Fib Factory Running Full Tilt

White House Tells Some Whoppers In Bid to Depict Wars As Battles Against al-Qaida

by Eric Margolis
The Toronto Sun

"The latest whoppers from the White House’s fib factory came this week as President George W. Bush (A) claimed U.S. forces in Iraq are fighting “the same people” who staged 9/11, and, (B) withdrawing U.S. forces means “surrendering Iraq to al-Qaida.”These absurd assertions mark the latest steps in the administration’s evolving efforts to depict the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as battles against al-Qaida.

When marketers want to change the name of an existing product, they first place a new name in small type below the existing one. They gradually shrink the old name, and enlarge the new one until the original name vanishes.

That’s what’s been happening in Iraq. When the U.S. invaded, Iraqis who resisted were branded “Saddam loyalists, die-hard Ba’athists, or dead-enders.” Next, the Pentagon and U.S. media called them “terrorists.” Then, a tiny, previously unknown Iraqi group appropriated the name, “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.”

This was such a convenient gift to the Bush administration, cynics suspected a false-flag operation created by CIA and Britain’s wily MI6. Soon after, the White House and Pentagon began calling all Iraq’s 22-plus resistance groups, “al-Qaida.”.....

This week, U.S. Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff allowed he had a “gut feel” that an al-Qaida attack was imminent this summer. The 16 U.S. intelligence agencies spend $40 billion annually, with another $15-20 billion in their hidden “black budgets.” Homeland Security spends $44.6 billion. After these gargantuan expenditures, the best intelligence czar Chertoff can come up with is “gut feel?”......."