Historic lies

Two years ago today, Colin Powell punched his ticket to hell at the United Nations Security Council, dragging the rest of our country with him. So far, no one is accountable.


February 5, 2003: ``Secretary of State Powell, using a mock-up of anthrax during a Security Council presentation, believes weapons will be found." (Photo and caption, CBS News)

Deep Blade began in February 2003 because this story of official lies in incitement of war demanded that all of us who could see them for what they were use the biggest, loudest voice that we could muster against it. I will always be troubled by the inadequacy of that response.

From Deep Blade #1 (first posted February 11, 2003):

Administration officials are now well-rehearsed in delivering lines like, “Saddam Hussein is a practiced liar, there is no doubt about it. We should take everything he says very skeptically.”

Apparently, the same holds true for Colin Powell and our own administration. Other countries see this clearly as their citizens line up at 80%+ rates against the war. Notwithstanding posturing of the U.S. administration that failure to vote along lines of U.S. will renders the U.N. “irrelevant,” the U.S. still faces three likely vetoes of a war resolution from China, France, and Russia; teetering of the Blair government in the U.K. as it desperately seeks cover for war; even withdrawal of support for the U.S. position in third-world countries like Pakistan and Cameroon. These are no small measures of how badly Powell’s diplomatic disaster has turned out.

Perhaps even worse was the way the unteneble Iraq weapons story persisted late into 2003. Powell was still trying to save face by writing opeds in October of that year. The especially huge canard (literally a massive psy-ops crime against the people of the entire world) about the mobile bioweapons labs -- the perfidy of the promoters of the "Curveball" files, especially Colin Powell -- will be a classic study in state propaganda for decades to come.

But the worst thing of all is the current environment of lies. Iraq is a disaster that demonstration elections will not cure.