removing America's blinders

[welshTerrier2]

let us stop the war in Iraq and the war in Iran ... that's all ... stop wasting time explaining that it's bush's war (i don't disagree) and demand that Democrats fight as hard as they possibly can to stop it NOW ... stop talking about regional diplomacy or about the wars' (plural) impact on the '06 elections and just plain fight to stop them ... bush lied to get us into this war; he still lies to keep it going ... too many seem to believe something positive can still be achieved ...

Howard Zinn's editorial today was truly stunning ... war after war after war has been waged with the blood and treasure of the poor to serve the greedy interests of the rich ... will we ever learn this? will we believe this evil tyrant or that one is the next great threat to our nation? we have met the enemy and they are are us ...

here's what Mr. Zinn had to say about learning the lessons of war ... i hope you take the time to read the entire editorial and even the responses to it ...

source: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/34984/

If Americans were more aware of how often our leaders have lied in order to wage war, would anyone have believed this president's justifications for attacking Iraq? <skip>

But if we know some history, if we know how many times Presidents have made similar declarations to the country, and how they turned out to be lies, we will not be fooled. Although some of us may pride ourselves that we were never fooled, we still might accept as our civic duty the responsibility to buttress our fellow citizens against the mendacity of our high officials.

We would remind whoever we can that President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn't that Mexico "shed American blood upon the American soil," but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.

We would point out that President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that we really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to "civilize" the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.

President Woodrow Wilson -- so often characterized in our history books as an "idealist" -- lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to "make the world safe for democracy," when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.

Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was "a military target."

Everyone lied about Vietnam -- Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanting to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.

Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.

The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country.

And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991-- hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait (can one imagine Bush heartstricken over Iraq's taking of Kuwait?), rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.

Given the overwhelming record of lies told to justify wars, how could anyone listening to the younger Bush believe him as he laid out the reasons for invading Iraq? Would we not instinctively rebel against the sacrifice of lives for oil? <skip>

[tenshi816]

1. "war after war after war has been waged

with the blood and treasure of the poor to serve the greedy interests of the rich"

Beautifully, succinctly put. One sentence that sums it all up perfectly.

[welshTerrier2]

2. and now down the rat hole into Iran

and even Democrats, even liberal Democrats, make the argument that this time, the cause for war is real ... and they think themselves sensitive to the horrors of war because they counsel "sanctions" as a prelude to it ... they see themselves as progressives because they want to "give diplomacy a try first" ...

but even in these measures, there remains the underlying belief that war may be ultimately necessary because the case against Iran is legitimate ... these so-called liberals offer us only more cautious tactics but fail to question the underlying lies and the greedy motivations of those who promote war and profit by it ...

it is inconceivable after all we should have learned from history, that we continue this folly ...

[bdamomma]

3. I would not take this article as propaganda

why would anyone want to think this article as propaganda, we have proved ourselves in history not to be very trustworthy, we were the only ones who dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, and Iraq.