Lies Our Leaders Told Us

The Viet Nam War went into high gear after the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the second Iraq War was based on claims about weapons of mass destruction.  The ends justify the means.

There needs to be a debate about going back into Iraq about our objectives, the potential outcome of creating more terrorists, making sure we are not just doing the dirty work in a war that looks like a civil war and religious struggle between Sunnis and Shiites.

Politicians, captains of industry, and their zealous aides too often resemble circus barkers, shilling for attention and advantage, with little regard for accuracy or veracity, using the press and the news media not to enlighten but to bamboozle the public in pursuit of votes, profits and power. When necessary, they even employ the wiles of deception to conceal, disguise, or justify unseemly and sometimes outright criminal behavior. As George Orwell wrote, in words that still ring true more than half a century after they were written, “Political speech and writing are largely the defence [sic] of the indefensible . . . Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”[3]