Only in the administration of President Bush does truth become the propaganda weapon of the enemy.
This week, California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, demanded that the US military expel CNN reporters from Iraq accusing the cable news network of airing “anti-American propaganda.”
At issue is the decision last week by CNN to broadcast a video provided by anti-American insurgents of their snipers firing on American Marines while on patrol, apparently killing one soldier. Angered by the CNN broadcast of the video, Hunter called CNN “the publicist for an enemy propaganda film,” asserting CNN broadcast the film to “generate profits.”
Congressman Hunter apparently doesn’t mind using the war to generate votes for himself and others, clinging to the lies that prior to the March 19 invasion, Iraq was involved with Al-Qaeda and was storing weapons of mass destruction.
Those lies don’t bother Hunter, but the truth apparently does.
You see, the term propaganda means “lies.” But what CNN is trying to do is to air the truth.
The only propaganda we are getting as American people is the propaganda from Hunter, President Bush and from those in our government who continue to defend the indefensible war in Iraq.
The image of an American soldier being killed in Iraq is brutal. And so are the images of Iraqis being killed in Iraq, and Iraqi insurgents being killed in Iraq, which Hunter does not object too because his purpose is to promote propaganda himself, the propaganda of lies.
It’s not unpatriotic for CNN to show the American people the truth, especially in the very month when more American soldiers have been killed than in any other month since the war began.
This isn’t about patriotism. This is about a congressman selfishly promoting his election and seeking to distract Americans from the truth of the conflict, hoping that they will feel more comfortable in embracing the lies.
Hunter asserted that at issue was whether CNN “wants American to win this thing,” referring to the Iraq war.
It’s the dumbest most ignorant thing I have ever heard from a war supporter. They lied. They made a mistake. They support a double standard where the lies are more important than the truth.
They hope that despite the truth, Americans will grasp at the lies. And those lies go far beyond the ones that led us into this illegal and unjustified war.
They include the lies which suggest that somehow, American forces are bringing democracy to the people of Iraq. The lies include the claim that the American people are safer from terrorism now because of the Iraq war.
They include the lie that the people of Iraq are better off in Iraq’s ongoing civil war than they were under the tyranny of dictator Saddam Hussein.
They include the biggest lie of all that somehow the American soldiers can win the war in Iraq, when the truth is we can’t win that war, we will never win that war, and when we do leave that nation what we will have created is not a democratic Iraq but an Iraq that finally, thanks to President Bush, now have active Al-Qaeda terrorist cells operating, planning and implementing their violence against American targets.
It is Congressman Hunter who should be expelled from the US Congress for lying to the American people, not a news station trying to give the American public the truth, albeit the ugly, painful horrific truth.
I would rather have the truth than the lies. And maybe Congressman Hunter and his ilk should stop lying and start telling the American people the truth.
For once, put the interests of the American people ahead of their own selfish political interests.
— Ray Hanania is an award winning journalist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com.
