... over and over and over and over ...
By Winter Patriot on 11/16/2005, 7:52pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

If it feels like 1984, that's because it is. We're 21 years late but we're there all the same. The Ministry of Information is busy changing our past. Fiction has become the news. And Truth has become an enemy of the state.

Whether you measure by severity or frequency, it's clear that the falsification of our national history has recently reached an all-time high. Bush's declaration that we don't torture was a clear sign that the truth is definitely behind us now, and his assertion that his opponents are rewriting history raises the level of absurdity to a level one would prefer to call unimaginable.

The propaganda that has been catapulted lately --- like all good propaganda --- contains almost enough truth to make it somewhat slightly plausible. For example, the CIA has from time to time acted as a rogue agency, Congress did vote to grant Bush the power to do something to Iraq; and Bush may have believed some of what he was saying about Iraq before he started the war. So the lies are not totally false, and we can't dismiss them entirely. We have to pick them apart very carefully, in order to show that, even though said claims do contain an occasional nugget of half-truth, the claims themselves are overwhelming false.

It's hard work! ;-)

And in the meantime, like all good propagandists, the White House Spin Machine has a vast assortment of Spinnerettes at its disposal. [And make no mistake, the Spinnerettes are definitely disposable!] The Spinnerettes keep repeating the lies, over and over and over, generating an ocean of falsehood that comes at us in wave after wave after wave, until most of us must struggle to discern what is true and what is false.

Of course the wise men among us have no such trouble. So it's always a good idea to read Robert Parry, and his newest column, in my opinion, is one of his best.

Here's a sample [with emphasis added]:

In essence, Bush's argument is that he didn't lie the nation into war; he and his top aides were just misled by the same faulty intelligence that Congress saw. Plus, they say independent commissions already have cleared Bush of hyping the evidence.

However, as a Washington Post analysis politely observed in response to those two arguments, “neither assertion is wholly accurate.”

The White House sees far more detailed intelligence than what is shared with Congress, which found itself depending on a CIA-compiled National Intelligence Estimate that downplayed or left out objections to key pro-war assertions, the Post wrote.

The Post article also noted that neither the Senate Intelligence Committee nor a Bush-appointed commission, headed by retired Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb, gave much attention to how the intelligence was used – or misused – addressing instead how it was produced. [Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2005]

Kaboom! Game, set and match!

What's that? You want another game?

OK, then. Let's play another game.

This time let's play It's Not Really Lying If You Believe What You're Saying:

[P]erhaps the strongest evidence of Bush's proclivity to lie about Iraq came after the invasion, when he began falsifying the record – rewriting history – with claims that Saddam Hussein had barred U.N. weapons inspectors from entering Iraq. Hussein's “defiance” supposedly left Bush no choice but to invade.

So, while it may be impossible to divine whether Bush really believed that Hussein had WMD stockpiles, it is undeniable that Bush knew that his assertion about Hussein barring U.N. inspectors was false. The inspectors returned to Iraq in November 2002 and remained until they were forced out by Bush in March 2003 to let the invasion proceed.

Yet, despite this well-known historical record, Bush began altering the history within a few months of the invasion, just as his other claims about Iraq's WMD programs and its collaboration with al-Qaeda terrorists were falling apart.

On July 14, 2003, Bush said about Hussein, “we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.”

This in itself is all the evidence you need to shut down this administration forever, in my opinion. But don't take my word for it. Read the whole column and make up your own mind.

WARNING: This thread may prove hazardous to trolls! ;-)

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