Further proof of the gullibility and questionable integrity of the warmongering American public is the continued credibility assigned to the Government and the media propaganda network. It is as if Americans grasp lies so firmly, in order to maintain false self esteem, that they just cannot perceive nor accept the truth.
This has been going on for many months in connection with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Americans were told that Weapons of Mass Destruction existed in Iraq, and as soon as the detection teams arrived on scene, the weapons would be found. We are still waiting for the weapons to be found.
Americans were told that when Baghdad fell, the resistance would crumble. Baghdad fell, and we are still waiting for the resistance to crumble.
We were told that when Saddam Hussein’s sons were killed or captured, the resistance would crumble, as those sons were the keys to the resistance of the "Fedayeen Saddam". The sons were both killed, and we are still waiting for the resistance to crumble.
We were also told that if Saddam Hussein was killed or captured, the Iraqi people and the Baathist supporters of Hussein would know that his government would never return to power. Thus, we were told, the resistance would crumble and support a new American-dominated Iraq. Saddam Hussein was captured and we are still waiting for resistance to crumble. We do see Iraqis marching the streets of Tikrit this week with large signs bearing the image of Saddam Hussein, suggesting that some would actually prefer his return to power over the American-vetted government that only feels secure in the American-protected Green Zone.
We have been told for many, many months that Iraqi security forces were being trained, and when they were ready, the country could be turned over to its own security. Tens of thousands of men have been trained, perhaps hundreds of thousands of security forces have been trained, but there is no end in sight to the American occupation, and permanent American military bases are under construction.
Rumsfeld has been wrong far more often than he has been right. Bush has never accepted responsibility for his errors. With the expenditure of all those tens and hundreds of billions of dollars for subduing Iraqi resistance, neither Bush nor Rumsfeld nor Cheney would dare take a five-minute walk in Baghdad, even in the Green Zone.
The Bush junta is pulling strings in Baghdad and in Washington, with a compliant press corps who has completely forgotten the art of verification and healthy suspicion of facts and motives. The American public has largely accepted the lies and the deflections with a lazy gullibility that continues even as the stage is being set for further removal of American civil liberties and installation of a Police State.
Before our very eyes, those who are not wearing blinders or filters are seeing the unraveling of the America that we claim to defend, but which increasingly does not exist. The Baghdad-ification of Newark and St. Louis and Austin will require military personnel to permanently monitor the U.S. public, and dissident Americans will be stashed away in American Abu Graibs. Nazi-like signs "Arbeit Macht Frei" will remind the American people to shut up and do their jobs and enjoy the "freedom" of the heavily supervised.
And the American experiment in democracy will have proved to be short-lived.
