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Tell Us Why We’re At War in Iraq Again, Mr. President
When I was a kid, three presidents told us we had to fight in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, because if we didn’t fight them over there, we’d have to fight them on the beaches of California. We believed. It was a lie.
I was a teenager during the Cold War, and several presidents told us we needed to create massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, garrison the world, invade Cuba, fight in odd little places and use the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators, or the Russians would destroy us. We believed. It was a lie.
When I was in college our president told us that we needed to fight in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua or the Sandinistas would come to the United States. He told us Managua was closer to Washington DC than LA was. He told us we needed to fight in Lebanon, Grenada and Libya to protect ourselves. We believed. It was a lie.
When I was a little older our president told us how evil Saddam Hussein was, how his soldiers bayoneted babies in Kuwait. He told us Saddam was a threat to America. He told us we needed to invade Panama to oust a dictator to protect America. We believed. It was a lie.
The next president told us we had to fight terrorists in Somalia, as well as bomb Iraq, to protect ourselves. We believed. It was a lie.
The one after him told us that because a group of Saudis from a group loosely tied to Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11, we needed to occupy that country and destroy the Taliban, who had not attacked us, for our own safety. The Taliban are still there. But we believed. It was a lie.
After that we were told that Saddam Hussein threatened every one of us with weapons of mass destruction, that the smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud, that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda. We believed. It was a lie.
In 2011 the president and his secretary of state told us we needed regime change in Libya, to protect us from an evil dictator. We believed. It was a lie.
In August 2014 the same president told us we needed to intervene again in Iraq, on a humanitarian mission to save the Yazidis. No boots on the ground, a simple act of humanness that only the United States could conduct, and then leave. We believed. It was a lie.
Now we are told by that same president that Americans will again fight on the ground in Iraq, and Syria, and that Americans have and will die. He says that this is necessary to protect us, because if we do not defeat Islamic State over there, they will come here, to what we now call without shame or irony The Homeland.
We want to believe, Mr. President. We want to know it is not a lie.
So please address us, explain why what you are doing in Iraq is different than everything listed above. Tell us why we should believe you — this time — because history says you lie.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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RICH BAUER said...
1We do it because we are addicted to it.
10/30/15 8:56 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
2I’m asked to donate to Wounded Warrior Project “where the most difficult part of their homecoming is adapting to the daily challenges of everyday life.” Becoming a warrior for empire means you clearly had difficulty adapting to normal everyday life before you volunteered. I never asked anyone to go fight over there to keep me safe here. Sadly I’m a teeny tiny minority in the homeland. I haven’t lied by man, that creep Obama has and all the POTUSes before him.
10/30/15 11:43 AM | Comment Link
RICH BAUER said...
3Peace will be a reality when we will never ask someone to fight a war we are not willing to fight ourselves.
10/30/15 12:49 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
4‘We want to believe, Mr. President. We want to know it is not a lie.”
Yeah, well get a load of this. To cover their ass after that Delta dude got whacked in Syria, “now” the….
“U.S. to deploy special forces to Syria in about-turn for Obama”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/30/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-idUSKCN0SO1VD20151030
This motherfucker can’t open his mouth without lying.
Like the axiom says..”if his lips are moving….”
10/30/15 1:11 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
5ps…Great post Peter.
10/30/15 1:12 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
6Obomber Lies, People Die.
10/30/15 1:57 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
7Obama’s “pants on fire” once again. Great article Peter. Thank you.
10/30/15 2:06 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
8Don’t bother voting for a POTUS in the next election. No aspirant would ever dare shut down the MICC and that includes the unlikely ones like Trump or Sanders. They wouldn’t want to engender a Depression on their watch. The waraholics have won.
10/30/15 6:21 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
9John, one year I wrote in MICkey Mouse!
10/30/15 6:35 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
10ok, sometimes you come across other sources which give a shot in the arm for what you’re thinking. For me, this one lines up the dominoes …
http://superstore.wnd.com/Welcome/Police-State-USA-How-Orwells-Nightmare-is-Becoming-our-Reality-Autographed-Hardcover
10/30/15 7:00 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
11Notwithstanding all the war bullshit, here is the final reality for the power’s that be wannabe’s control of the Surveillance State. Bill Binney is the ONLY one to put it into perspective.
quote”
Binney believes the NSA is now using its collected data to target Americans for their politics, including members of the tea party and the Occupy movement.”unquote
Add Judges, and heads of agencies, and you might get a glimpse of our future.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/nsa-architect-feds-wont-stop-spying-on-citizens/
10/30/15 7:14 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
12note to self.. if ever possible, put a bouquet of flowers on Senator Frank Church’s grave.
10/30/15 7:17 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
13I’m sorry, but this bears quoting. I missed it.
quote”Binney said he thinks everyone aware of NSA’s activities should be indicted, including members of current and previous administrations.”unquote
Holy fuck. Well, I guess that’s as clear as you can get. I just hope he doesn’t get “finished” by the CIA. His words are not much different than Anwar al-Awlaki.
10/30/15 8:34 PM | Comment Link
John Doran said...
14Great article, Mr. Van Buren, thank you.
Very neatly put.
For, IMHO, convincing background to the madness of the US in the 20th & 21st centuries, may I recommend
“Pawns in the Game”, by William Guy Carr.
A £20 paperback.
Carr, a WW II Canadian naval intelligence officer, spent 41 years researching why the world was not prospering, despite centuries of technical progress.
The answer in one word?
Banksters.
10/31/15 1:59 AM | Comment Link
Politicians Lie, And We Always Believe Them said...
15[…] read this piece this morning by Peter Van Buren, who outlines the well known lies we have been told over decades, and it reminded me of the vexing […]
10/31/15 8:10 AM | Comment Link
Les Jewmison said...
16My friend Ronnie Mumbles assures me that no planes hit the towers and whatnot.
I used to think this was garbage but now I am convinced.
Onward,Les
10/31/15 7:08 PM | Comment Link
WishIwasNotCynic said...
17Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/20/14975/finding-truth-935-lies-about-war-iraq
But seriously, you can’t blame the President(s) for lying. It’s not like they’re running the show. They have OWNERS as George Carlin put it:
https://youtu.be/ijyeCI-Z53k
See also John Perkins’ _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_ on YT. Copies of his book are available as pdf on the net.
11/1/15 5:18 PM | Comment Link
Walter Trout said...
18Sorry But I came of age during the Vietnam war, refused to believe the bullshit and was part of a vast number of people with the same view. You didn’t listen to us then and still don’t listen today. Wake up people! I never believed any of the other lies listed and that vast number of people I mentioned no longer seem to be available. Very sad for all of us.
11/2/15 8:47 AM | Comment Link