If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
-- Josef Goebbels

In Hebrew the word for “lie” is “sheker,” the word for truth is “emes.” In an entertaining bit of wordplay Rabbi Raymond Beyda (torah.org) points out that sheker is composed of letters in the Hebrew alphabet that are close to each other, thereby implying that lies are everywhere. The letters that make up emes are made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the alphabet, suggesting that truth is “far and few between.” The letters that make up sheker stand on one leg, showing how unstable a lie is. Emes on the other hand is composed of letters resting “firmly on two legs.”

Let’s look at some professional liars, first, from an editorial in the New York Times of 7/20/04. It was co-authored by two U.S. Senators, Republican Jon Kyle of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Addressing the problem of terrorism, it asserts in part:

“In this war, our enemies do not distinguish between Democrats and Republicans. All Americans are the targets of their hate, because all Americans share the values they detest, the purpose that has defined America since the founders declared our independence -- to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I suppose Kyle can be forgiven his mendacity. He is, after all, a Republican and a member of the Liar-in-Chief’s own party, and can be dismissed as a mere partisan hack, but Lieberman? C’mon Joe, why not just send me a bill of sale for the Brooklyn Bridge?

Do you really believe that the maniacs that flew into our buildings and are at present beheading captives are doing so because they are jealous or resentful of our form of government? Do you believe that terrorists go to sleep at night grinding their teeth in frustration at the fact that they can’t shop at a Wal-Mart and we can? I doubt that interviews of militant Arabs would reveal a sense of dissatisfaction at the fact that they do not live in a Jeffersonian Democracy. The idiotic proposition that our enemies “detest” our constitutional liberties” is the selfsame garbage we were fed by our president as justification for entering into the ill advised and badly implemented military quagmire we are now all working overtime to pay for. Liars.

We were all witness to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al as they systematically lied us to war. Hell, these guys had proof certain that Saddam had WMDs, and was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Here’s Cheney in his own words:

“We know we have a part of the picture, and that part of the picture tells us that he [Saddam] is, in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.”

And Rumsfeld:

"Imagine a Sept. 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000; it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

And Condoleezza Rice:

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

And their reputed boss in a speech to “religious broadcasters:”

"Chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He's a threat to the United States of America."

None of their assertions were true and they knew it. Liars.

Why were we not pursuing Osama in Afghanistan instead of opening a second front in Iraq? I wanted (still do) his head on a plate for what he did to my friends and family.

Last I looked the CIA was a part of the Executive. As such it is directly responsible to the President, the chief law enforcement officer of our nation. Now we are hearing that all of the above liars were and are blameless for the fact that Saddam posed no actual threat at all to the U.S. The fault lies with inaccurate intelligence. Liars.

Of all the members of the current administration, I am most sorely disappointed in Colin Powell. From the first, he was publicly doubtful about this headlong rush to war. He is reported to have thrown the first draft of his UN speech (written by Cheney’s staff) into the air and denounced it in scatological terms. Nevertheless, he dutifully lied in front of the world at the United Nations as he offered false evidence in support of military action.

The blame for the current debacle rests with an administration that went out of its way to engage in an unnecessary and costly war; an administration that now wants to blame a bunch of bureaucrats for its arrogant and deadly mistakes. This from the party of “personal responsibility.”

George W. Bush, not the CIA or FBI, is directly responsible and accountable for the case that was made for war in Iraq. He and he alone sold our representatives and us a bill of goods, and he must be made to pay for his deceit. We’ll see in November if the rest of the country is as disgusted as I certainly am. If they can tear themselves away from Fox News, Kerry has a good shot…

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Fox News. What is there left to say after the revelations in the highly satisfying recent documentary “Outfoxed.” I LOVE stuff like this (especially stuff that makes hypocrites squeal and agrees with my political cant). It is currently available on DVD and I highly recommend it.
Chief among the fibbers at the Fox Network is Bill O’Reilly. This guy lies like a rug. Of course, he is skillful enough to couch his deceit in technical truth (I did NOT have sexual relations with Rupert Murdoch), but in journalism a half-truth is as good as a lie.
Billy wrote a column for the New York Daily News on 7/19 that is as good a place as any to start pulling him apart. He leads with a lament that is probably factual. A recent poll in Canada (our editor stiffens and sits a bit more upright) asserts that 40% of Canadian teens believe the U.S. is evil. French Canadian teens think my homeland evil in even greater numbers; the percentage rises to 64%.

O’Reilly blames this on the fact that the BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. have colluded to portray America as “the world’s chief villain.” He further maintains that Fox News Channel (i.e.: O’Reilly himself) is “not even allowed in Canada.” He then offers to “set the record straight.”

He starts with what he terms an undeniable fact. “The United States has set more people free than any country in history.”

Being a Journalist of merit, Bill knows that an unsupported undeniable fact is merely an opinion. He then proceeds to offer evidence in support of his allegation. He starts with World War II:

“We know about World War II.”

I waited for a while, staring at the page, but apparently Billy had nothing further to say on the subject. I suppose we were to fill in the missing information on our own. I assumed he was referring to the fact that without the U.S. the Nazis would be in control of the world today. This is an assumption that most Americans believe. Still it bears looking into. Here are some facts:

About 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front, inflicted by the Soviet Armies. This came at a price. The Soviet casualty list tops out at over 20 million (killed and wounded). Add to that another 7 million civilian deaths, and you have a total of almost 30 million casualties spent to inflict over three quarters of the damage done to German forces. (Total German casualties excluding civilians stand at 10.5 million, in round figures).

Now let’s look at the West, where we have even more interesting and accurate figures. The casualty RATE of an army is a more telling indicator of damage than the total casualties. That is why crime statistics are usually represented per capita, and not as a total figure. With that model in mind, let’s examine some of the stats for the Western Powers:

The United States suffered 962,403 Killed and wounded.
Canada lost 95,187 casualties.
Great Britain’s casualties stand at 726, 383.

I then did the math. The respective casualty rates (percent of the total armed forces of the respective countries killed or wounded) are as follows:

United States: 5.9%
Canada: 8.7%
Great Britain: 12.3%

Canada, it seems, sacrificed more to defeat the Nazi’s than did the U.S. ! I turned back to O’Reilly’s article, and waited, but the liar had nothing to say in reply to my revelation. I considered calling him, but don’t like being told to “shut up.”

Quickly, some more of Billy’s baseless assertions and half-truths:

Lie: “More than 48 million South Koreans remain free because of American protection.”

Truth: The U.S. has stationed troops in S.K. partly as a defense against N.K. and in part as a counterbalance against other regional powers. The bases have traditionally been a flashpoint for anti-American demonstrations. The U.S. Army issues warnings to soldiers on leave when protests are scheduled in Seoul. South Korea maintains its own 650, 000 member military. It is modern, combat ready, and well equipped (thanks to weapons and equipment purchased from U.S. defense contractors; more about these sales later).

Across the Demilitarized zone it faces a N.K. military of more than a million soldiers and a formidable arsenal of missiles, but it is believed to have severe fuel shortages and lack of spare parts for its outdated military equipment. Some troops are equipped with hardware dating from the fifties. Can you say, “bolt action rifles?” Sounds like they’d do ok on their own, doesn’t it? Why are we there?

Lie: Nearly 23 million Taiwanese remain free because of American protection.

Truth: This From www.TaiwanNews.com, dated May 15, 2004:
The United States will arrange for a group of Taiwan lawmakers to visit major U.S. military bases later this week to seek their support for a huge budget for Taiwan's new arms procurement projects, government sources said Monday…The delegation will first visit the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii to receive a briefing on the general regional security situation and visit a P-3C anti-submarine aircraft base…The draft budget calls for the procurement of eight submarines, a modified version of the Patriot PAC-III anti-missile system and a squadron of 12 P3-C anti-submarine aircraft over a 15-year period starting in 2005. The United States offered to sell the military hardware to Taiwan in 2001 as part of its most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.

Starting to get the picture?

Here’s more to start your stomach roiling: This from the General Accounting Office, from a report released last October as reported in a Washington Post article:

“The GAO report cited the sale of 48 F-16 aircraft to South Korea between July 1993 and November 1995 as a case in point. As of May 1998, South Korea had failed to pay $49 million in fees. Similarly, the Air Force had not recovered $48 million from Taiwan for the sale of 78 F-16's for a sale between April 1996 and March 1998. In another instance, the Navy failed to recover over $19 million in outstanding fees related to the sale of 43 attack helicopters and related equipment to Taiwan.”

The F16 (a small one-seat fighter) is made by Lockheed Martin. LM has just reported a 22% jump in second-quarter profits. This was attributed to “higher military spending” as “[the military] gears up and gets ready for the wars of the future.” This last according to defense analyst Troy J. Lahr.

By the way, the US Air Force has not bought an F16 in decades!

Huh? Who do we sell ‘em to, then? See above. Pretty neat! It’d be even neater if our customers paid for them, but I guess that doesn’t matter. Stick the taxpayers.

Whaddaya think Billy, is any of this starting to put a dent in our altruistic image? Follow the money, eh?

Lie: The state of Israel and 5.5 million Jews would be crushed by its enemies if not for American aid.

Truth: We did nothing militarily to defend Israel until 1962. We sold hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to Arab states, but zilch to Israel. Nada. In 1962, we sold them the HAWK anti-aircraft missile. In fact we had little military involvement with Israel until 1973, after the Yom Kippur War. Pretty safe to back a winner, eh, Billy? Liar.

Lie: America sends $3 billion a year to Africa to combat AIDS. Canada sends $270 million; France, $60 million.

Truth: In the case of the U.S. and Canada, we each send roughly the same percentage of our GDP to Africa to fight Aids. Care to debate which country spends more at home to fight the disease? Or which country is more concerned about the health of its OWN citizens? Liar.

I do hope this takes care of Bill O’Reilly and his “misleading statements.” Indeed, I seem to have gone on rather at length with the process. I had hoped to discuss the report of the 9/11 Commission and John Kerry’s recent speech at the Democratic convention; perhaps next month.

Once again, thanks to my Gantseh Megillah friends for your indulgence. Let me know what you think!