Uppity Wisconsin

One of the lessons the Republicans seem to have learned during their "Reign of Terrorism" is that it really doesn't matter how bald-faced the lie is - if you just keep repeating it, even after it's been proved to be a lie, it becomes the truth.  At least in the minds of a lot of Americans.  

As one of many recent examples, note that although all of us who actually read the papers know that the story about China drilling off-shore in Cuba is a lie, it keeps coming up.  Most recently, John Gard is using this particular lie in his campaign against Steve Kagan. Let's take a peek at the ad, which seems to imply that we should move to Venezuela or Saudi Arabia to get cheap oil - not sure that's what he intended:

"Iran is in the eye of the storm," he says, noting that regional neighbor Pakistan and arch-foe Israel both have nuclear weapons, though neither are signatories like Iran of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "It is the duty of every government to equip itself to defend itself. Any state in Iran's position should go after the latest military technology."

Since the NIE report, US officials have raised the bar for Iran's compliance, insisting that Tehran acknowledge that it once had a nuclear weapons program. The new US intelligence described in the IAEA report includes designs for a 400-meter shaft for remotely testing explosives from six miles away, which "would be relevant" to weapons research."   excert from article by Scott Peterson

These are the very same tactics used by the US and Britian to eventually invade Iraq.  They constantly demanded more.  When orginal requests were satisfied, they implied, lied and demanded more compliance.  Basically, there wasn't a way for Iraq to comply since at each juncture the US and Britian would "raise the bar".

Sometimes as we struggle for justice and fairness we forget how truly unjust the unending suffering those of our nation's leadership have unleashed upon a mostly unsuspecting world (although not anymore).  If we are to consider that ALL people are just that, people...... only then will we conceive the horrors of the reality that is the American Empire.  The thirteen year sanctions upon the country of Iraq have caused suffering almost incomprehensible to most of us.  Felicity Arbuthnot in an open letter to Britian's Minister of State for International Development at Global Research writes:

"To illustrate the the iniquity, an acquaintance, in desperation, sent a supply if insulin, in a jiffy bag, to his diabetic brother in Baghdad, as none was available. It was returned by the Post Office as needing an export licence.His brother died before the license arrived. I myself was threatened by DFID with prosecution, for taking a year's supply of cancer treatment to a surgeon with cancer, who had worked here at the Hammersmith Hospital, a specialist in pediatric orthopedics, who had enabled numerous British children walk again, able to use their arms, straightened small bodies. Cancer treatments too, were vetoed by the United Nations Sanctions Committee.

Weird and skin-raising-yucky receiving the The New Republic Online's "This Week in Politics” e-mail June 14.

The New Republic’s e-mail includes an item entitled “Debatable” by the editors subtitled that “America doesn't need to hear from Mike Gravel.”

Mike Gravel, of-course, is the former Senator from Alaska who famously read into the congressional record the Pentagon Papers, that laid out the lies before and during the Vietnam War that ultimately cost some three million lives, and wreaks havoc even today on untold millions more, including 100,000s of Vietnam-era veterans whom the Veterans Administration is trying to shaft on VA beneits. That’s a bad thing, TNR.

Mal Contends

1999, June 5^th, then-Governor Bush on President Clinton and withdrawal of US forces, “I think it’s important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they would be withdrawn.”  

2007, May 1, now-President Bush on withdrawal of US forces, "Setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments," Bush said last night. "Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure." 

Bush's MO of fear and lies continues unabated.