THE GREAT DECEPTION

Scott Ritter recently spoke in Washington State at Olympia's Capitol Theater. Reporter, Mark Jensen, described the speech, in which Ritter, the former weapons inspector, laid out the case that George Bush had signed off already for an attack on Iran, scheduled for June of this year. Jensen wrote that, according to Ritter, "the purported goal [of the attack] is the destruction of Iran's alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million --a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism."

"Even when it is an accomplished fact evil keeps the character of unreality; this perhaps explains the simplicity of criminals; everything is simple in dreams. This simplicity corresponds to that of the highest virtue." --Simone Weil

The Great Deception has always been about misdirection and sleight of hand. It is a Machiavellian tactic. A storyboard was put up after September 11th; and elements of narrative that didn't belong to one another were pasted together, al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Hussein and the fundamentalists were conflated, glued, one upon the other over the empty space in South Manhattan, where the fires still smoldered.

Veteran reporter, Seymour Hersh, recounts from one of his many interviews:

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence officer told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war on the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy."

"The former Marine [Ritter] also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom", were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%." (Jensen)

"[Answering a journalist's question], Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source." (Jensen)

Neoconservative ends justify any means, any unreality. But "evil keeps the character of unreality" and "everything is simple in dreams". And the simplicity of the Bush Juggernaut, a criminal's simplicity, "corresponds to that of the highest virtue".

The vast majority of Europeans are not deceived by George W. Bush. And those who are at the business end of his violence, especially the innocent, are not susceptible to this Great Deception. But the process of deception, in this American context, requires an accommodation on the part of the deceived, a willingness to be seduced by illusions, and a horror of rejecting those same illusions.

"IN AUGUST 2003"..."As Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the military police commander in Iraq, later recalled it, [Major General Geoffrey] Miller's bottom line was blunt: Abu Ghraib should be "Gitmo-ized" --Iraqi detainees should be exposed to the same aggressive techniques being used to extract information from prisoners in Guantanamo."

" "You have to be in full control," Karpinski quoted Miller as saying. "there can be no mistake about who's in charge. You have to treat these detainees like dogs"."

"The latest Pentagon report on the abuse of captives, delivered to Congress last week by Vice Admiral Albert Church III, doesn't point a finger of blame at Miller or any other high-ranking official."

"But surely, Church was asked at a congressional hearing, someone should be held accountable for the scores of abuses that even the government admits to? "Not in my charter", the admiral replied." (Jeff Jacoby, "Where's the outrage on torture?", Boston Globe, 3/17/05.)

Sitting in committee, even the Republican senators looked somewhat thunderstruck and disbelieving, when the navy investigator testified to his findings about prisoner abuse; saying that only one-tenth of one-percent of prisoners in custody were affected.

The Great Deception works as a filter for those Americans who voted their fear, when they cast their lot with Bush. They are not mindful of Simone Weil's words, that "evil keeps the character of unreality" as they watch the President chuckle and shrug off each scandal, when they hear accounts of a Bush spokesman who said that we have sent some prisoners to countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which practice the medieval arts of torture, because it was a cheaper means of dealing with those men. If Bush supporters were forced to part with their illusions, which this deception has so carefully cultivated, they would be forced to see Bush's "criminal simplicity" and that bravado in him that "corresponds to that of the highest virtue" for what it is, in fact.

And nothing else this President has done, no other evil keeps the character of unreality, more than his collective punishments, his series of wars, waged on nation states and whole populations, which he calls "war on terror".

JESUS LOVES YOU.....G. W. DOESN'T

Art By Zoltron

JAMES GUCKERT AND THE MASK OF FEAR

Gonzo journalist, James Campion, once coined the term celebrity monster (taking the example of Ann Coulter) to describe public figures who are recklessly committed to publicizing themselves. James Guckert, the right-wing cipher, who was waved through normal Secret Service screening and routinely given a reporter's Day Pass at White House briefings, was recently revealed as an imposter. He carried off this ruse for two years, having amateur experience and no training

Any kind of background check would have revealed that he had led another, and rather sordid life, as an escort who hired himself out to other men. He was a figure of a different kind in Washington, inside the Beltway, so to speak. And he was a shameless self-publicist who posted nude photographs of himself on a few websites. But as soon as he could pass security at White House briefings, he would take his seat in the press gallery, under the assumed name of Jeff Gannon.

He attracted attention to himself as a kind of obvious political operative, whenever the President's spokesman, Scott McClellan, needed an accommodating question from the press corps, to escape a grueling line of inquiry.

So Gannon, alias Guckert, would lob sweet confections, so-called "softball questions", in the direction of the constantly inept Press Secretary. The Guckert who would be Gannon was glaringly phony because his questions were invariably biased, and in some cases were extracted from administration pamphlets, that were only slightly amended.

The accounts in our progressive journals focus on the levels of artifice that lie beneath the surface of this fake reporter.

After his first few weeks of winging it, Jeff Gannon had managed just fine on his own. Veteran reporters could only bite their tongues, as Gannon got the nod from McClellan, the Press Secretary. Gannon must have felt redeemed, when an internet site, Talon News, provided him with window dressing, perfunctory credentials, some weeks later.

When inquiring minds looked into who was backing Gannon, or paying him, they got as far as Talon and its founder, Bobby Eberle.

As reported by Media Matters, "Talon News apparently consists of little more than Eberle, Gannon, and a few volunteers." This same report also mentions a companion website, a partisan outfit and brainchild of Eberle, called GOPUSA, and sketches the political history of the Talon staff, describing them primarily as Republican activists. It mentions that Gannon (A.K.A. Guckert) and Eberle are associated with Free Republic, the right-wing website, where they post.

Guckert met his Waterloo on January 26th of this year, when the President gave him the nod for a question. The sudden limelight seems to have overwhelmed the man, and his Gannon mask was seen for the mask that it is. Guckert's question was so fawning and partisan that it tripped off every warning light on the press corps' collective dashboard. Our best bloggers began their own energetic investigations and uncovered this mess.

Certainly, this is not the time to write the Epilogue to the affair, because this scandal is ongoing. Guckert, after all, is something of a loose cannon and an exhibitionist; and since scuttling away in disgrace, he has quickly returned to court the attention he craves. But the sad thing is, that if this were only a scandal about a clumsy administration's transparent effort to manipulate the news, we would be more inclined to hope.

Of course there is danger in the abuse of power; but up till now our press has confronted other administrations, and found the courage to stand its ground. Maureen Dowd is right too, when she describes the "Bushies" as being more sinister. Hating the press was enough for other administrations, she says, but this one wants to "reinvent the media".

The tragic emphasis of this scandal falls squarely on our traditional newspeople, our major newspapers, and the news organizations of our major networks. This administration is striking at them, trivializing and marginalizing them, evading the questions they ask, providing minders at party events to put a chill on their sources, and compromising the necessary work of reporters. This undermining is as effective as a threat, and really, it is a kind of threat.

When Edward R. Murrow was preparing his famous telecast that exposed the tactics of Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, the purging and blacklisting of writers and artists, he suddenly found his own staff chastened and reluctant. But he summoned their courage and snapped them back to reality, when he suddenly exclaimed,

"The fear is right here in this room."


SOURCES: MEDIA MATTERS, AMERICA BLOG

A POST FROM ONE OF OUR READERS

We had a number of letters responding to the statements below of General Mattis, who went on record saying that he loved shooting people. Some of the responses we got were vehemently in defense of the General and this war. I raised the question whether the cheerleaders of this fiasco would be as zealous in the actual killing as they bravely appear to be on paper.

So far, none has answered the question, except one. I hope he doesn't mind my reprinting it here. A more thoughtful, eloquent statement on war, I haven't seen:

"I can't speak for anyone else, but I vacationed in sunny Vietnam and Cambodia for 19 months (1968-69.) Killing was as routine as having breakfast or shaving, especially during and after the TET. We all joked about it and poorly acted out our John Wayne roles; but it made us all crazy as hell for a long time, long after we shipped home. We left Austin as kids and came home very old men.

There is nothing noble or glorious to be found in taking the life of another human being. Anyone who believes otherwise is sociopathic, psychotic, or the village idiot. It is truly a human tragedy and a terrible burden for a Christian to live with. This I can speak to without any reservations."

--signed, "Jammer2." Posted 2/10/05 at 1:12 a.m.

HEALTH CARE COVERAGE FOR ALL

The following appeared in The Nation, November 16, 2004:

"Early this year, a comprehensive study published in the International Journal of Health Services reached this stunning conclusion: 'The United States wastes more on health-care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all its uninsured.' The authors, Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, associate professors at Harvard Medical School and founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, went on to write: 'Administrative expenses will consume at least $399.4 billion of a total health expenditure of $1,660.5 billion in 2003. Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286 billion in 2002, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage."

--"Single-Payer: Good For Business," by Morton Mintz, The Nation.

. . .But if you'd rather take W's word for it, go right ahead. Meanwhile, here's hoping your kids stay healthy this flu season.

UH, COULD YOU RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN, MR. PREZ?

The following is for real. This is not a parody. It is not a joke. This is one-hundred-percent on the level, from your Prez and mine:

"Because the--all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those--changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be--or closer delivered to what
has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the--like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate--the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those--if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."

--The President of the United States, explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005.

"SOMETHING'S TERRIBLY WRONG WITH THE SPEED THAT I DRIVE"

AND NOW A FEW WORDS FROM SOME REAL AMERICANS

We here at Tholos get some pretty grueling criticism from a few of our readers on the Right, taking us to task for being so one-sided and UnAmerican. So, in the interest of "fair and balanced" commentary (to paraphrase Fox News), I thought it might be nice to bring in a couple of real red-blooded Americans and let them have their say. So, here it is, unedited, straight from their own mouths:

"I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. I just think it would be fun to nuke them."

--Ann Coulter, in a January interview in The New Yorker.


"Naturally, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot people. I'll be right up front with you. I like brawling. You know, you go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil, you know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

--Lt. Gen. James Mattis, speaking to a forum in San Diego about strategies for the war on terror. His comments were met with laughter and applause from the audience.

. . . .And that's the news from the Right. God bless 'em!

YOU NEVER SEE THIS ON TV

Washington D.C.--
January 20, 2005 protest of George W. Bush's Inauguration

BUSH RIPS THE FABRIC OF REALITY

Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, recently commented:

"An abstract noun [terror] can't surrender; it can't do anything really. How do you know when you've won? When the noun gets kicked out of the Oxford English Dictionary? But that's a very useful tool for politicians, to declare an unwinnable war. They can keep it going as long as they like. They can decide when it's won.".

George W. Bush held up his right hand to take the oath of office. And though the Ohio electors were challenged, he was certified by the House, and stood there in the cold, to begin his second term as President. There was never a mention of the war in Iraq, or terrorism, or the War on Terror. His speech was about freedom, the future freedom of the whole world, the freedom America will help to shape. It's the nation's mission, after all. He made no mention of America's anointment or appointment to this task; but some things are simply understood.

No, what President Bush was articulating, in the most benign language, was a course of war against nation states which aren't, at present, democracies. It was all delivered in a very idealistic way, and in a pleasant tone of voice. He never sounded rash. The President's Inaugural was meant to be upbeat. The United States would hold other nations responsible for their breaches of human rights. Bush's policy has violated the Geneva Conventions, but this was not covered in the speech. But the more that other countries improved their human rights issues, the better their standing in the eyes of America.

Pay no attention to those nations America needs, as bulwarks of policy, which maintain a sound tradition of torture. And on a day recently, when close to 40 American soldiers were killed, the President fielded a number of tough questions, which he resolutely evaded answering. Bush declared then, as he had in his Inaugural, that all life is precious to him. And under close questioning, he shunned all implicit criticism and simply declared how much faith he had in good people like Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales, who one assumes would never lie, or have anyone tortured.

And no, he didn't mention that nations like Syria and Egypt have tortured some in custody, as a favor to his government. But those who pay close attention will realize that there is absolutely no relationship between the President's rhetoric and what he actually does. The President's language is completely plastic and porous, and the fabric of reality is torn around its edges.

When Seymour Hersh first began speaking about the abuses of Abu Ghraib, before the story broke in the mainstream press, it had become known to him that members of Congress had seen the pictures that were later released. They had also been advised of even more terrible things, of children being tortured, in the presence of their mothers, to gain confessions. There has been a contemptible cover-up of tortures that were (and perhaps still are) an institutional process of the US Government. The Senate recently exempted the CIA from restrictions in how they may deal with foreign nationals. All the high-sounding phrases and posturing of Senators in the recent Gonzales hearing are moot, as far as the intelligence community is concerned.

President Bush is a man who can't seem to understand why people are so focused on all the death. At least that's part of his rhetorical style. His delicate concern for life hasn't prevented him from killing on an industrial scale. Two weeks ago, the BBC reported that of 300,000 people who once lived in Fallujah, only eight-and-half thousand had returned to the ruined city. In the words of an eye-witness, Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi doctor, it is a "city of ghosts". He described it as such a place, where packs of wild dogs gorged themselves on corpses.

Aside from the dead fighters, others the Americans killed are seen in photos from Fallujah: people who had been too impoverished to make a getaway. These pictures show elderly and middle aged people shot to death in their beds, and boys who lay face up in the street, still clutching the white pieces of cloth with which they tried to surrender. It is estimated that a little over a thousand insurgents were killed; and to accomplish this, the Geneva Conventions were violated, and a cruel, collective punishment was inflicted. The city was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands were made homeless. Doctors and patients were deliberately killed. And the frantic, who tried to swim the Euphrates, sank in a hail of bullets. The walls of Fallujah toppled; the sewer mains were broken ; the fire and stench spread over the town.

This history will not be obscured by disingenuous rhetoric, because we are witnesses to a crime. And this is not the War on Terror. This clearly is the Terror.


image via Dahr Jamail

SPONGE BOB SQUAREPANTS CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES

--THE HAGUE


The International Court today dismissed all charges against the popular cartoon character, Sponge Bob Squarepants. American right-wing think tank personalities and commentators had leveled accusations against Squarepants, to the effect that he was some kind of secret agent, working to poison the minds of children with liberal ideals like "tolerance and diversity". But the confident Squarepants, appearing at a hastily-called press conference on the courthouse steps, declared that "The political persecution of cartoon characters is a non-starter".

Appearing in his Sunday Best before the High Court, Squarepants entered a plea of No Contest, throwing himself on the mercy of the presiding Justices. By a unanimous decision, the court declared the charges to be frivolous, and dismissed them. The ruling today set a legal precedent for animated characters, and said in brief that "Although not technically protected by The Rights Of Man or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is the opinion of the court that the reckless defamation of such icons, beloved by children, fails to meet any test of fairness".

Sponge Bob (as he is affectionately known) was quoted as saying that he "enjoyed this day in court" but he "hated that sourpusses in the Heritage Foundation had made a partisan issue of tolerance and diversity". "L'Affaire Squarepants est finie", he said to a correspondent from the French periodical, Paris Match. But turning to the American Press, the natty Squarepants couldn't resist another barb for his accusers: "If I thought it would do any good, I'd tell their mothers".