If you find this article informative and worthwhile, please support my work by donating if you can.
That you find it improbable and risky that Bush could have merely lied
about Iraq's WMD reveals a grossly naive misunderstanding of American
culture.
Go to any American home any evening of any week, watch television, and
count the number of false, unjustifiable, or misleading statements you hear
broadcast. (Take a mechanical counter!) Compare the campaign promises made by
any politician with his actions after being elected. Performing these acts will
reveal just how pervasive lying is in the American culture. Lying may very well
be the defining characteristic of American society.
Even more importantly, you disregard the United States of America's long
history of going to war on trumped up pretexts. The two most egregious examples
of which are the Spanish American War, which was justified by the erroneous
assumption that the Spanish blew up the Maine, and the attack on North Vietnam,
which was justified by the infamously fictitious Tonkin Bay
Incident.
But there have been numerous others. No one has even bothered to count
the number of so called Indian Wars fought on some pretext in order to move
native Americans off lands the American government ceded to them in treaties.
What about the numerous incursions into Latin America? And Grenada! Remember
Grenada? Oh, that was a noble war.
Had you taken any of this into consideration, I doubt that you would have found the B-B Brothers claims about Iraq's WMD nearly as persuasive as you did. (The Economist 7/10/2006)