Critical Analysis
Whatever Happened to Peace On Earth?,
Axis of Logic Editorial, January 3, 2004
By Sheila Samples, Axis of Logic
Contributing Editor - Jan 3, 2004, 01:33
We believe everything that they tell us.
They're gonna' kill us!
So we gotta' kill them first.
But
I remember a commandment --
Thou shall
not kill.
How much is that soldier's life
worth --
And whatever happened to peace
on earth?
And the bewildered herd is
still believing
Everything we've been
told from our birth.
Hell, they won't lie
to me --
Not on my own damn
TV!
But how much is a liar's word worth
--
And whatever happened to peace on
earth?
~~Country music's Willie Nelson, in his Christmas 2003 song,
"Whatever
Happened to Peace on Earth?"
How much IS a liar's word worth? Will Americans --
and there's no more
bewildered herd anywhere to be found --
ultimately count the lies told by
their president, by the deranged warmongers
who crowd around him and, more
important, by the insidious, complicit media?
When Americans are forced to
tally up the cost of these lies, will they measure
their worth in tax
dollars, in loss of freedoms, or in body bags?
How many lies are you willing to bid for just one US soldier on war's auction
block?
Even in a deranged society such as ours whose media is bewitched by
its ruler's
ghoulish delusions, there must come a point at which Americans
are bewildered no more
and will turn as one and thunder -- Enough! No More
Lies!
A Fall from Grace
The sound of the media's fall from grace has been deafening, but in the US
population forest,
few will admit they heard it. Later, when the bodies of
slain soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base
can be hidden no longer --
when the dike breaks and the reality of a US foreign policy of torture,
assassination and senseless slaughter of innocents based solely on lies
washes over the herd --
there will be those who wail in anguish that they
are innocent. They'll say we were uninformed by the administration.
We were
misinformed by the media. We were lied to by everyone. It's the media's
fault. Don't blame us for the dead,
the maimed, the destroyed -- blame
George Bush. He lied to us.
Yes, but the lies aren't secret. They're out there for all to see. Google
"George Bush lies for war."
In 20 seconds, there's 1,170,000 to wade
through. Richard Cheney's lies for war, although just as deadly,
number only
59,500, but burgeons to 83,900 when he's a "Dick." Of course, this doesn't mean
that Bush and Cheney
have told more than a million lies to drag the world
into war; simply that the lies they have told are documented
and easily
accessed. It means that Americans have no valid excuse for feigning ignorance,
for accepting further
death and destruction, or for continuing to march in
lockstep to the drums of war.
There is no reason for any American not to be aware of the systematic lies
told by this administration
in a string of speeches to the nation and
broadcast via the media in order to gain support for an unprovoked attack
upon a mostly defenseless country. No reason. Some of the lies repeated ad
nauseum are:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the
production of biological weapons".
..George Bush, Speech to the UN General
Assembly, 9/12/2002
"The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.
It is seeking nuclear weapons.
We know that the regime has produced
thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard
gas, sarin nerve
gas, VX nerve gas." George Bush Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, 10/7/2002
"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering
weapons for the purpose of using them.
And adding additional information is
like adding a foot to Mount Everest." Ari Fleischer,
Response to Question
from Press, 9/6/2002
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction.
" Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/2002
The performance of the media throughout the Clinton administration and the
2000 presidential campaign was shameful.
Since 9-11, it has been treasonous.
The media has relentlessly -- eagerly -- served as the Bush administration's
arrogant propaganda arm in managing and solidifying public lust for
international bloodshed. Americans were expected
to believe -- and many of
them still do -- that Saddam Hussein was poised to annihilate them within 45
minutes.
It has been drummed into their heads that Saddam plotted in concert
with Al-Qaeda for the 9-11 attacks.
Who didn't believe that Saddam's weapons
of mass destruction were stacked like dunes across the desert?
Lie after feverish lie tangled up in a clamoring public-relations blitz
leading up to the war, including Bush's infamous
16-word whopper -- "The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities
of uranium from Africa."
However, the media refused to question Bush's veracity then and still refuse
to do so, even though he has changed
his reason for invading Iraq at least
three times. Without fear of being pressed on the point, defense deputy
Paul Wolfowitz
breezily admitted, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on
one issue, weapons of mass destruction (for invading Iraq)
because it was
the one reason everyone could agree on.
When ABC's Diane Sawyer pressed Bush in mid-December about WMD, she suggested
that the loss of hundreds
of Americans and thousands of Iraqis -- many of
them women and children -- perhaps should have required
more concrete
evidence. Bush went into a tizzy, and, perhaps for the first time, told
the truth about his grisly imperialist fiasco,
"So--," he snapped, "what's
the difference...?"
Earnest Partridge, co-editor of The Crisis Papers, nailed the media in an
April 2003 Bushwatch editorial, wherein he
concluded, "...the media no
longer regards itself, and no longer functions, as a source of facts to the
public and
as a forum for the open discussion of urgent public issues.
Instead, it serves to promulgate false information and propaganda
at the
behest of the Bush regime and the corporate interests that put him in power and
that dictate his agenda."
It must be true. The most memorable example of willing, almost feverish,
media adoration came shortly after the initial assault
on Iraq, and it came
from someone who should have known better. CBS' Dan Rather gushed on Larry
King Live, "Bush is my president. Whatever he tells me to do, I'll just
salute, line up behind him and say 'Yes Sir!"
Reminds me of the wonderful Walter Williams, first dean of the Missouri
School of Journalism, who set forth principles,
values and standards for
journalists a century ago in a "creed" that print journalists, at least, have
worn
proudly as a badge of honor as they practice their craft.
"I believe," Williams wrote, "that the public journal is a public trust; that
all connected with it are, to the full measure
of their responsibility,
trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public
service is
betrayal of this trust."
This, of course, was before the advent of today's "rip and read" television
personalities who are happy to exchange
journalistic principles and values
for TV's bright lights and big bucks that name recognition brings.
I used to think these grinning, vacuous, target-eyed babes and boobs were
psychologically incapable of exposing Bush as a liar.
But as I watch them
obediently read the White House talking points of the day, I realize it doesn't
matter to them whether Bush
lies or not. Perception is everything when there
is no peace on earth. Their corporate bosses greedily hitched their ratings
wagons
to Bush's bloodthirsty star long ago. They're in too deep to back out
now. Wouldn't be prudent...
Sadly, few print or electronic journalists in today's world comprehend Walter
Williams' admonition that "suppression of the news,
for any consideration
other than the welfare of society, is indefensible..."
No Peace on Earth
The truth is out there -- has been out there for more than a decade -- but
few Americans are able to withstand the shock of
facing it head-on. The
building blocks of the Bush Doctrine of pre-eminent strikes against all who
oppose
US global dominance were put in place years ago by a tight-knit
cartel of neoconservatives for whom the word "peace"
has no meaning
whatsoever.
Their body includes think-tank missionaries, media magnates, pundits and
commentators, as well as presidential advisers
and cabinet members.
Most of this creepy gang are blood-stained Iran-Contra alumni. Their beat is the
world and they are
well on their way to destroying it in their quest for
total power and control.
The lies cited above were carefully orchestrated to bring to fruition the
imperalistic crusade set forth in a deadly treatise,
"Rebuilding America's
Defenses: Srategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." It was
prepared by
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the 90's, and
published in September 2000.
Its primary author is William Kristol, who is the founder of PNAC and editor
of The Weekly Standard --
a Rupert Murdoch-financed publication which pants
for war and the New World Order on every page.
Kristol is also a regular
Rupert-Murdoch-owned Fox News commentator.
Americans can read Kristol's 77-page strategy or Bush's shorter version, "the
National Security Strategy of the United States,"
which is only about 24
pages, but was written by the Pentagon's Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, and
vetted through Dick Cheney
and his powerful chief of staff, Lewis Libby. It
is the same blueprint for a Pax Americana, precluding the rise of a great power
rival
and shaping the world order in line with American principles and
interests.
If we label Republicans "neocons" who remain silent as we are swept into
domestic and international disaster --
what do we call Democrats who appear
to also be struck dumb? How can we expect Americans to resist --
to speak
out for peace on earth -- if their elected leaders see no problem with Bush's
diabolical plans to use our young men
and women as weapons of mass
destruction in one regime change after another? These are dangerous people --
some say they are quite mad, for the only reality they know is what is in
their own heads. The rest is collateral damage.
And that would be you and
me.
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Dick Polman was sounding the alarm back in May
when he said,
"The neocons care little about domestic policy; they think
globally. They don't believe in peaceful coexistence with hostile,
undemocratic states; rather, they want an 'unapologetic, idealistic,
assertive' America (in Kristol's words) that will foment
pro-democratic
revolutions around the world, if necessary at the point of a gun."
Polman also quoted Pentagon adviser Michael Ledeen, who, while puffing on a
fat cigar, said: "Americans believe that peace
is normal, but that's not
true. Life isn't like that. Peace is abnormal..."
Richard Perle, who routinely goes overseas to stick his foot in his mouth,
admitted in London in November that the
invasion of Iraq had been
illegal. Perle, a key member of the Defense Policy Board and critical
adviser to
secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, told an audience in London
that "international law...would have required us
to leave Saddam Hussein
alone."
The neocons make no bones about their impending plans. If Americans allow
George Bush to remain in office,
it will be Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, and on and on -- like dominoes toppliing. When asked recently what he
would say to these countries, Perle responded with -- "We could deliver a
short message, a two-word message: You're next..."
So, how much is a liar's word worth? When a liar stands before us on the eve
of yet another "shock and awe"
slaughter and says, "The (insert country of
choice) dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world
with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons," what will
we, as Americans, do?
Will we finally rise up and say, "Enough!"
Or will we weep in bewilderment, while silently wondering -- whatever
happened to peace on earth?
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer, a former US
Army Public Information Officer and Axis of Logic contributing editor.
Reprint permission is granted if it includes name of author
and Axis of Logic designation.
� Copyright 2003 by
AxisofLogic.com
