Yesterday we posted an article on the US Iraq Embassy memo, published by the Washington Post, that exposes the mis-match between Bush’s upbeat and misleading assessment and the grim reality on the ground.
Media Matters comments on the striking lack of covergae by mainstream media.
The memo can be read here(PDF)
I thought I'd post this up, as a perfect example of how history endlessly repeats itself:
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one – on the part of the instigator of the war. The loud little handful – as usual – will shout for the war…A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war…those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audience will thin out and lose popularity.
"And now the whole nation – pulpit and all – will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
(Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger", 1916)
The above extract is condensed, as I didn't want to bore people with the full version. I should have included this bit, however:
"Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers – as earlier – but do not dare to say so."
–
How true this is of Bush's "War on Terror", and, more specifically, of "special rendition" – Craig Murray being one person who dared to open his mouth about what was going on, and was subsequently stoned and silenced by the British government.
How many others are too frightened to speak out? And how many of those suppressing free speech are, in their secret hearts, at one with those they have stoned?