Exposing Bush and His "Techniques of Deceit"
Dennis Hans, Scoop.co.nz, 10 February 2003

President George W. Bush and his foreign-policy team have systematically and knowingly deceived the American people in order to gain support for an unprovoked attack on Iraq.

Before I catalog the Bush administration’s “Techniques of Deceit,” let me acknowledge that no U.N. resolution requires the president to be honest with the American people. The fine print of Resolution 1441 imposes no obligation to treat Americans as citizens to be informed rather than suckers to be conned. He may mislead, distort, suppress, exaggerate and lie to his heart’s content without violating a single sentence in 1441.

So if compliance with 1441 is all that matters to you, read no further. Turn on the TV and tune in Brokaw, Rather, Jennings, Blitzer or Lehrer, to name five of the journalistic imposters who control what you hear and see, who seem psychologically incapable of conceiving of Bush as a liar, and who wouldn’t have the guts to call him one even if they reached that conclusion.

But if you are an American citizen who believes in the bedrock democratic principle of “the informed consent of the governed,” read on.

Why lie?

The president and many of his top advisers have wanted to invade and overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein for a long time. But they knew they couldn’t sell such a war against Iraq to a majority of Americans and a majority in both houses of Congress if they acknowledged just how pitifully weak and unthreatening Iraq really is. If, however, the administration could portray Iraq as an imminent, mortal threat to the United States — and even a shadowy accomplice in the terrorist attacks of 9-11 — then a majority of the population might come to see an invasion of Iraq not as unprovoked U.S. aggression but as a wholly justified response to what Iraq did to us. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:55 pm