KRUGMAN: Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war.
THE COMPLETE ARTICLES AND MORE
THE COMPLETE ARTICLES AND MORE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Trust and Betrayal
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 28, 2007
“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.
Now that war has turned into an epic disaster, in part because the war’s architects, whom we now know were warned about the risks, didn’t want to hear about them. Yet Congress seems powerless to stop it. How did it all go so wrong?
Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs, the indications that we had a rogue administration determined to use 9/11 as an excuse for war, were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning — even before Mr. Bush began explicitly pushing for war with Iraq.
In fact, the very first time Mr. Bush declared a war on terror that “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” people should have realized that he was going to use the terrorist attack to justify anything and everything.
When he used his first post-attack State of the Union to denounce an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries that had nothing to do either with 9/11 or with each other, alarm bells should have gone off.
But the nation, brought together in grief and anger over the attack, wanted to trust the man occupying the White House. And so it took a long time before Americans were willing to admit to themselves just how thoroughly their trust had been betrayed.
It’s a terrible story, yet it’s also understandable. I wasn’t really surprised by Republican election victories in 2002 and 2004: nations almost always rally around their leaders in times of war, no matter how bad the leaders and no matter how poorly conceived the war.
The question was whether the public would ever catch on. Well, to the immense relief of those who spent years trying to get the truth out, they did. Last November Americans voted overwhelmingly to bring an end to Mr. Bush’s war.
Yet the war goes on.
--MORE--
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/trust-and-betrayal-paul-krugman-america.html
Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON
Labels: 'war on terror', 9/11, afgh Iraq, America, Bush, Giuliani, McCain, New York Times, News, Osama, PAUL KRUGMAN, Politics, Republicans, Romney, war
Bush’s Fleurs du Mal: MAUREEN DOWD
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/bushs-fleurs-du-mal-maureen-dowd.html
Operation Freedom From Iraqis: FRANK RICH - Scapegoating Iraqis
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/operation-freedom-from-iraqis-frank_27.html
And More
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Trust and Betrayal
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 28, 2007
“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.
Now that war has turned into an epic disaster, in part because the war’s architects, whom we now know were warned about the risks, didn’t want to hear about them. Yet Congress seems powerless to stop it. How did it all go so wrong?
Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs, the indications that we had a rogue administration determined to use 9/11 as an excuse for war, were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning — even before Mr. Bush began explicitly pushing for war with Iraq.
In fact, the very first time Mr. Bush declared a war on terror that “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” people should have realized that he was going to use the terrorist attack to justify anything and everything.
When he used his first post-attack State of the Union to denounce an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries that had nothing to do either with 9/11 or with each other, alarm bells should have gone off.
But the nation, brought together in grief and anger over the attack, wanted to trust the man occupying the White House. And so it took a long time before Americans were willing to admit to themselves just how thoroughly their trust had been betrayed.
It’s a terrible story, yet it’s also understandable. I wasn’t really surprised by Republican election victories in 2002 and 2004: nations almost always rally around their leaders in times of war, no matter how bad the leaders and no matter how poorly conceived the war.
The question was whether the public would ever catch on. Well, to the immense relief of those who spent years trying to get the truth out, they did. Last November Americans voted overwhelmingly to bring an end to Mr. Bush’s war.
Yet the war goes on.
--MORE--
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/trust-and-betrayal-paul-krugman-america.html Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON
Labels: 'war on terror', 9/11, afgh Iraq, America, Bush, Giuliani, McCain, New York Times, News, Osama, PAUL KRUGMAN, Politics, Republicans, Romney, war
Bush’s Fleurs du Mal: MAUREEN DOWD
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/bushs-fleurs-du-mal-maureen-dowd.html Operation Freedom From Iraqis: FRANK RICH - Scapegoating Iraqis
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/operation-freedom-from-iraqis-frank_27.html And More
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/ http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38
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