The Light of Reason (Courtesy of Crooks and Liars) is another good read on the Newsweek debacle. Some relevant portions are posted below.
Yet even as the evidence of our failure continues to mount—and even as more and more people die every single day and the carnage continues without end—the Bush administration and the warhawks continue to insist that we are “winning,” that “freedom is on the march,” and that we are spreading democracy.
People can certainly choose to live in a world built on their own delusions if they wish—but they ought to recognize that facts will inevitably reassert themselves at some point. Fantasies cannot go on forever. Bush’s foreign policy is built on many delusions, including “The Fatal Utopian Delusion.” But this dream world cannot go on much longer. Facts and reality again reasserted themselves for a moment with the Newsweek story—and the hawks have convinced themselves that a retraction will make the undeniable reality vanish, still another time.
And so it might, at least in their own minds. They will be able to return to the fables with which they comfort themselves. But in the meantime, in the real world, people continue to die, people continue to suffer horrible injury, our own troops continue to be brutalized by what they are asked to do, and more and more people throughout the world grow to resent and hate the United States.
Refusing to face and deal with facts carries a tragically high price. That price is exacted from all of those who are the victims of our actions abroad. Victims know what has happened to them, and they know why, and they know who did it.
And they talk. Word gets out. One story in Newsweek doesn’t matter. The truth, indeed, is out there—but Bush and his associates will continue to deny it, their enablers will continue to deny it, and our media will continue to deny it.
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