Some say the Bush cabal has lied about reasons for war. Others say the word "lie" is too strident, although the facts show the administration's actions fit the dictionary definition of lying. If we bleach the English language and call lies "intelligence failures," and (as Donaldo Macedo has said) battlefield bloodbaths "theaters of operation" and preemptive aggression "Operation Iraqi Freedom," this language jiggering is just another lie. Worse than that, it perpetuates destructive myths and holds corruption in place.

Journalist I.F. Stone often spoke before journalism students, offering the following advice: "Among all the things I'm going to tell you today about being a journalist, all you have to remember is two words: governments lie."

Speaking the truth about such facts brings blood flow to the head, energizes, empowers and invigorates the American public and democracy. When an already-powerless public speaks in hushed, intimidated tones, calling governmental lies "intelligence failures" when we verbally sugar coat the pill that poisons us, we the people feel limp and anemic - even more politically debilitated than before we spoke.

In his Independence Day Speech at Rochester, writer, political activist and then-slave Frederick Douglass said of his era's tolerating slavery, "At a time like this, scorching iron, not convincing argument, is needed. O! Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced."

We need the same straightforward enlivened language in the Bush-Cheney era, because what we're witnessing today is the administration's frontal assault on civil liberties, democracy and honest government. Americans need to speak forthrightly and to avoid propping up myths.

This doesn't imply we should wallow in anger or blast people merely to lash out or be unkind. However, the occasional burst of "thunder" and cleansing "stern rebuke" can be a needed healing balm for a country so lost and ailing. Imagine what this country would have been without the periodic fire in the belly of people such as Frederick Douglass. Too much passivity is as corrupting as too much power. Witness what happens when American citizens fail to take their rightful place as owners of their government.

Recently BuzzFlash.com ran an editorial pointing out the fact that some of the Democratic Party leaders, including Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi, repeatedly let Bush run roughshod over them. Their refusal to fight for the truth, their reluctance to call a lie a lie does damage to their constituents, the country and the world.

Precision in language matters. When Bush refers to massive anti-war demonstrations as "focus groups" or calls opportunistic war-making "bringing freedom to Iraq" (while undermining freedom and democracy at home) the imprecision props up myths. To live in reality -- that place where a huge demonstration is a huge demonstration, and where opportunistic war-making is opportunistic war-making -- people have to begin to speak clearly - even thunderously, as Frederick Douglass implied.

The philosopher and writer Goethe said, "The style of a writer [or a speaker] is a faithful representation of his mind." A clear, truthful mind produces clear, truthful speech. When America was founded, many of its new political leaders, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Thomas Paine, thought and spoke with clarity and candor as they crafted government of, by and for the people. They acknowledged they were living in a time of crisis, and weighed what needed to be done.

In THE AMERICAN CRISIS, Thomas Paine wrote:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph…I call not upon a few but upon all; not on this state or that state, but on every state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it."

Though the founders were far from perfect, the government they created gradually self-corrected in a number of ways - eventually abolishing slavery, giving minorities the vote and passing laws more equitable for the poor. Civil liberties and rights were bought with the sweat and blood of average Americans who put themselves on the line battling slavery, fighting for suffrage and striving for better working conditions.

Paine called for the people of his time to stand up and fight, even when they were disheartened. Later, anti-slavery groups and others reminded the public to stand up and speak out - to quicken and rouse the national conscience. Today the Bush administration's policies present new threats to democracy, and this generation can either meet the challenge or stay comfortably silent.

I know some of my dear liberal friends, and this includes some Democratic leaders, have said it's somehow "unspiritual" (or impossible) to incorporate a degree of invigorating feistiness with a generally calm, congenial mind. I think it's instead a question of balancing the "gentle rain" and the "thunder," and knowing when either is appropriate.

Democrats in Congress who think they'll accomplish more for the country by pretending lies are "intelligence failures" and appeasing Bush and his anti-democratic, neo-conservative administration are in denial. What's needed now is for the Democratic leadership and all Americans with conscience to get themselves informed enough to notice we're in another time of crisis.

The best way to do that is to acquire news from the wide variety and vast number of newspaper and magazine articles published on the Internet, and to visit the many quality political Internet web sites. As those of us who already get our news online know, you won't be adequately informed if you rely on TV news programs or a single newspaper for information about the damage the Bush cabal is doing and the extent of their manipulation. It would also be helpful for those of us who get our news online to pass it along to offline friends and others.

There are times we good, gentle liberals can sit in the Lotus position, just breathe, and send loving vibes to everybody. But there are other times the optimal thing is to get out there and (quoting Frederick Douglass again) - "agitate, agitate, agitate." This is one of those "agitating" times. --06.07.03

Bush Lies And The War On Iraq: An Overview
04/28/03

A Whiff of Fascism In The Bush Administration
By Carla Binion

During election 2000, Bush paid campaign operatives posing as ordinary voters shoved people and banged on doors at the Miami-Dade canvassing offices in an effort to stop the Florida vote count. Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said he detected "a whiff of fascism" in their tactics.

Some people criticized Nadler for drawing the comparison, but, of course, not all forms of fascism have to equate precisely to the classic form represented by Hitler or Mussolini. Fascism doesn't have to involve mass genocidal slaughter, nor does it have to be equal in degree to the fascism practiced by members of the Axis powers. Traits of classic fascism include: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight corporate/government control of the press.

Today all of those conditions exist in our country to a degree.

Let's focus on corporate/government control of the press - specifically corporate control of U.S. television news networks. According to a March 24 article, "Protests Turn Off Viewers" by Harry A. Jessell, (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA286548.htm) 45 percent of Americans rely on cable channels as their primary source of news, and 22 percent get most of their news from broadcast networks' evening newscasts. Only 11 percent rely on other forms of media as their principle source of war news.

Our corporate controlled TV networks might as well be state controlled, because they promote the war and Bush policies fairly consistently and have virtually eliminated all dissenting voices. NBC fired Phil Donahue despite his good ratings, saying in an internal network memo they didn't want to air Donahue's anti-war views. Peter Arnett was fired for giving an interview to Iraqi TV and merely stating the obvious on a number of issues. For example, Arnett said media reports of civilian casualties had helped the "growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war."

According to William Shirer (THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, Ballantine Books, 1950), the Reich Press Law of October 4, 1933, ordered editors not to publish (among other things) anything which "tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich…or offends the honor and dignity of Germany." The Nazis forced dissenting journalists out of business and consolidated the press under party control.

U.S. television news networks have been consolidated under the control of a handful of corporations. America doesn't need a "press law" prohibiting the airing of anything which might weaken the strength of Bush's war policies, because the corporate owners of today's television networks are in total agreement with the state.

It is irrefutable that corporate owners of American television networks want only pro-Bush, pro-war opinions aired, because those are virtually the only views that are in fact aired. The Phil Donahue and Peter Arnett firings, especially when coupled with the NBC internal memo explaining the Donahue firing, also indicate this is true.

Do the various TV networks do a good job of informing the public, or do they more often propagandize? Propaganda is aimed at the emotions, while news sources that disseminate factual information aim toward reason.

In NAZI GERMANY: A NEW HISTORY (Continuum Publishing, 1995), Klaus P. Fischer says Hitler promoted "a system of prejudices rather than a philosophy based on well-warranted premises, objective truth-testing, and logically derived conclusions. Since propaganda aims at persuasion rather than instruction, it is far more effective to appeal to the emotions than to the rational capacities of crowds."

If you've spent much time watching the pro-Bush, pro-war cable television news programs, you can't help but notice they manipulate (whether deliberately or not) the viewing audience's emotions rather than appealing to viewers' logic.

That is, instead of providing the American public with a broad range of necessary facts and varied viewpoints about the war, the TV networks exploit emotions by urging the audience to focus on and identify with the day-to-day plight of individual soldiers and their families.

There's nothing inherently wrong with empathizing with the troops. However, when that aspect of war news is heavily emphasized at the expense of hard facts and varied debate, the networks serve the purpose of managing the public mood rather than informing the public mind.

According to Klaus Fisher, the Nazis eliminated from state media any ideas that clashed with official views. He writes that permissible media topics for public consumption included war itself and the Nazi movement; support of Nazi soldiers; praise for Hitler and "celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is the service of the fatherland."

Today's Bush-friendly TV networks have also deemed only certain subjects "permissible," as evidenced by the irrefutable fact that they only cover a narrow range of subjects. Coincidentally, the proverbial network "list" would read virtually the same as the list in the paragraph above. Permissible topics include praise for the "war;" praise for the administration's policies; support for our soldiers; praise for Bush and the "celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is the service of" (in th

is case) the Homeland - even though there is no rational link between attacking Iraq and defending our soil. Of course, who needs rationality or facts from TV news when the American public already has enough information about world events? In a March 26 article for Editor and Publisher, "Polls Suggest Media Failure in Pre-War Coverage," reporter Ari Berman refers to a Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll. This poll showed 44 percent of respondents believed "most" or "some" of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqis. Only 17 percent gave the correct answer: none.

In the same poll, 41 percent said they believed Iraq definitely has nuclear weapons. As Berman points out, not even the Bush administration has claimed that. Berman also refers to a Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations survey showing that almost two-thirds of people polled believed U. N. weapons inspectors had "found proof that Iraq is trying to hide weapons of mass destruction." This claim was never made by Hans Blix or Mohammed ElBaradei.

The same survey found 57 percent of those polled falsely believed Saddam Hussein assisted the 9/11 terrorists, and a March 7-9 New York Times/CBS News Poll revealed that 45 percent of respondents believed Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

TV news reporters have done little to correct the public's misconceptions. On the contrary, network reporters and their guests have often helped bolster the false impressions by mentioning September 11, or the threat of terrorism by Al Qaeda, and the "threat" posed by Saddam in the same breath.

Individual TV reporters aren't always free to choose the information they pass along to the public. CNN now has a relatively new "script approval" system, whereby journalists send their copy in to CNN chiefs for sanitizing. In his article, "Guess who will be calling the shots at CNN," British war correspondent Robert Fisk of London's Independent quotes a relatively new CNN document (dated Jan. 27), "Reminder of Script Approval Policy."

The policy says, "All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval…Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved…All packages originating outside Washington, LA or NY, including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW [a group of script editors] in Atlanta for approval."

William Shirer comments on the Nazi party's control of press, radio and film. "Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the Reich gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print and suppress, how to write the news and headline it, what campaigns to call off or institute and what editorials were desired for the day. In case of any misunderstanding, a daily directive was furnished along with the oral instructions."

In an interview with TomPaine.com (http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7514), Janine Jackson of the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) said that the group examined two weeks of nightly television news coverage. FAIR found that 76 percent of all news sources or guests on ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS's NewsHour were "current or former government officials," leaving little room for other diverse voices.

In addition, FAIR found that only 6 percent of those sources were skeptical about the war. Jackson noted that "on television news at night, there's virtually no debate about the need to go to war." It would further public understanding if the TV networks would offer substantial debate on the following:

The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq has alienated many world leaders and lost this country the respect of millions of citizens around the globe. The Bush team has created instability in the Middle East and risked retaliation. They've undercut the U.S. economy with the financial cost of this endeavor. They've increased the likelihood that worldwide nuclear weapons proliferation will increase. And, according to a recent Red Cross report, they have likely helped create a horrifying number of human casualties and a rapidly expanding humanitarian crisis in Iraq. (http://truthout.org/docs_03/040603A.shtml)

The content of television news lacks range and diversity, but the way the news is presented is also disturbing. Television reporters often deliver news of the "war" with apparent breathless excitement, as if they're giving play-by-play descriptions of football games. People are dying in this conflict. Civilians are caught in the middle, being blown to pieces or losing loved ones. Children are left behind when their soldier-parents are killed. Instead of presenting news of this "war" with giddiness, wouldn't it be more appropriate, more human, for network reporters to take a somber, respectful approach?

On TV, we see bombs dropping from a distance. Network commentators seldom offer the public close-ups. In his article, "Military precision versus moral precision," Robert Higgs, writes that the much-used JDAM bombs dropped in Iraq kill most people within 120 meters of the blast. According to Higgs, such a bomb "releases a crushing shock wave and showers jagged, white-hot metal fragments at supersonic speed, shattering concrete, shredding flesh, crushing cells, rupturing lungs, bursting sinus cavities and ripping away limbs in a maelstrom of destruction." (http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030323Higgs.html)

Just yesterday I heard a TV reporter describe certain casualties with the sterile phrase, "This is what war does." Well, it isn't "war" that bursts sinus cavities and rips away limbs - nothing as nebulous as that. George W. Bush and his administration have done these things. They have directly ordered that these things be done. The bombs' shredding of flesh and crushing of human cells didn't just passively "happen."

In an April 5 article for The Mirror, "The saddest story of all," reporter Anton Antonowicz describes an Iraqi family's loss of their daughter. "Nadia was lying on a stretcher beside the stone mortuary slab. Her heart lay on her chest, ripped from her body by a missile which smashed through the bedroom window of the family's flat nearby in Palestine Street."

Nadia's father said, "My daughter had just completed her PhD in psychology and was waiting for her first job. She was born in 1970. She was 33. She was very clever. Everyone said I have a fabulous daughter. She spent all her time studying. Her head buried in books."

Nadia's sister Alia said, "I don't know what humanity Bush is calling for. Is this the humanity which lost my sister? It is war which has done this. And that war was started by Bush." (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12811861&method=full&siteid=50143)

Today we're again getting a whiff of fascism from the Bush administration. This isn't the equivalent of Hitler or Mussolini - just sort of a creeping fascism light- and the corporate controlled television news networks are only one example of the way even light fascism undermines American values.

With the Bush administration and television networks currently fixated on the high melodrama of "winning" the "war" and sprucing up its aftermath, they don't have much time to reflect on whether winning at any cost is a good idea. Whether the slaughter in Iraq and its aftermath "go well," the "war" has already destroyed many lives in Iraq and the U.S. and damaged the American character and democracy at home. For thoughtful people in this country, the question has never been "will we win," but "at what cost?" --fron Online Journel, 04.14.03

When a government lies to its people

By Carla Binion
Online Journal Contributing Editor

You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before,
When a government lies to its people,
And our country is drifting to war.
-Jackson Browne, "Lives in the Balance"

February 27, 2003-The Bush administration's lies "justifying" war in Iraq should insult the intelligence and electrify the conscience of the American people and the world community. The fact that the administration has repeatedly exploited the September 11 tragedy and used it to build a case for unjust war is the most offensive lie of all.

Because regime change in Iraq and domination of the Gulf region have been on the Bush team's agenda long before the events of September 11, a large part of the administration's purported rationale is deceptive. If the rationale is untruthful, and if the threat from Iraq isn't imminent, then the proposed attack on Iraq amounts to an unjust war. Such a war, with its unwarranted motives, would amount to the mass murder of possibly tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, including many children.

The Bush administration is arguably on the verge of committing mass murder in Iraq, and people who fail to oppose this are complicit in the murder. Honest people can disagree on what constitutes just war, so let's consider possible definitions.

In his book Just and Unjust Wars, social scientist Michael Walzer suggests guidelines. For example: A just war must be a last resort. The war's purpose must be just. A just war shouldn't cost more in human loss than the value of its ends. To date, the Bush administration hasn't produced evidence that a war on Iraq would meet any of those criteria.

Regarding preemptive strikes, Walzer says another nation is an imminent threat only if its army is "recognizably hostile, ready for war and fixed in a posture of attack." Absent those conditions, any perceived threat is "prospective and imaginary . . . Hence the moral necessity of rejecting any attack that is merely preventive in character."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said recently, "Everyone agrees that the last choice is to use force and have a war, but at some point time would run out. And that's what the president has said." (Reuters, Fri., Feb. 21.)

How can Rumsfeld claim an attack on Iraq would be a "last choice" or last resort? Iraq isn't "fixed in a posture of attack," imminently ready to fire missiles at the U.S. The Bush administration has offered no evidence that Iraq is an imminent threat in any way.

The administration has often pushed another myth (or lie)-the idea that the "war on terrorism" or current U.S. designs on Iraq started in response to the events of one day, September 11. Hawks within the Bush administration were pushing for war with Iraq and so-called war on terrorism long before September 11.

In 1992, under then-president George H. W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby prepared a draft Defense Policy Guideline (DPG) for their boss, Dick Cheney, who was then U.S. defense secretary. Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary and Libby is now Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

In the spring of 1992, The New York Times published excerpts of the DPG. The document called for U.S. domination of much of the globe through the unilateral use of military power. It also recommended preempting nations that might have weapons of mass destruction.

Then in 1997, a neo-conservative think tank, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was established to further American dominance in the world. The PNAC's "statement of principle" urged a significant increase in military spending.

The document said regarding preemptive military action, "It is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were among those signing the statement.

In September 2000, the PNAC, including Wolfowitz and Libby, released a report entitled: Rebuilding America's defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The document says that for the U.S. to maintain its role as a world superpower "requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future."

The report also suggests the U.S. "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or . . . even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." It says we need to be able to "fight and win multiple, simultaneous theater wars," and maintain "nuclear strategic superiority" in the world.

The document singles out Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria as having dangerous regimes that need to be controlled. It also targets China for "regime change," saying increased American presence in Southeast Asia might lead to "providing the spur to the process of democratization in China."

Since September 11, the Bush administration has rushed forward with its plans-plans first drafted in 1992 and 1997-but it has done this under the guise of "war on terrorism." Again, the administration has misled the American people and member nations of the UN to believe that its moves against Iraq, including the alleged imminent "threat" regarding weapons of mass destruction and the push for "regime change" are in large part a reaction to September 11.

The Bush administration has failed to openly discuss its longstanding desire to dominate much of Eurasia and other parts of the world, and to impose "regime changes" in a variety of other nations via the ongoing use of unilateral military action. The administration's attempt to link Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda in order to justify going ahead with plans the Bush team had in mind long before 9/11 is clearly a lie-and a particularly cynical lie because, again, it exploits the public's sorrow over the lives lost on September 11.

When a government lies to its people to pump up support for an unjust war, those who see through the lies must speak out. Surely the world's greatest superpower can come up with creative new ways to maintain its status-methods that don't involve lying to its own people and to the United Nations or murdering tens of thousands of innocents.

Reporter Helen Thomas observed on Phil Donahue's program recently that the fate of all humanity is now in George W. Bush's hands. Because the U.S. is such a hyper-power, its White House occupant (especially when virtually unchecked by the U.S. Congress) can do anything he wants around the world, and no other nation can curb his impulses.

Such power in the hands of one individual and his advisers wouldn't be so frightening if Bush and his team were acting as reasonably wise, compassionate stewards. However, Bush and his administration's war hawks are not merely acting unwisely and with insufficient compassion; they're behaving as ruthless warmongers, promoting a dangerous and virtually insane foreign policy, and are bent on fighting an unjust, murderous war in Iraq and creating chaos and unending conflict around the world.

To oppose such an administration's policies is not to be "anti-American." To oppose them is patriotic. It's an effort to save America and the rest of the world from the Bush war machine's madness. --03.03.03

We can deal with the Democrats we dislike LATER. Now is not the time. In the upcoming elections a vote for any Democrat is a vote to support the good guys such as Senator Robert Byrd. It's also a vote against an imperial presidency. --October 14, 2002

Thinking Clearly Through The Bush Fog Of War
by Carla Binion

Today as the Bush administration steamrollers Congress, the UN and the public with its media blitz to make a case for war on Iraq, it's good to ask some of the most important questions.

On all the Sunday news talk shows, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others in the administration used the same words: "We can't sit and wait for Saddam to develop nuclear weapons." By that logic, we can't sit and wait for North Korea or Iran to become potentially greater threats.

Why has Bush designated Saddam the first and only one to go? Does he plan to force regime changes on all "rogue" states? At what long-term cost? Why is there no urgency in the case of North Korea and Iran as there allegedly is with Saddam?

Isn't it likely that, as even Chris Matthews has said, if Bush attacks Iraq he will cause countless Arab people to seek revenge on the U.S.?

Or, as the San Francisco Chronicle's Michael Slackman and Jailan Zayan wrote recently, isn't it likely an attack on Iraq would "open the gates of hell" and unleash a firestorm against us and create profound instability in the Middle East?

If the Bush administration won't ask these kinds of questions, the public and Congress should. When it comes to whether to wage war, the country needs calm, critical thinking and analysis now more than ever.

The following article goes into detail about critical thinking related to war. It takes up the question of whether Congress and the public can trust the Bush administration, considering some members of the Bush team have had direct personal involvement with disinforming propaganda activities of the CIA. --09.11.02

Previously published at Online Journal site on September 16, 2001.

Critical thinking during the fog of war

By Carla Binion

September 16, 2001-The well-known phrase "fog of war" and the aphorism "truth is the first casualty of war" apply to our nation's current collective psychological state. Ever since the terrorism occurred, people who previously showed healthy skepticism regarding the corporate-owned media spin suddenly buy every word the TV talking heads say.

People are highly suggestible and controllable when in a state of numbing shock. Once in a state of shock and fear, a public is susceptible to surrendering its critical thinking. The recent terrorist attacks put the American public into just such a state.

Previously skeptical Americans are now willing to uncritically rally around George Bush, and to say, yes, we'll trust political leaders who have deceived us in the past, and, yes, we must spend billions on an unending war on terrorism, without knowing even roughly what the blueprint for that war might be.

Let's take the time to remember who Bush and his advisers are. Taking a moment to review what Bush and the CIA are capable of doing to the American people doesn't mean the U. S. shouldn't stop terrorists. It just means we also need to realize what can happen if Congress gives Bush and the CIA a blank check.

The CIA has repeatedly shown brazen contempt for the American people by using the public as guinea pigs. It's a matter of public record that the CIA used its infamous MKULTRA program to develop social control and mind control techniques.

According to Final Report, Book 1, Foreign and Military Intelligence, United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., April 26, 1976, the CIA's MKULTRA program had to do with "the research and development of chemical, biological and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior."

The above-referenced report also says the MKULTRA program techniques included "radiation, electroshock, various forms of psychiatry, psychology, sociology and anthropology, graphology, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices and materials." The reports goes on to say that the CIA tested LSD and other drugs on unwitting Americans.

The same government document also reveals a CIA-Army program, MKNAOMI, a project that involved the agency's dangerous stockpiling of lethal biological and chemical materials. And that document exposes the CIA's CHAOS program, wherein the CIA illegally collected intelligence on Americans and infiltrated non-violent antiwar, civil rights and other peaceful protest groups.

When congressional committees investigated CIA and FBI abuses in the 1970s, committee chairman Frank Church described the CIA as a "rogue elephant" with "exceedingly loose controls." Today, in the name of fighting an unspecified kind of war on terrorism, the CIA asks for even less congressional oversight.

George W. Bush can be understood only in the context of his entire team, those people who advise and influence his political decisions. His dad, George H. W. Bush, was once director of the CIA.

Today, George W. Bush's advisers include close allies of his father, most notably Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has long argued in favor of government secrecy and against congressional oversight of the CIA. Dick Cheney, of course, served as George H. W. Bush's Secretary of Defense and was the primary architect of the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf War.

Recently, Papa Bush, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, have appeared on TV, repeating the "we must untie the hands of the CIA" mantra. Another mantra making the rounds on TV talk shows in the wake of the terrorist attacks is the idea that the CIA has no choice but to slither up against evil characters in order to do its job.

According to Jake Tapper (Salon, 9/14/01) George H. W. Bush said on Thursday, September 13, "Human intelligence is a kind of dirty business. And in it you have to deal with unsavory people. But if we're going to provide the president with the best possible intelligence, we have to free up the intelligence system from some of its constraints."

Secretary Eagleburger said on Geraldo Rivera's Wednesday, September 12, program that the CIA is forced to associate with "nasty people" in order to gather intelligence. He said we "have to get off this nonsense that was pushed to us a decade or so ago when we were all so upset because the CIA might be doing something we didn't want them to do."

The CIA doesn't merely "deal with" unsavory people. The agency has supported and helped install many vicious human-rights-violating, murderous dictators, including, for example, the terrorist Augusto Pinochet. Is that the sort of brushing up against nasty people the elder Bush and Eagleburger want the public to condone?

The fact that immediately following our nation's tragedy, George H. W. Bush and Eagleburger would go on television and feed the public misleading half-truths in order to rally support for the CIA should raise a warning flag in the public mind. Bush's and Eagleburger's bending the truth for their own opportunistic political goals, at a time when the public is hurting and vulnerable, indicates their utter contempt for the American people.

The CIA has used its untied and bloody hands to propagandize, spy on and even brutalize the American public. When it comes to propagandizing, the agency steps up its efforts during times of war.

For example, during the Reagan administration, the CIA/National Security Council's Walter Raymond, Jr., served as "propaganda and disinformation specialist" working to sell Iran-contra to the American people, according to former AP and Newsweek reporter Robert Parry.

Parry, an award-winning investigative journalist who uncovered Oliver North's covert White House intelligence network More than a year before the Iran-contra scandal broke, says the Walter Raymond public diplomacy campaign for Iran-contra was run out of the National Security Council offices.

According to Parry, Walter Raymond's subordinates threatened journalists and political figures who dared to criticize the Reagan administration's Iran-contra policies. They warned reporters and politicians that their criticism wouldn't be "cost-free."

Linguistics professor and author Noam Chomsky has said that if the ruling class in this country (the wealthiest one percent) wants to control the other 99 percent of the population, the rulers have to concern themselves with "manufacturing consent," or manipulating public opinion. This is especially true when the ruling class wants to rally the people to go to war at the public's great expense and personal risk.

Chomsky refers to this process as managing the "minds of the herd." He points out that if a political leader can justify his policies "by the menace of military aggression" that leader and his administration will "find its power broadly unchallenged." (Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian, Keeping the Rabble in Line, Common Courage Press, 1994.)

As fate would have it, ever since the recent terrorist attacks, Bush and the CIA can more easily justify their policies by the menace of military aggression and now find their power broadly unchallenged.

The George H. W. Bush administration concerned itself with trying to propagandize the public into supporting war. According to the November 14, 1990, New York Times, then-Secretary of State James Baker had "grown exasperated with White House speech writers" who had not yet come up with a way to sell the Gulf War to the American people. Baker said he wanted to "bring it down to the level of the average American citizen."

At first, Baker thought the American people might support the Gulf War if they feared job losses. The same issue of the New York Times said, "Mr. Baker first began to say that what was at stake in the Gulf was the 'pocketbook' and 'standard of living' of every American."

Then in the fall of 1990, according to James Ridgeway (The March to War, 1991), a New York Times opinion poll showed that 54 percent of respondents would support war if they thought the war would prevent Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons. A short time later, at Thanksgiving, Bush told troops, "Every day that passes brings Saddam one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal."

The fact was there was no immediate nuclear weapons threat from Iraq. In April of 1992, the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded Iraq was "at least three years away from making one crude atomic weapon." (Ramsey Clark, The Fire This Time, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994.)

The CIA and government officials have used propaganda to rally support for earlier wars, too. Jerry Fresia writes in Toward an American Revolution, "John Stockwell, who worked for the CIA thirteen years, was Chief of the Angolan Task Force in 1975-1976. In that position he was a sub-committee member of the National Security Council as well as manager of CIA covert operations in Angola."

"[Stockwell] has stated that one-third of his staff of over 140 personnel consisted of professional propagandists who fed false stories about Cuban and Soviet aggression to the press, the State Department spokesperson, and Ambassador to the United Nations [then Daniel Patrick Moynihan.]"

"Stockwell, referring to information revealed by the Church committee investigations of the CIA, noted that the 'CIA had co-opted several hundred journalists, including some of the biggest names in the business, to pump its propaganda stories into our media, to teach us to hate Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh and the Chinese and whomever."

"Leslie Gelb, the heavyweight of the New York Times, was exposed for having been working covertly with the CIA in 1978 to recruit journalists in Europe to print stories that would create sympathy for the neutron bomb." (Fresia's source: John Stockwell, in a talk delivered at the University of California at Santa Barbara, 8 April 1986. Tape available through The Other Americas, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA.)

In Unreliable Sources (Carol Publishing Group, 1992), journalists Norman Solomon and Martin A. Lee quote reporter Carl Bernstein: "There is ample evidence," says Bernstein, "that America's leading publishers [have] allowed themselves and their news organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services."

Solomon and Lee say that hundreds of journalists "have lived double lives, maintaining covert relationships with the CIA that went beyond the normal give-and-take between reporters and their sources," according to Bernstein's estimate. They add that many reporters "have altered or killed stories and disseminated propaganda at the request of the Agency."

In Inventing Reality (St. Martin's Press, 1993), media critic Michael Parenti says, "according to officials at the United States Information Service (USIS), the government has teams of propagandists in Washington who crank out stories that are wired daily to USIS's 206 offices in 127 countries. Many of these news plants appear in the foreign press, then return as 'blowback,' that is, they are picked up by U.S. correspondents abroad and transmitted to an unsuspecting American public."

Parenti also points out that mainstream media executives have discouraged journalists from reporting news that doesn't promote the conventional wisdom about given wars. For example, Parenti says when Jon Alpert, an NBC stringer, returned from Iraq, during the Gulf War, with revealing footage of civilian areas devastated by U.S. aerial attacks, NBC news president Michael Gartner not only refused to air the film but terminated Alpert's 12-year relationship with the network."

Some reporters are hired because they already go along with their employer's tendency to accept conventional wisdom. Parenti says "hiring practices for journalists sometimes include screening tests, psychological quizzes that single out potential reporters more inclined to go along with authority, less inclined to make waves."

Ever since the recent national tragedy, TV reporters have spoken in one voice, saying we must all rally around Bush and go along with everything he suggests. The TV networks have repeatedly shown glowing images of religion and patriotism. The networks have interwoven those images with sound bites that promote Bush and war on terrorism.

It's understandable that all of us are seeking spiritual, or, in the case of agnostics and atheists, humanistic comfort at this time. It's also natural and good that we're all expressing love for America. But we should be wary of TV networks that repetitiously juxtapose images of religion and patriotism with promos for Bush and war, as if to suggest that our personal spiritual and patriotic inclinations automatically equate to support for George W. Bush and his policies.

The TV networks aren't merely offering up common-folks talk about contemplative prayer to a personal deity, or quiet, private patriotism. Instead, they are repeatedly promoting God-and-country talk that redefines spirituality and patriotism as surrendering one's critical thinking to a politician and his goals.

Does any of this mean Americans should not be willing to have our government track down terrorists and prevent future terrorism? Of course not. We should all be in favor of combating terrorism.

However, we shouldn't rally blindly or give Bush and the CIA a blank check and completely untied hands. One of the most important things we can do is contact members of Congress and tell them we think the CIA should be subject to careful congressional oversight, maybe now more than ever before.

Here's some food for thought: Political leaders who had your own best interests at heart wouldn't exploit or propagandize you at a time when you're especially vulnerable to manipulation. They wouldn't try to push you to uncritically rally behind all their plans. And wouldn't anyone with your best interests at heart do everything possible to encourage you to question the herd mentality?

All I'm saying, in a nutshell, is let's keep our critical thinking in this time of crisis. We need to fight terrorism, but we also need to put today's events into historical context, remembering the histories of the CIA and of George W. Bush and his friends. We shouldn't let the "fog of war" make us forget that challenging our political leaders' conventional wisdom may be the most patriotic thing we can do at a time such as this.

The views expressed are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bush Watch.

>Bush Watch is a daily political internet magazine based in Austin, Texas, a non-advocacy site paid for and edited by Politex, a non-affiliated U.S. citizen. Contents, including "Bush Watch" and "Politex," (c) 1998-2003 Politex.