Damage To Our Nation: Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

Politicians lie. We take it as a given in our society, we even laugh about it. We make jokes like “How do you know when Bush/Clinton/etc is lying? His lips are moving.” and all chuckle ruefully, not at the humor, but because deep down, we all believe it's true.

So why, when they pretty much all do it, do I consider the lies of this Administration so much more damaging to our society than those of Reagan, Bush I or Clinton? Because the lies of THIS Administration have led us into a war, the death of nearly 2000 American soldiers, an outrageous bill of over $200 billion, the lowest international approval rating for our country in years and oh, yeah, left our number one enemy, Osama bin Laden, freely running around with his al Qaeda network planning new attacks against our country.

So, let's see, where to begin. Let's start with the funding for the Iraq war, which as I said currently stands at over $200 billion in just over 2 years, with the prospect now for the occupation to go on for another 12 years or more.

Paul Wolfowitz testifying before Congress in March of 2003: The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.

In April of that same year, we were treated to an estimate of the cost of a war in Iraq to the American People: $1.7 billion dollars. We were ASSURED that Iraqi oil would finance their own reconstruction along with aid from other countries, and that the American taxpayers would be out $1.7 billion.

Dick Cheney told us that American troops would welcomed with open arms, heralded as liberators. He assured us that the Iraqi people were just waiting for someone to get their backs, and they'd rise up and form an American-style democracy.

President Bush himself told us in his State of the Union address that Iraq was importing yellow cake uranium, which could only be for the making of “nuke yu ler” weapons. Turns out that was completely false, and the source of that “intelligence” was so suspect, the President must have had extensive coaching to learn how to deliver it with a straight face.

As to Osama bin Laden, I know I've discussed this before, but on 9/13, two days after the most horrific attack this country has ever been victim of, President Bush said: The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.

In late December of that year, he treated us to: ...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...

Three months later, it was: I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.

...and: I am truly not that concerned about him.

So in about 6 months, apparently we decided to rest. At the time, in March of 2002, I was sure that this was just “spin” to justify not having caught bin Laden. I was convinced that he was trying to calm the nation by assuring us that it wasn't really a problem that we hadn't caught the guy yet. But it turns out that Bush was already (according to the Downing Street Memo and other sources) trying to figure out how to justify an attack on Iraq, so it was really true. The number one terrorist threat to this country really wasn't his top priority.

Lies lies lies, and we were really all that concerned about whether Clinton lied about receiving a sex act? Clinton's lies didn't cost us $200 billion dollars and 2000 American lives. In spite of Republican spin to the contrary, Clinton's lies didn't even particularly harm us in the eyes of the rest of the world. In many European countries, it's not a sex scandal until it involves livestock, or at least incest.

We've been led away from what's important by repeated assaults on what isn't. How important is it, really, if two men or two women who love each other formally cement that relationship in a permanent bond, in comparison with bin Laden being free to plan another 9/11 style attack on our country? How important is it whether burning the flag should be illegal or not, when we're losing an average of over 10 American lives every week in Iraq and spending $1.7 billion dollars, not in total, but every week (again averaged out)?

And meanwhile, either the lies continue, or our priorities remain completely screwed up. A week or so ago, CIA director Porter Goss insisted he knows were bin Laden is. We know, but we don't go in and get him? What the heck is that all about? Knowing the focus of this Administration on PR over substance, and knowing what a huge bump in severely sagging approval ratings catching bin Laden would bring, I can only conclude that this is in fact another lie, that they really have no better idea of where bin Laden is than we average citizens do.

We get lied to about the effectiveness of the Patriot Act. By stretching logical reasoning to its limit, drug offenses have been re-classified as terrorist related activity (the theory being that some terrorism is perpetrated because of the drug trade), and with this huge increase in number of crimes which can be classified as “terrorist related”, statistics are spun out to claim that the personal liberties we gave up with the Patriot Act are making us safer, when in fact those new broader powers have been used far more against other suspects than in the service of protecting our country from terrorism.

These lies have cost us lives, money, respect, and have distracted us from what's really important in this country: Spiraling deficits, a health care crisis, alternative energy sources, and oh yes, actually bringing to justice the man who, above all others, was responsible for the loss of nearly 3000 lives in NYC, Arlington VA and on a plane crash-landed in PA.

Copyright © June 28, 2005 by Liam Johnson. Http://www.liamjohnson.net