And the lies go on and on

Insights from James Bovard in Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan (Future of Freedom Foundation)

Excerpts:

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 eight 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. ...

Both Bush and Obama touted the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan as promoting democracy. But the election in August showed Afghan democracy as an onion-layer of frauds. A top UN official in Afghanistan estimated that a third of Karzai’s votes were bogus. ...

There is no reason to expect the U.S. government to ever become trustworthy on Afghanistan. At best, Washington will rotate its lies, the same way it rotates the National Guard units sent to the Afghan badlands. Americans need to recognize that once their government commences warring, truth will be target number one.

Read entire article here.