Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Nixon & Bush jr

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp
Truth and Deceit
By BOB HERBERT
When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1968,
Richard Nixon said, "Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth
- to see it as it is, and tell it like it is - to find the truth, to
speak the truth, and to live the truth."
We've now learned, thanks to Vanity Fair, that a former top F.B.I.
official, W. Mark Felt, was the legendary confidential source Deep
Throat.
I can't think of a better time to resurrect the Watergate saga.
The trauma of Watergate, which brought down a president who seemed
pathologically compelled to deceive, came toward the end of that
extended exercise in governmental folly and deceit, Vietnam.
Taken together, these two disasters, both of which shook the nation,
provided a case study in how citizens should view their government:
with extreme skepticism.
Trust, said Ronald Reagan, but verify.
Now, with George W. Bush in charge, the nation is mired in yet another
tragic period marked by incompetence, duplicity, bad faith and
outright lies coming once again from the very top of the government.
Just last month we had the disclosure of a previously secret British
government memorandum that offered further confirmation that the
American public and the world were spoon-fed bogus information by the
Bush administration in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
President Bush, as we know, wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through
military action.
With that in mind, the memo damningly explained, "the intelligence and
facts were being fixed around the policy."
That's the kind of deceit that was in play as American men and women
were suiting up and marching off to combat at the president's command.
Mr. Bush wanted war, and he got it.
Many thousands have died as a result.
Even in Afghanistan, where the U.S. had legitimate reasons for going
to war, the lies have been legion.
Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst
of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the
Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers.
He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot
to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.
Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a
friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his
family and the nation.
According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire
as he stormed a hill.
Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the
matter.
Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after
a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a
public relations bonanza.
Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:
"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a
sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and
he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and
tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about
detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people
that had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means
not tell the truth."
Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to
deliberately mislead or conceal.
Nevertheless, he knew what he was talking about.
The president may have stumbled over the pronunciation, but he's
proved time and again that he's a skillful practitioner of the art.
The lessons of Watergate and Vietnam are that the checks and balances
embedded in the national government by the founding fathers (and which
the Bush administration is trying mightily to destroy) are absolutely
crucial if American-style democracy is to survive, and that a truly
free and unfettered press (which the Bush administration is trying
mightily to intimidate) is as important now as it's ever been.
There you have it in a nutshell.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, drunk with power and insufficiently
restrained, took the nation on hair-raising journeys that were as
unnecessary as they were destructive.
Now, in the first years of the 21st century, George W. Bush is doing
the same.
Congress and an aggressive press ultimately played crucial roles in
bringing the truth about Vietnam and Watergate to light.
A similar challenge exists today.
We'll see how it plays out.

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