As any successful dissembler knows, the only way to get away with telling a lie is to repeat it. By repeating it, by virtue of repetition, the lie becomes to the liar “the truth”. One cannot hope to fool a lie detector if what one is saying is a lie. The only possibility of appearing truthful is to BELIEVE with all your heart that your lie is the truth.
What’s all this about lying and the truth and believing your lie? Iraq, obviously. “Iraq has WMDs.” “Iraq is working with al Qaeda.” “Iraq will greet US troops as liberators.” “The Iraqi insurgency is in its final throes.” “There is no civil war in Iraq.” If any of these statements look familiar to you, it is because they are the lies of our times. These pieces of falsehood, misinformation, and outright untruths will be recorded in history for all future generations to see and judge. That so many of the individuals that tell these lies dismiss history as the ultimate arbitor of truth only goes to show what disregard they have for honesty and intergrity. Donald Rumsfeld must think that every future citizen of Earth will be as dumb as the average FOX News viewer when he talks about national security and America’s full military strength the way he does. Good luck with that, Donny.
What’s important in the endgame of playing out this lie is the characters. After all, it’s unseemly for a President to be constantly defending something he decided to do three years ago. When the President is required for other, newer lies, then you need to change the cast. Heck, why not, it’s worked for ER and Law & Order for decades now. So that is why, while his countrymen fight and die on a daily basis and he’s enjoying meals at the White House, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki stood before Congress today and told them that Iraq is the front line in the war on terror. Now, it says something about a country and its leader when the prime minister LEAVES HIS COUNTRY during a time of increasingly violent activity nationwide to go and beg for money from the country that invaded his land. What does it say, you might ask? I don’t know for certain, but the phrase “puppet regime” certainly comes to mind.
Americans have heard it all from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. They’re so used to the lies that they barely listen to them anymore. That’s why it’s so important to have newer, fresher faces working to keep this lie alive. Because for all the wrongs in America, that’s the standard operatin procedure to remove the blaims from ourselves. Americans use cocaine? Columbia is the front line in the War on Drugs, because expecting people to follow the law here is just outrageous. Americans live in poverty? Free trade negotiations with South America and China are the front lines in the War on Poverty, because allowing American companies to skip paying American workers a decent wage by outsourcing all their work to Asia is the only way to make Americans less poor. (The trade-off is that poor Americans who can’t find work can’t afford to eat, so they starve to death, die, and *voila* less poor people, apparently.) And now Iraq is the front line in the War on Terror.
Just because someone says it doesn’t make it true.
ISRAEL!!!!!
It’s the name on the tip of everyone’s tongue, as it becomes the uncontrollable nation who’s lust for “security” ushers us into the third world war. In a stunning display of overcompensation, Israel has responded to the kidnapping of its soldiers with two lopsided revenge battleplans. The first is to continue to destroy the Palestinian infrastructure and thus deny a people of refugees any chance of a future. This is a cycle of behavior that has perpetuated itself for decades now. In response to a people that would stand up to the Jewish state and demand what is rightfully theirs, Israel says “Take that!” and simply blows up another school, or a manufacturing plant, or government offices. Advanced notice so as to allow for the evacuation of civilians is what passes for just and humane treatment by Israel. Never mind the fact that all citizens in the area are now left without a functioning school, or plant, or office. Now the same tactic will be applied in Lebanon for the same reasons, and an entire society will bear the brunt of Israel’s distemper.
As I check in at the Huffington Post, I see more and more castigation of my anti-war and anti-death stance, as it applies to Israel, being labeled outright anti-Semitism by one Alan Dershowitz. He makes his point in blogs like this one and this one, making it clear that to him, you’re either with Israel or against it. He even gets support in his hypocrisy from the United State’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, who obviously thinks of Israelis as the new superior race. Wow, Alan, what a simple world you live in. How did you end up in such a stark realm of black and white? Because while Alan Dershowitz rants about policies like pre-emption and targeted killings being vital tools of democracy, Israel is continuing to exhibit some very un-democratic behavior. Imagine that, America’s Golden Child of the Middle East, the nation that is supposed to inspire the Arabs of the region to “embrace democracy”, well, it’s really not much better for freedom than Communist China. After all, by controlling what can and can’t be told, how exactly is Israel fostering the free and independent press that is the backbone of any free society or civilization?
I wish I wasn’t forced into a question of “Is Israel completely right or completely wrong?” by some of these pundits and opinionators. I absolutely respect a country’s right to safety for its citizens and peace of mind that an all-out assault by every power in the region isn’t going to occur at any minute. But those rights and securities come with the conditions that what you expect, you also exhibit, and what you put forth, returns upon you as well. So while Israel is bulldozing Palestinian houses, destroying offices and other facilities, and sending troops in to quell resistance, I can’t help but wonder how they can look at the international community with a straight face and say “We do this because we must, to protect ourselves.” My advice to Israel is that peace is best achieved through peace, not war. Perhaps if Israel sent construction workers and contractors into the Gaza Strip and West Bank instead of soldiers, tanks, and armed helicopters that shoot missiles at cars and houses with children in them, the response from the Palestinians might be a LOT different. In the meantime, until it stops showing signs of being like a kid who’s been bullied so much that he becomes a bully himself, I cannot and will not support Israel and it’s wars of vengeance. This is not a statement or post in favor of Hamas, or Hezbollah, or other Arab terror organizations instead of support for democracy. This is my post, about justice and accountability, and whether or not Israel is demonstrating enough of a commitment to true democracy and peaceful existence to warrant my support for it as a nation.