Kissinger, Bush and Gates: The Big Lie

[babylonsister]

Kissinger, Bush and Gates: The Big Lie
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-12-05 19:54. Media

By Bob Fantina

October 22, 1972: “Peace is at hand.” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger discussing Vietnam.

May 1, 2003: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” President George Bush.

December 5, 2007: “I believe that a secure, stable Iraq is within reach.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates.


It was Adolph Hitler, one of history’s most savage mass murderers, who pioneered, or at least defined, the concept of the ‘big lie.’ In his 1925 autobiography, 'Mein Kampf,' he wrote the following: ‘…in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation … more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.’ Hitler used this theory as an explanation of how Jewish leaders convinced Germans that they had lost World War 1, thus setting the stage for his horrific genocidal practices.

Days before the 1972 presidential election, Mr. Kissinger told his ‘big lie’ to a nation that had grown weary of war. The country at that time appeared to be on the verge of revolution, as protests had grown from small and peaceful to large and sometimes violent, as U.S. citizens expressed their rage at a government out of control. Mr. Nixon apparently wanted to solidify his lead over the Democrat’s peace candidate, Senator George McGovern, and Mr. Kissinger’s words of hope rang true to a desperate nation. Mr. Nixon was reelected in a landslide victory.

Yet the war would not end for nearly three more years when the U.S., after killing over 50,000 of its own soldiers and between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 Vietnamese citizens and decimating their nation, finally withdrew in defeat and disgrace. The peace that Mr. Kissinger proclaimed was so near proved illusive until the beleaguered nation of Vietnam, victimized by the U.S. in one way or another for twenty-five years, finally proved victorious.

Less than two months after the obscene ‘Shock and Awe’ invasion of Iraq, Mr. Bush told one of his many ‘big lies.’ Several of them were told prior to the invasion in order to lead the lemming-like members of Congress along his warpath. On May 1 of 2003 Mr. Bush declared the war over. At that time approximately 214 U.S. soldiers had died in the war. The number of Iraqi deaths at that time is difficult to estimate, but based on reliable sources it was at least 2,000. And it must be remembered that Mr. Bush sent his bombs to population centers in a nation where more than 50% of the population was under the age of 15.

Since Mr. Bush’s lofty declaration of May 1, 2003, nearly 4,000 additional U.S. soldiers have died. The number of Iraqi deaths, by all credible estimates, far exceeds 1,000,000, and the number that have been displaced reaches close to 3,000,000. Millions more are in need of the basic services, such as water and electricity, that they took for granted during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Since then enough money has been spent on the war to have rebuilt New Orleans several times over.

Following the defeat of the war-mongering Republican Congress in November of 2006, Mr. Bush began saying that the war in Iraq needed a ‘new way forward.’ This was apparently due to some trepidation he might have had about the newly-elected Congress, and before that body showed its utter spinelessness. By January of 2007, this ‘new way forward’ was announced as an increase of troops to the battlefield. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured a doubting nation that this addition of troops to Iraq was not an escalation; oh no, it would simple ‘augment’ the troops already there. Ms. Rice is apparently well versed in the ‘big lie’ theory herself.

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