When I first got Weapons of Mass Deception I was looking at the cover in the elevator on the way up to my apartment, and somebody else in the elevator noticed the cover (which, admittedly, I was holding so it could be easily seen) – the following exchange went something like:

Him: Weapons of Mass Deception? They found the weapons!

Me: There are no weapons over there.

Him: Yes they did, Senator Santorum said so.

Me: Yeah, because he’s a credible source.

Him: Well, okay .. you must be a crackhead then.

Me: Okay, thanks! You too :)

At another level, the thing that really makes me angry is the indifference that many people in the United States (not only Republicans or the Bush administration) seem to feel about the suffering of the Iraqi people. The first chapter we wrote (although it’s not the chapter that begins the book) is titled “Not Counting the Dead.” It compares and contrasts the way the Bush administration, the media and the American people have talked about U.S. versus Iraqi casualties. I think there’s a deep-rooted set of habits, based on American cultural isolationism combined with the hubris of regarding ourselves as a “superpower,” that makes it much too easy for us to imagine that the opinions and even the lives of other people are unimportant compared to our own.

Thank you Sheldon.

We can’t see it, can’t smell it, can’t touch it. Sanitized by the administration and the media for the American people who clutch their grief (9/11) so close, yet the equivalent of 9/11 happens constantly over “there” and many don’t even care or acknowledge their responsibility.

If you’re still here, Sheldon, may I ask who inspired you to write the book? (doesn’t have to be named personally)

I can’t really say that a specific person iinspired me to write The Best War Ever. John and I have been writing and propaganda/public relations for almost 20 years now, and the war in Iraq is such a monumental example of what’s wrong with propaganda-driven public policy that that we almost couldn’t resist wanting to write about it, first in our 2003 book, Weapons of Mass Deception, and now in this latest.

I find, though, that anger is one of the things that motivates me to write. The difference between the two books is that WMD was written while the war was just beginning, at a time the the mass media and much the public were euphoric over how well the war was going and how great an idea it was. We wanted to burst the bubble of illusions and point out how the justifications for war were based on propaganda and deceptions.

Three years later, of course, there’s not much point in arguing that the invasion should not have happened. The U.S. can’t un-invade Iraq, so the question now is what we do about the mess we’re in. Our motivation for writing this book was to point out how the propaganda that got us into war is leading to failures and chaos on the battlefield due to the Bush administration’s tendency to believe its own propaganda. At another level, the thing that really makes me angry is the indifference that many people in the United States (not only Republicans or the Bush administration) seem to feel about the suffering of the Iraqi people. The first chapter we wrote (although it’s not the chapter that begins the book) is titled “Not Counting the Dead.” It compares and contrasts the way the Bush administration, the media and the American people have talked about U.S. versus Iraqi casualties. I think there’s a deep-rooted set of habits, based on American cultural isolationism combined with the hubris of regarding ourselves as a “superpower,” that makes it much too easy for us to imagine that the opinions and even the lives of other people are unimportant compared to our own. So, that’s one of the themes that we’re also trying to explore.

As for the people who I would credit with helping me see things this way, I would begin with the friends I made in college who were from countries like Pakistan or India or parts of Latin America … the people I met in the 1980s and later as a Nicaraguan solidarity activist … or, for that matter, my brother Kenny’s wife, who happens to be from Turkey and is a very charming, delightful person. I got the chance to spend some time in Turkey at the time of his wedding a few years ago (shortly before the invasion of Iraq) and met members of her extended family. American movies such as “Midnight Express” tend to depict Turkey as a backward place where the main activities consist of drug trafficking and sadistic behavior in prisons, but the people I met were cultured, cosmopolitan, generous and intelligent.

I’m rambling a bit, but I hope this answers your question.

Mary – if you’re still here or another of our legal gurus – didn’t the Patriot Act give the president the right to decide who was an “enemy combatant” or some such … since the admin has labeled deep ecology folks as a terrorist threat, what protects any one from being so labeled and tortured under this legislation?

Suin, go to page seven, the third one down

Allows committee of attorney general, defense secretary, and
CIA director to label citizens and noncitizens as “enemy
combatants,” placing them in military custody, holding them
in detention indefinitely, interrogating them, and denying
them communication with outsiders or judicial review.

http://bordc.org/resources/repeal.pdf

See my #65 for the definition in the House bill. The answer to your question is not much.

Mary – if you’re still here or another of our legal gurus – didn’t the Patriot Act give the president the right to decide who was an “enemy combatant” or some such … since the admin has labeled deep ecology folks as a terrorist threat, what protects any one from being so labeled and tortured under this legislation?

You’re right, but it’s the Sec of State, Sec of Defense and …?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..30399.html

MarcLord #93,

As someone pointed out earlier today, “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States” could mean anything from attending a demonstration to inadvertently giving money to an organization that was later “linked” however tangentially to a terrorist group.

Sounds like a new Sedition Act