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1. “The war in Iraq is finally over after nine years.”
Rothkopf notes the US has been militarily engaged in Iraq since the early 1990 and this will likely be just the end of another installment in the long running series of US warmongering policies in the region.
2. “America's mission in Iraq was a success.”
He expresses astonishment at such a claim while Iraq is divided, undemocratic, corrupt, and the US invasion has cost USD1 trillion, thousands of US lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and its national reputation. US war in Iraq bears greater semblance to a full-scale “fiasco”, he says.
3. “We are winning in Afghanistan.”
Rothkopf describes this one as a hot from the oven “howler” by the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Washington has strengthened the region's extremists and the threat of instability in nuclear Pakistan is now actually higher than it was when US went in, he says.
4. Tie: “Pakistan is America's ally” and “Afghanistan is America's partner.”
Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan can by any “credible definition” be called a US ally. This is attested to by the animosity of Islamabad towards Washington and Kabul's belittling of the US on the world stage, Rothkopf says.
5. “America is unthreatened by China's growth.”
A “prayer” by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rothkopf says. “It should be true. But it's not,” he adds.
6. Tie: “Republicans are the problem” and “Democrats are the problem.”
Rothkopf dubs this one as “the great lie of American politics.” He says the problem with US politics is not the parties, but the money. “The system is so resolutely corrupt that recent scandals have only resulted in more money flowing into the system and past reforms being undone,” he notes.
7. “Cutting the taxes of millionaires helps create US jobs.”
There is not even one single solitary shred of evidence to support this “idiotic” suggestion, Rothkopf notes.
8. “This next summit of European leaders will be decisive …”
Rothkopf says despite the fact that this claim has been made every few weeks for the past months, the “supposedly sophisticated financial markets” of the United States continue to fall for it.
9. “The Obama administration is committed to serious financial services reform.”
The US financial system is still plagued by all the threats that instigated the 2008 recession. “Not an inch of progress,” Rothkopf says.
10. “Only nine percent of Americans approve of Congress.”
“This can't possibly be true. There can't possibly be that many,” Rothkopf says in a stinging sarcastic tone.
11. “The operation in Libya will be over in a matter of days or weeks.”
Rothkopf says the operation was wrong to begin with, “and then wrong and then wrong again for months.”
12. “I love Israel.”
Even though everyone in US politics makes such an assertion, nobody really means it, Rothkopf notes. What the politicians really mean, however, is that “I want American Jews to think I love Israel enough to vote for me and give me money,” he says.
He is also a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he has written Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (2005), a behind-the-scenes history of how foreign policy is made in the White House, and Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.
America has been suffering an outbreak of especially virulent and acute stupidity recently. It has been particularly manifest at town hall meetings devoted to "discussions" of health care reform in which incensed Republicans scream at the top of their lungs about provisions that are not actually in any of the legislation under consideration -- for example the so-called "death panels" that would have bureaucrats deciding when to pull the plug on "grandma" (as President Obama characterized it yesterday).
Scientists are, of course, fascinated by this phenomenon which, given the behavior in question, has a better claim on the term swine flu than the current influenza flavor of choice does. Does it represent something new in the long history of stupidity? Or is it merely the latest manifestation of a time-honored component of the political process -- the cries for help of one of America's most important minority groups: idiots? (At least I hope it is a minority. There is some debate about that. It calls to mind Gore Vidal's famous line when asked about what he felt about studies that showed that only half of Americans read newspapers and only half vote and he said, something to the effect that at least he hoped it was the same half.)
Originally posted by hmdphantom
It is how US looks like from outside.
What does it look like from inside ?
یا بَنی إِسْرائیلَ اذْکُرُوا نِعْمَتِیَ الَّتی أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَیْکُمْ وَ أَوْفُوا بِعَهْدی أُوفِ بِعَهْدِکُمْ وَ إِیّایَ فَارْهَبُونِ (40)
O, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL! CALL TO MIND THE FAVOUR I HAVE BESTOWED UPON YOU, AND BE FAITHFUL TO YOUR COVENANT WITH ME; I WILL BE TRUE TO MINE, AND HAVE AWE OF ME. (BY PERFORMING YOUR DUTIES, AND OBSERVING THE COVENANT)
وَ آمِنُوا بِما أَنْزَلْتُ مُصَدِّقاً لِما مَعَکُمْ وَ لاتَکُونُوا أَوَّلَ کافِر بِهِ وَ لاتَشْتَرُوا بِآیاتی ثَمَناً قَلیلاً وَ إِیّایَ فَاتَّقُونِ (41)
AND HAVE FAITH IN WHAT I HAVE SENT DOWN (THE QURÄN) CONFIRMING THAT WHICH IS WITH YOU, AND BE NOT THE FIRST TO DENY IT, AND SELL NOT MY SIGNS FOR A LITTLE PRICE, (CONCEALING THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF QURÄN AND MOHAMMAD WHICH IS FOUND IN YOUR SCRIPTURES, FOR A LITTLE INCOME!) AND FEAR YOU ME.
وَ لاتَلْبِسُوا الْحَقَّ بِالْباطِلِ وَ تَکْتُمُوا الْحَقَّ وَ أَنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ (42)
AND COVER NOT TRUTH WITH FALSEHOOD, NOR CONCEAL THE TRUTH WHILE YOU KNOW IT.