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Bush's New Lies

Comment by Larry Ross, December 27, 2006

Here are a few of Bush's new lies in Newsweek, a mainstream US weekly.

However the real continuing lies were not mentioned. Is this because Newsweek likes to pretend these old lies don't count, because so many people still believe them? Or are they too big and sensitive to mention.

The old lies are that the Bush regime planned a war on Iraq before 9/11, then tried to link Iraq to the 9/11 attack in order to get public support for a war on Iraq . There was no WMD, no links to Al Qaeda, no nuclear weapons programme . The war was based on a concoction of such lies. But Newsweek and other US mass media do not mention these fundamental and continuing lies. The war is portrayed as a valid, but mistaken, rather than one of the biggest frauds in US history. Newsweek would never admit that the American people are victims of a huge continuing fraud.

Whereas Newsweek have admitted the validity of the Lancet study which claimed 655,000 dead in Iraq due to the US war, the rest of the US media do not mention this astonishing figure. Instead, they quote about 50,000 Iraqi dead - the Administration's figure.

Another story downplayed in the media is that the US government employs 100,000 military contractors in Iraq - the largest contingent of civilians ever operating in a battlefield environment. 650 have died there.

A third downplayed, hardly mentioned story, was about America 's secret torture prisons, positioned in dictatorships friendly to the US around the world.

Not mentioned by Newsweek are the secret renditions, secret kidnapping of suspects, and the series of fascist-type laws which are converting the US into a de-facto dictatorship.

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Lies and Obfuscations
A look back at some of the biggest falsehoods of 2006.

By Eleanor Clift - Newsweek, December 26, 2006

In the spirit of holding our political leaders accountable, this year-end review will tabulate the worst lies told by Bush and company, along with several stories that were underreported in the media. Much of what was generated got lost in the fog of war, but the long arm of history will retrieve these moments. As the president said in his news conference this week, if they're still writing about No. 1 - George Washington - there's plenty of time before the historians can properly evaluate No. 43. Judging by the mess in Iraq, it could be 200 or 300 years - if ever - before Bush is vindicated.

Bush has shifted his rhetoric in deference to the grim and deteriorating reality on the ground in Iraq. Asked by a reporter on Oct. 25 if we are winning the war, Bush said, "Absolutely, we're winning." Offered the opportunity at his press conference to defend that statement, Bush has adopted a new formulation. He now says, "We're not winning, but we're not losing." That sounds like the definition of a quagmire.

Exploitation of the war gained Republicans seats in '02 and got Bush a second term in '04, but it wasn't enough in '06. Karl Rove decided the best way for Republicans to retain control of the House and Senate was to embrace the war in Iraq and run against the Democrats as "Defeatocrats" and "Cut and Runners." It might have worked, had not most Americans decided they did indeed want to cut and run. Not right away - the voters want an orderly exit - but they weren't buying Bush's big lie about the Democrats.

Bush campaigned this fall as though the Democrats were the real enemy, not the terrorists. "They [Democrats] think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we're attacked again?If you don't want your government listening in on terrorists, vote for the Democrats." Now that the Democrats have won, watch Bush try to off-load blame for the failure in Iraq. If the Democrats won't go along with whatever cockamamie scheme he comes up with, he can always accuse them of losing the warr.

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