It's Smoke Not Fog

This note is to let the FOBs (Friends of Bill – where’d I hear that one?) know there’s still angst in Annandale.

The fog of war is very real, but smog would be a better term since smoke is an integral component of the haze that obscures the horror. For example, after almost sixty years, the record is reluctantly giving up the truth that the bomber raids on German cities were immoral – contrary to the apologies made at the time and during the intervening decades. The basis for the raids was that the deaths of innocent civilians were moral as they would hasten war’s end and that the extraordinary number deaths of allied crewmen was justified as they were more than made up in deaths among the Luftwaffe pilots and the losses of German planes in defense of the fatherland. It was wrong on all counts and probably known to be so by the commanders.

Thousands of Americans lives were lost after the determination had been made that the war in Vietnam could not be won within the parameters established but before a graceful exit could be staged. This was known to President Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and many other leading political, civilian and military leaders. But the Wall of the memorial to that conflict does not differentiate between those who died before or after they knew, it was simply made longer.

We are more comfortable with the lies and obfuscations of our enemies. Hitler’s treachery in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia is easily understood and believed. Saddam’s poison gas attack on his Kurdish countrymen is called to our attention regularly – and rightly. Stalin’s pact with Germany to divide Poland is never to be forgotten

But the smoke blown by our own hangs heavier and longer and is harder to penetrate. That Roosevelt certainly knew that there was no security need to intern the Japanese Americans during World War II is galling. The dilemma posed by signing Executive Order 9066 or entering the war without the support of all major West Coast political powers weighs heavily to this day, especially among the president’s admirers such as me.

That Lyndon Johnson intentionally overstated the Tonkin Gulf incident to galvanize support for the Vietnam War can no longer be disputed. That the prime push for the Iraq War was made within days of 9/11 before any connection with the events in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon in Arlington could be made is becoming clearer even to those predisposed to see no evil.

To gird for war, governments lie. It is the job of government to propagandize, and the line between lies and stretching the truth is easily crossed by the zealous. Sometimes it takes years or even decades for these lies to be outed.

We are caught in Iraq and daily press releases from the White House, the Pentagon and other official paper mills about how well we are doing and how soon we will be free only add thick smoke to the smog. We need an EPA to protect us from such bunkum in the air. Perhaps in a decade we may see that we entered this fray to gain strategic advantage in the Persian Gulf while thoughts of permanent bases in Iraq danced in the heads of those dreaming of hegemony over the oil riches. It clouded the minds of the neocons and made liars of them.

We will soon have our wish of a puppet government in Baghdad dependent upon us for its survival. There can be no democracy until a sovereign government stands for election without the need of our guns to bolster its security services in defense against its own disaffected citizens.

Naturally, this would have all been an exercise of intellectual baloney had weapons of mass destruction been found. Then the lie that we were protecting the security of the United States and its allies would always be run up the flagpole of reasons for the war.

As it stands, we’re buying oil for almost sixty dollars a barrel – after an investment of almost 2,000 American lives, 15,000 wounded , about 20,000 dead innocent Iraqis, and there was that $300 billion; how many barrels of oil would that have purchased?

Saddam was not lying when he said there were no weapons of mass destruction, but he was toppled for that very lie according to our President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. Our reasons for the attack on Iraq have been revised to that of extending liberty and democracy; that certainly clears the air.

I forgot there’s another point. After all the blood and money poured into the sand, Saddam would have gladly sold us the oil for the same sixty bucks a barrel. What could we have done with that $300 billion? Continued to fund the Pentagon’s R&D budget at previous levels, reduced those pesky budget deficits, really gone after Osama bin Laden, continued to maintain a carrier group for projecting power in places like the Taiwan Straits, and lots of other things. But we’re spreading democracy – at least where there’s oil.

I'll be back!

Blog On!

Wild Bill