Tree of Smoke: Lies and Blood from Tonkin to the Tigris

Think anybody in the presidential media pack will ask the newly triumphant, straight-shootin' John McCain what he thinks of the lastest confirmation of the fact that the war in which he was captured and tortured years ago was launched under precisely the same kind of knowingly false, manufactured pretext as the present war he supports so fervently? (From AFP: Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks.)

Nah. They won't ask. And he doesn't care. He's as close as he will ever be to the power he's sought for so long; he's not about to admit that tens of thousands of his comrades were slaughtered for a lie told on behalf of the same machine of dominion and loot that he wants to control (for awhile). He'll keep trading on those senseless deaths, and those wasted lives, riding them as far and as high as he can, waving Old Glory all the way -- while helping hurl more of his fellow Americans into the killing fields of another criminal war.

As for the two million Asians -- and the one million Iraqis -- killed by the machine's highly profitable mendacity, forget it. They're nothing. They don't count. And neither will the next million devoured by the machine -- which is set to keep rolling and grinding on, no matter whose hand is temporarily at the helm.
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