bobbyw24
10-12-2009, 05:18 AM
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan
by James Bovard, October 9, 2009
It seems like only yesterday that President George W. Bush was bragging about having brought “freedom and democracy” to 25 million Afghans, a key theme in his second inaugural address.
For 8 years, the American people have been fed one big lie after another regarding Afghanistan. Now, when the Pentagon is saber-rattling to vastly increase the number of U.S. troops sent there, a refresher course on the Biggest Lies is in order.
In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush frightened Americans with a bogus nuclear threat: “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears.... We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities” in caves used by al Qaeda.
Senior CIA and FBI officials followed up with “background” briefings to the media, revving up the threat that Afghan-based al Qaeda fighters were targeting U.S. nuclear power facilities. This made the terrorist threat far more ominous and spurred support for Bush’s preemptive war policy against Iraq.
Two years later, Bush administration officials admitted that the president’s statement was completely false and that no nuclear power plant diagrams had been discovered in Afghanistan. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan, who had testified in 2002 on this falsehood at closed hearings on Capitol Hill, commented that Bush was “poorly served by a speechwriter.” This was a farce — as if the deceit stemmed from some speechwriter’s poetic fancy, as opposed to the conniving of a phalanx of high-ranking officials.
Pat Tillman was a star defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals who, in the wake of 9/11, turned down a multimillion-dollar contract extension to enlist as an Army Ranger. He was the highest-profile military recruit of the Bush era.
Tillman was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Within minutes of his demise, it was clear he had been slain by fellow soldiers. The Pentagon responded with an information lockdown — cutting off all communication to the military base where Tillman had been stationed.
A week after Tillman’s death, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then a top commander in Afghanistan, notified the White House that Tillman had been killed by . . .
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0910d.asp
by James Bovard, October 9, 2009
It seems like only yesterday that President George W. Bush was bragging about having brought “freedom and democracy” to 25 million Afghans, a key theme in his second inaugural address.
For 8 years, the American people have been fed one big lie after another regarding Afghanistan. Now, when the Pentagon is saber-rattling to vastly increase the number of U.S. troops sent there, a refresher course on the Biggest Lies is in order.
In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush frightened Americans with a bogus nuclear threat: “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears.... We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities” in caves used by al Qaeda.
Senior CIA and FBI officials followed up with “background” briefings to the media, revving up the threat that Afghan-based al Qaeda fighters were targeting U.S. nuclear power facilities. This made the terrorist threat far more ominous and spurred support for Bush’s preemptive war policy against Iraq.
Two years later, Bush administration officials admitted that the president’s statement was completely false and that no nuclear power plant diagrams had been discovered in Afghanistan. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan, who had testified in 2002 on this falsehood at closed hearings on Capitol Hill, commented that Bush was “poorly served by a speechwriter.” This was a farce — as if the deceit stemmed from some speechwriter’s poetic fancy, as opposed to the conniving of a phalanx of high-ranking officials.
Pat Tillman was a star defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals who, in the wake of 9/11, turned down a multimillion-dollar contract extension to enlist as an Army Ranger. He was the highest-profile military recruit of the Bush era.
Tillman was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Within minutes of his demise, it was clear he had been slain by fellow soldiers. The Pentagon responded with an information lockdown — cutting off all communication to the military base where Tillman had been stationed.
A week after Tillman’s death, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then a top commander in Afghanistan, notified the White House that Tillman had been killed by . . .
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0910d.asp