Letter Never Sent

I’ve been reading Studs Terkel’s “The Good War”. It has a wealth of anecdotes and information from people who lived through World War 2. Here’s a tiny piece from John Houseman who worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) which was the United States’ propaganda apparatus during the war. I just found it interesting and wanted to test the OCR on my scanner:

I remember a naval officer sitting in my office for six hours, waiting for the word before we could put this on the air. I remember him saying — as clearly as if it were yesterday — “This is a beginning. This is only a skirmish. You know where the real war is, don’t you? It’s against the Russians.” This was in 1942. These were our allies who were being killed by the millions. Already there were elements thinking about the next war, the war against the Russians.

The Bush gang was handed a little setback in their hit against Iraq. Iraq has agreed to let in the inspectors without conditions. Even the conditions that no other government would except, namely that the US still calls for the ouster of Hussein even if he agrees to let inspectors back in. Looks like ‘Operation Take The Oilfields’ will have to be changed a little. The troops have been built up, the weapons have been ordered. Let there be no doubt that Bush still intends to carry out this criminal enterprise. It will be done, maybe not until after the mid-term elections, but it will happen. With that said, I came across this interesting article today. It’s not something you will read about in the corporate American media which has no interest in providing real information.

Let’s make one thing clear, the Bush administration has absolutely no evidence of anything linking Iraq to September 11th., but that’s not stopping them. Some flimsy justification will be made, and with the members of the UN Security Council paid off this so-called war will go forward.

America plans PR blitz on Saddam:

THE Bush Administration is to launch a multimillion-dollar PR blitz against Saddam Hussein, using advertising techniques to persuade crucial target groups that the Iraqi leader must be ousted.
The campaign will consist of dossiers of evidence detailing Saddam’s breaches of UN resolutions, and will be launched this week at American and foreign audiences, particularly in Arab nations sceptical of US policy in the region.



The White House is aware that it lacks substantial new intelligence on Saddam’s nuclear programme or evidence directly linking Baghdad to the September 11 attacks. But it will build on the contents of President’s Bush’s speech made to the UN General Assembly last week, in which he listed Saddam’s violations of UN resolutions.

The campaign, which will initially receive over $200 million (£130 million), will be overseen by the Office of Global Communications, whose existence will not be formally announced until next month.

This is what we’ve become. A corruption of American ideals. The bully of the world.

Related:

From the Washington Post: Iraq May Allow Inspectors In:

“I feel the Iraqis want to give peace a chance, and I’m convinced the majority of Americans want the same,” Rahall said.

“But when Bush talks of regime change, they [the Iraqis] don’t want to hear my message,” Rahall said. “They say, ‘What’s the point of letting the inspectors in?’ They feel that whatever they do, they’re going to get hit.”

Rahall, who voted for a resolution in support of the 1991 war against Iraq, said he does not agree with the administration’s arguments this time around. “It’s a continuation of a vendetta of 12 years ago,” he said. “It appears strange to me that a year ago this was not an imminent threat to the United States, but now, six weeks before an election, it is.”

Of course, the Bush administration has no intention of doing what’s right or what’s in everyone’s best interest.

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
– Mark Twain “Chronicle of Young Satan”

In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. – Winston Churchill

We are bred up to feel it a disgrace ever to succeed by falsehood . . . we will keep hammering along with the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentiments do well for a child’s copy book, but a man who acts on them had better sheathe his sword forever. – Sir Garnet Wolsely — Former Commander-in-Chief of the British Army

When war enters a country it produces lies like sand. – Anonymous

All warfare is based on deception. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The warring state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual man. It practices not only the accepted strategies, but also deliberate lying and deception against the enemy… [It maintains] an excess of secrecy, and a censorship of news and expressions of opinion… It absolves itself from the guarantees and contracts it had formed with other states, and makes unabashed confession of its rapacity and lust for power, which the private individual is then called upon to sanction in the name of patriotism. – Richard Barnett

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election. – Otto von Bismarck

The great mass of the people…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. – Adolph Hitler

By way of deception, thou shalt do war – Motto of the Mossad (Israel’s secret police)