My regular readers will remember that I always value the insights of retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Col. Wilkerson was the Chief of Staff for Colin Powell when Powell was the Secretary of State under President George
Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
W. Bush.
Col. Wilkerson is also the only official from the Bush administration who has come clean about the consistent stream of lies we were fed by the Bush administration about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The CIA lied to him and General Powell.
Why in the world should anyone believe what US intelligence spokespeople are telling us today about Iranian General Qassem Soleimani or the Iranian
Soleimani’s burning body lies next to his car
government?
Since the catastrophic war in Iraq, which continues to this day, Col. Wilkerson has devoted himself to speaking out, working to ensure that there won’t be any more US wars based on lies.
Here he explains how the government lie-factory is again working overtime as it promotes war with Iran. As he says, “[American leaders] will lie, cheat, and steal to promote American empire.”
Watch the interview by journalist Amy Goodman discussing the current state of US/Iran relations with Col Wilkerson on the program Democracy Now. It is 17 minutes long and well worth your time.
That fact is a given and must be accepted by any adult who wants to understand politics and foreign relations in this world of ours.
For Christians who understand that their primary allegiance is to Jesus Christ, and that they are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of God NOT their temporal country, embracing this truth need not be difficult.
Not only is the government of the United States not an exception to this rule, we in many ways we have perfected the practice of lying, deception and misinformation to a fine art — perhaps a crude, vulgar and vile norm would be a more accurate way to describe it.
The recent release of the Afghanistan Papers by the Washington Post is only one recent demonstration of this age-old truism about government lies. US military leaders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our intelligence services, and the vast majority of our elected politicians have all been lying to the American public about the 18 year long war in Afghanistan for….wait for it…the entire 18 years.
When interviewed behind closed doors, over 400 American leaders, both military and civilian, in nearly 700 separate interviews, confessed that the military has never had a coherent strategy for pursuing this wasteful war. Nor did they have the slightest hope that the US could accomplish anything resembling “victory,” whatever that might look like.
In short, everyone admitted that no one in the US government had any idea what we were doing in Afghanistan.
Yet, when speaking in public we heard lie after lie after lie — “we are moving toward victory,” “our new strategy is working,” “we see light at the end of the tunnel.”
All the lies have been revealed in black and white.
Yet, not long after the publication of these Afghanistan Papers, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a press conference where he deliberately mischaracterized the information contained in these interviews and then glibly dismissed their significance out of hand.
Watch the oh-so noble general continue spinning more public lies in the video below:
The US corporate media perpetuates US government lies by repeating them mindlessly, without challenge or correction. Major developments that indict our government by uncovering the truth are conveniently ignored by the corporate press.
Truth remains unreported because real journalism is dead in this country. The American people may well be the most ideologically narrow, as well as the most thoroughly propagandized population in the “civilized” world.
Of course, the truth is also ignored by the bought-and-paid-for money grubbers in Washington DC whose silence indicts them, too, as co-conspirators in the deception of the American people.
How many major, investigative reports have you seen about the Afghanistan Papers on corporate news programs?
I have not seen any.
Has anyone heard even a hint about a possible Congressional investigation into the negligence, gross malfeasance and moral decay festering at the heart of our military-industrial-security complex laid bare for all to see by the Afghanistan Papers?
I haven’t.
We, the American public, including the Christian church, must share in this corporate guilt.
We are a major portion of the gullible and/or disinterested public that conveniently believes the government lies, ignores contrary evidence, and cheers patriotically for the endless bloodshed unleashed by America’s selfish addiction to imperial power around the world.
As usual it was the less powerful nation who exercised restraint, with Iran skillfully targeting the bases’ military capabilities but taking measures to successfully avoid any casualties. The two nations de-escalated back down to their previous high level of dangerous hostilities with an understanding between them that neither side wants a full-scale war. Both sides played “chicken” and both sides swerved, and they know that about each other now.
So that was a relief. We were all forced to hold our breath and hope against hope that cooler heads would prevail after the senseless assassination of a sovereign nation’s top military official, and they did. A full-scale war that would have dwarfed Iraq and Vietnam in terms of death, destruction and destabilization was averted.
And then Trump immediately went right back to warmongering…
The entire piece is well worth reading. Just click on the title above.
As usual the US corporate media continues to march in lockstep with the atrocious lies currently spewed by the Trump administration in the aftermath of killing the Iranian leader Qassem Suleimani.
In this regard, President Trump is not the deplorable outlier that liberal pundits pretend him to be. Rather, Trump is the latest in a long line of terrorist presidents whose actions have polished America’s reputation as the world’s greatest perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism.
No, that title does not belong to Iran, as the American public is repeatedly told. It actually belongs to the good old US of A, hands down.
Two key players in this latest terrorist outrage, besides Trump himself, are Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo.
Both men claim to be Christians, evangelicals in fact.
Both men continue to flourish in shameful careers that bring disrepute to the church of Jesus Christ.
Both men make a mockery of the gospel and reveal in living color that they abandoned the Lord Jesus long ago.
Pence and Pompeo are living examples the failed “seed sown among thorns” described by Jesus in his parable of the sower in Mark 4:7, 18-19:
Others, like seed sown among thorns hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
The arid, war-mongering, anti-Christian lifestyles of these men are openly revealed as they blatantly lie America into another tragic war of American aggression.
Craig Murray has written an important article detailing the inexcusable lies of Trump, Pence and Pompeo. Mr. Murray is a former British diplomat turned human rights advocate.
Craig Murray, former UK diplomat turned human rights advocat
I have posted an excerpt of his article below, but I encourage you to read the entire piece here:
In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.
Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.
What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade. Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service (the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is classified information).
So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were “imminent” he is not using the word in the normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these “imminent” attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.
The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists…
…Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the “deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans”. This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike…
..Those [Americans killed] were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias – whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible. Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was “responsible for hundreds of American deaths” is intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws of war…
The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence’s attempt to link Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to 9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed. Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved.
