Consider how bizarre the history of the 1940s would seem if America had attacked China in retaliation for Pearl Harbor.

POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Monday, April 13, 2026 16:42
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1KIKI

Monday, November 5, 2018 8:06 AM

Quote:
The circumstances surrounding our Iraq War demonstrate this, certainly ranking it among the strangest military conflicts of modern times. The 2001 attacks in America were quickly ascribed to the radical Islamists of al-Qaeda, whose bitterest enemy in the Middle East had always been Saddam Hussein’s secular Baathist regime in Iraq. Yet through misleading public statements, false press leaks, and even forged evidence such as the “yellowcake” documents, the Bush administration and its neoconservative allies utilized the compliant American media to persuade our citizens that Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs posed a deadly national threat and required elimination by war and invasion. Indeed, for several years national polls showed that a large majority of conservatives and Republicans actually believed that Saddam was the mastermind behind 9/11 and the Iraq War was being fought as retribution. Consider how bizarre the history of the 1940s would seem if America had attacked China in retaliation for Pearl Harbor.

...

Prominent journalists across the liberal and conservative spectrum eagerly published the most ridiculous lies and distortions passed on to them by anonymous sources, and stampeded Congress down the path to war.

The result was what my late friend Lt. Gen. Bill Odom rightly called the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history.” American forces suffered tens of thousands of needless deaths and injuries, while our country took a huge step toward national bankruptcy. Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and others have estimated that with interest the total long-term cost of our two recent wars may reach as high as $5 or $6 trillion, or as much as $50,000 per American household, mostly still unpaid.

...

But no one involved in the debacle ultimately suffered any serious consequences, and most of the same prominent politicians and highly paid media figures who were responsible remain just as prominent and highly paid today. For most Americans, reality is whatever our media organs tell us, and since these have largely ignored the facts and adverse consequences of our wars in recent years, the American people have similarly forgotten.

...

Author James Bovard has described our society as an “attention deficit democracy,” and the speed with which important events are forgotten once the media loses interest might surprise George Orwell.

more at

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/our-american-pravda/

SECOND

Monday, November 5, 2018 7:57 PM

2003 invasion of Iraq began on Thursday, March 20 and ended on Thursday, May 1. WMD’s had not been found in Iraq by the next election, November 2, 2004, the election that Bush won. If the majority of voters were not easy to fool, they would have noticed Bush’s failure to find WMDs, they would not forgive him, and they would not reelect him. But if you expect the newspapers and politicians to do the majority voters’ thinking for them, you don’t know the newspaper business or politics. When the majority of voters can’t think, nearly everybody gets screwed, except for thinkers prepared to take advantage of the damn fool decisions made by the majority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_200
4

Here is a video of Bush making fun of not finding WMDs. This video should have destroyed Bush’s reputation with the majority of voters. It. Did. Not.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Monday, November 5, 2018 9:02 PM

Q: You spent 10 years looking into how American presidents, starting with Thomas Jefferson onward, have dealt with war. What stuck out to you the most?

A: The biggest one is that presidents take the nation to war in a way that’s exactly the opposite of what the founders wanted. In other words, the founders thought the surest route to dictatorship or monarchy would be to allow presidents to wage wars on their own.

They knew that the kings and dictators of Europe, when they grew unpopular, would fabricate a reason to go to war. That would unite the people and make the monarch popular.

So much of our system was designed to be the opposite of the British system. In writing the Constitution, they made an enormous effort — and James Madison felt very strongly about this — to make sure that presidents could not take the nation into major wars on their own, by requiring a war declaration from Congress.

Q: But then Madison takes the United States into a rather unnecessary war.

A: Yes, and that’s one of the most poignant and painful ironies: that Madison, a wonderful founder, was a really terrible war president. He basically broke the lock the founders had put on the door to keep presidents from taking us into wars on their own.

He got us into the War of 1812 — a war that was not essential for our national security and that was also probably the first war we ever lost, although some people think that distinction belongs to Vietnam.

“All wartime presidents have preserved our democracy largely through self-restraint, and I don’t see any of that in President Trump.” That’s historian Michael Beschloss’s stunning observation.

“If you are worried about a president with authoritarian tendencies grabbing too much power, you look at any president in wartime,” Beschloss told me. “People will accept a lot of violations of their civil liberties in wartime.”

He also said that no president in American history scares him more than Donald Trump does. “He’s in a category of his own,” Beschloss told me during our interview, because Trump has shown no willingness to learn from history and little empathy — two key ingredients that make great wartime presidents who don’t eradicate most democratic norms.

More at www.vox.com/2018/11/5/18056156/trump-michael-beschloss-presidents-of-w
ar-book-interview

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Monday, November 5, 2018 9:11 PM

Quote:
If the majority of voters were not easy to fool, they would have noticed Bush’s failure to find WMDs, they would not forgive him, and they would not reelect him. But if you expect the newspapers and politicians to do the majority voters’ thinking for them, you don’t know the newspaper business or politics.- SECOND

And yet, when I tell people to look at a WIDE VARIETY OF SOURCES and NOT TO TRUST ANY ONE OF THEM I'm called a "Russian troll".

So, are you a "Russian troll" too, SECOND?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

SIGNYM

Monday, November 5, 2018 9:11 PM

KIKI, can you edit your thread title? It's a little obscure.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

SECOND

Monday, November 5, 2018 9:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
If the majority of voters were not easy to fool, they would have noticed Bush’s failure to find WMDs, they would not forgive him, and they would not reelect him. But if you expect the newspapers and politicians to do the majority voters’ thinking for them, you don’t know the newspaper business or politics.- SECOND
And yet, when I tell people to look at a WIDE VARIETY OF SOURCES and NOT TO TRUST ANY ONE OF THEM I'm called a "Russian troll".

So, are you a "Russian troll" too, SECOND?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Most Americans I know are acting as if they have amnesia for all major events more than a month ago. On the other hand, I am not forgetting what happened in Vietnam, although I know plenty of people who have a very rose colored memory of what Nixon did there. Signym, I remember what you wrote over many years. What you wrote Signym is who you are.

Q: It seems like a big issue you highlight is that Americans don’t have a great concept of their own history, and that there’s a perennial effort in American politics to make the public forget the horrors of the last war.

A: If it turns out badly.

One example of that: World War I was thought by a majority of Americans to have been a terrible failure. That almost prevented Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) from taking us into the war against Hitler. He was really limited by the fact that people said, “There was an earlier president, Woodrow Wilson, who took us into this terrible foreign war, and now FDR is trying to do it again.”

And both political parties made a huge effort to ensure the Korean War was forgotten as soon as possible. Had there been a bigger memory of Korea, Americans would have been a lot more skeptical about Lyndon Johnson’s effort to take us into Vietnam.

More at www.vox.com/2018/11/5/18056156/trump-michael-beschloss-presidents-of-w
ar-book-interview

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Monday, November 5, 2018 11:23 PM

Quote:
Most Americans I know are acting as if they have amnesia for all major events more than a ~~month week day~~ hour ago.

Agreed. Their thoughts are like weather vanes that turn whichever way the media blows.

Quote:
Signym, I remember what you wrote over many years. What you wrote Signym is who you are.

And what is that, SECOND? LINKS PLEASE

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

REAVERFAN

Monday, November 5, 2018 11:29 PM

I wonder who Trump will attack. Venezuela? Iran?

He'll need a war to shore up his base after he's robbed them blind.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 6:33 PM

He should round up all you black mask wearing twinks and put you on the front lines of whatever the next war will be.

I'm sure that will have the enemy pissing their pants when you start setting their trashcans on fire and calling them Nazis.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

CAPTAINCRUNCH

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 7:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:And yet, when I tell people to look at a WIDE VARIETY OF SOURCES and NOT TO TRUST ANY ONE OF THEM I'm called a "Russian troll".

Sorry, hon, that ain't why!

Especially funny coming from The Mouth of ZeroHedge - "WIDE VARIETY OF SOURCES" my @ss.

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