president, I was also upholding the interests of the American people and
the world. I believe it no longer.
And this brave man is not the only one who has caught on. The entire
world is astonished that our president is lying not about a personal
indiscretion but about the most sacred duty of the leader of the most
powerful nation in human history not to recklessly endanger the lives of
his own or the world's people. Yet lie he has.
The first lie, claimed outright, was that Iraq aided and abetted the
Sept. 11 terrorists. There is no evidence at all for this claim. It is
also interesting to note that not a single leading Al Qaeda operative has
turned out to be Iraqi. The latest to be nabbed, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
was living in Pakistan, was raised in Kuwait and studied engineering --
and presumably the physics of explosives -- at a college in North
Carolina.
The second lie was that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction
represent an imminent threat to U.S. security. Despite the most hugely
expensive but secret high-tech spy operation in human history --
estimated by most at well over $100 billion a year -- and a vast network
of defectors and spies, we have not been able to find their supposed
weapons.
The third and most dangerous lie is that our mission now is to bring
lasting peace to the Mideast by a devastating invasion of Iraq, which
will end, as the president outlined last week, in U.S. dominance over the
structure of government and politics throughout the region. After
abandoning promising efforts by the previous administration to create
peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the Bush team now claims that
changing Muslim governments around the world will end the downward spiral
of violence there. Which leads us to another lie: that this is all good
for our ally, Israel -- the claim of the cabal of neoconservative
ideologues running our Mideast policy. In fact, however, Israel will be
placed in a terribly dangerous position, serving as a fig leaf for U.S.
ambitions, further ensuring that it remain forever an isolated military
garrison.
This construction of a new world order comes from a naive and untraveled
president, emboldened in his ignorance by advisors who have been plotting
an aggressive Pax Americana ever since the Soviet bloc's collapse.
Bush insiders Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz
and Donald Rumsfeld are all members of something called the Project for a
New American Century that has been pushing for a U.S. redesign of the
Mideast since 1997. After Sept. 11, they seized on our national tragedy
as a way to enlist George W. in support of their grand design. Not only
was this reckless scheme never mentioned by Bush during the
