What Do We Stand For?

How can a moral conscience be reconciled with our continuing to tolerate a government which has invaded two countries on the basis of lies and deception, destroyed their civilian infrastructures, and murdered hundreds of thousands of men, women and children?

Recently, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity issued a report that documents the fact that Bush administration officials made 935 false statements about Iraq to the American people in order to deceive them into going along with Bush's invasion.

Weapon inspectors told the Bush administration that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as Scott Ritter has reminded us over and over. As the leaked Downing Street memo confirms, the head of British intelligence told the British cabinet that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq and was making up the intelligence to justify the invasion.

After years of lying to Americans and the rest of the world that Guantanamo prison contained 774 of "the world's most dangerous terrorists," [only] six of its victims [are being brought] to trial. The vast majority of the 774 detainees have been quietly released.

The U.S. government stole years of life from hundreds of ordinary people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were captured by warlords and
sold [for $25,000 rewards each] as "terrorists."

The killing and occupation continue even though we now know that the invasions were based on lies and fabricated "evidence." The entire world knows this. Yet, Americans continue to act as if the gratuitous invasions, the gratuitous killing and the gratuitous destruction are justified. There is no end of it in sight.

[Excerpt of an article by Paul Craig Roberts]