You really don’t think that the steady stream of lies and innuendo from the Administration that Saddam was behind 9/11 had anything to do with shaping popular opinion?
You’re right that there was a predisposition among the people to believe it, but that only made their job easier; it didn’t initiate it. It wasn’t us and Congress looking for excuses; we and they believed what we were told by the people whose job and unique capabilities are to know it. The excuses were their lies.
This is one of the best summaries of the last six years and the mess we are currently in.
It’s our job to be critical of and cynical about the government. America, as a whole, fell down on this job. All segments. The press fell down on their job as watchdogs, the feds fell down on the job of responsibly leading the country and husbanding our wealth and our youth, Congress fell down on their job of being a deliberatory check on the Executive branch, and the American people fell down on the job of looking at the government with a jaundiced eye. The last six years happened because a majority of the country, in private life, in public life, in the Fourth Estate, decided that they were going to buy into the tough-guy-freedom-fighter fantasy that this Administration projected for us.
We have no one to blame but ourselves. That’s always the downside of a democracy…
Careful with that “we” word. It most certainly does not apply to the half of us who did exactly what you describe as our responsibilities as citizens, only to be derided by the other half for our lack of patriotism.
As is well documented, the pursuit of revenge always implicates moral compromise that with a clear head the parties would have rejected.
The war in Afghanistan was an attempt (from which W got easily distracted) to extirpate al Qaeda’s by destroying its head. That war had a clear objective and one that’s still defendable.
The war in Iraq was popular because Bush lied (you can quibble about the word ‘lie,’ but everything the congress and all Americans were presented with was based on intelligence already debunked).
Your characterization of the war in Afghanistan as random thirst for blood, as well as the characterization of the war in Iraq as something we chose with full information only because we were drunk with bloodlust, are dishonest.
“We” are the American people. For good or bad. And “we” elected George W. Bush. You can rail and scream and cry and explode all you want over it, but you can’t secede from the Union because you didn’t vote for the current president.
If you’re going to talk about “our” motives and characters as if we were all a homogeneous bloc, damn straight you need correcting about that.
Well, of course. What else would you expect from someone who hates freedom?
There is considerable evidence that “we” did not vote him into office in 2000 – the election was stolen. There’s evidence for the same having happened in 2004 too. So, do we get to secede or are we supposed to accept any piece of shit that can claim the Presidency by any means?
If you’re mistaking me for a right-wing pundit, I’m very amused.
Bup,
Perhaps the American people were just real stupid.
But, it doesn’t change anything of what I said.
We have the power, we abuse the power, we kill innocents, we destroy governments, install governments, and then we run away.
It’s disgusting even if it is only stupidity that does it. Or apathy. Or, as I think, a nearly psychotic level of self absorption.
We say we are making a “War on Terrorism.” That is a lie. You can’t make war on a tactic. We are making a war on anyone who we decide is a threat to whatever our power brokers decide is vital, or at least a little bit important, or maybe convenient to our national interests. And our national interests are not subject to review by anyone but those same power brokers. The American people elected these people. We have the power to remove them from office. The failure to do so makes us responsible for what has happened. Pretending that the CIA made a mistake and that makes it all OK is the lie. It is not OK. We are becoming the bad guys, and we may have already reached the point of no return.
We won’t even accept the responsibility of the murders done by our military. Not the war deaths, but the murders. Now we think the army is the best instrument to stop impoverished civilians from crossing our borders. There will be deaths from this. Everyone knows that there will be deaths because of the choice. And I predict that the deaths will be okay too. Not our fault, you see. Those people should have known better. No one wants to see the ugly nature of our national obsession with world leadership. Like our President, our Vice President, Our Congress, we, the people ourselves are not fit to lead the world. Isolationism is a good idea. Not good for us, particularly, but good for the rest of the world.
I encourage the rest of the world to politely invite us to go home, and stay there until we learn how to deal with people in a civilized way. That probably won’t work, but it will at least strip away the false veneer of “Leader of the Free World” that seems to entirely blind us to our leadership’s actual character.
Tris
Great post, Triskadecamus.