The "Noble Liars" Attack Syria

[bemildred]

Another POV on the "Get Syria" campaign ...

After 9/11, Administration neo-cons offered a "noble lie" to sell the public on the need to invade and occupy Iraq (The Iraqis will shower our troops with flowers and kisses). The same group has invented a new "virtuous prevarication" to build support for an attack on Syria. Ignoring recent testimony by CIA Director Porter J. Goss that "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists" (Washington Post, February 17, 2005), this group of high US officials in Defense, State and the Vice President's office have organized a "get Syria" movement.

Without evidence, US officials accused Damascus of responsibility for the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, and of sponsoring terrorism in Iraq as well.

Anti-Syria rhetoric followed from the Iraq precedent. Following the 9/11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and then-Defense Policy Board Chair Richard Perle found they could convince President Bush to switch from traditionalist (do little) policy to aggressively asserting naked military power.

Altering Teddy Roosevelt's policy advice by speaking loudly and also carrying a big stick, these neo-cons replaced truth with "myth-making." The neo-cons shared a common guru, former University of Chicago political philosopher Leo Strauss. Under Strauss' neo-platonic model, a governing elite wields power and utilizes the "noble lie" to guide imperial ideology. Beyond sharing a common understanding of the Straussian fundamentals of political rule, the neo-cons also share enthusiasm for aggressive Israeli policies.

In the early 1990s, they sold Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfled on this strategy. After 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld used their positions as Vice President and Defense Secretary to sell Bush on the new approach. From that time on, official statements utilized the neo-con "noble lie": Saddam Hussein backed the 9/11 terrorists and possessed WMDs and planned to share them with terrorists; thus, the US had to stop him. Repeat it and report it in the press and the public will believe it. Pro-Israel media acolytes like the NY Times' Judith Miller obliged the neo-cons in manufacturing "evidence" of an "enemy" that the public could effortlessly hate.

CounterPunch

[Democrats_win]

1. And we're paying for it!!!! bush wants $40 billion cut from Medicare.

What's the old republican dogma: everything comes at a cost. In our case its healthcare.