The Bodyguard of Lies

There seems to be a lot of talking about lying going on – but no attention to the history of war, strategy and common sense. And there really is a lot of lying going on – so let’s look a little deeper.

Since the “lies of interest” revolve around the war, perhaps we should study up on the recent history of war and wartime leadership. What recent history lessons can we look to?

What about Clinton’s (NATO) attack on Serbia? Straight down the Orwellian “memory hole” with that one – it’s too inconvenient when arguing against Iraq II without U.N. sanction.

Then there was Clinton’s “Desert Fox” cruise missile attack on Saddam. How about “[terrorists] will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein.” Not bad for Clinton actually. But down the “memory hole” with it since Clinton would be a “liar” alongside Bush!

I remember Bush senior’s “this will not stand” regarding the U.N.-sanctioned Gulf War I – barely. But riveting was the Army’s “left hook” through the Iraqi desert – and then leaving Saddam in power!

Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” was powerful. But did we really win the Cold War or just a battle? And did we really do all we could to "lock down" all those Soviet nukes?

And Vietnam? That was so disastrous that to this day queries about the boat people or the domino deaths of two million Cambodians to Pol Pot’s Communist-nihilist slaughter are “memory holed” with a wicked barrage of personal attacks on the questioner.

Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs? He bungled it so incredibly that Krushchev was emboldened to embark on the Cuban missile crisis and we nearly abandoned MAD to instantiate nuclear winter together.

Better keep going in search of satisfaction.

The stalemate in Korea? The other U.N.-sanctioned war! Both times American Generals – MacArthur in Korea and Schwarzkopf in Gulf I -- were sacked or stopped short. Both resulted in totalitarian dictatorships left in power. In fact, the two large U.N.-sanctioned wars last century allowed the survival of two of the three members of Bush’s “axis of evil”. Fascinating coincidence?

Finally we arrive at World War II and – real satisfaction. Winston Churchill! Franklin Delano Roosevelt!

How about Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” WWII rationale of “Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear.” That’s pretty good. But by the time we entered the war Japan, Italy, Germany, German-Poland, German-Czechoslovakia, German-Denmark, German-Netherlands, German-Norway and – of course -- German-France were all against us. World opinion against us as today!

Churchill’s “The Americans will always do the right thing … after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives” was the painful summation of why WWII reached tens of millions dead.

Churchill’s “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” was a jarring lesson on wartime alliances.

Or his “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” (You were wondering if I lost my bead on lying weren’t you?)

And Winston’s eye-opening corollary, “In war time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Allowing the bombing of Coventry after Allied cracking of the German codes leaps to mind.

Shock and awe? Or epic-historic logistics?

Quagmire? Or flypaper?

Hopefully, George Bush the Churchill-admiring history major will tell us – and the enemy -- more “strategery”-ically placed whoppers.