Wednesday, July 13, 2005

A Truly Myopic Society

Although politicians can be expected to use falsehoods and misstatements in pursuit of their agendas, the current administration of George W. Bush has been found to be particularly egregious in this regard. The lies in the case of the war against Iraq and subsequent occupation are monumental and have had extreme and deadly consequences. There are many examples I can cite. Some of the most important are:
• Iraq was directly involved in the Sept 11 attack
• Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
• Iraq was actively involved in the development of nuclear weapons
• We are bringing democracy to Iraq and this is the reason why we are there. This lie is particularly heinous given the orders promulgated by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under the aegis of Paul Bremer. These orders clearly show the real reasons for our presence in this country. Orders No. 39 and Order No. 81 are particularly informative and are a matter of public record
• The attack on our soil on September 11 had nothing at all to due with our policies and behavior in regards to the Middle East especially our unwavering support of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the First Gulf War. This first war left hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, many areas of the country contaminated with depleted uranium and a devastated infrastructure and harsh economic sanctions that ultimately was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

I have wondered why the American population seems to be especially susceptible to these outrageous lies and falsehoods that have had such profound ramifications. In many regards, the society is delusional, and prefers to see its country in ways that are not supported by real events. How is this possible? I think the underlying reason for this failure to distinguish truth from fiction is the fact that many Americans do not read to discover the truth for themselves. They, therefore, have no real body of knowledge upon which to base reasoned judgments of their own. The powerful depend upon and exploit this collective ignorance for their advantage.

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