The lies used to achieve America’s ends

By Gerry Caplan, rabble.ca, May 14, 2011

 

Osama Bin Laden is dead, but every other claim originally made by the Obama administration about his last minutes was a lie. To prove he’s a tough guy, the U.S. President in whom so many invested so much hope is living down to his predecessors’ morality. Welcome, macho Baracko!

Until they were forced to acknowledge the truth, the formidable Washington propaganda machine churned out an entire triumphalist narrative notable for being dishonest in every last respect. It claimed there was a fierce and prolonged firefight, that Bin Laden was armed, that he was shamefully hiding behind his wife, that their home was a luxurious million-dollar mansion. In fact, Bin Laden was murdered/executed in cold blood by Navy Seals carrying out a clear mandate to do exactly that. Capture or kill — wink wink, nudge nudge.

The CIA had been closely monitoring the house for months so they surely knew there was only a single armed man within the run-down building. That couldn’t have made for much of a firefight, since he was quickly killed. The Seals were never fired on again. Bin Laden himself was unarmed although, so it was reported, he had apparently been ready to resist, possibly — who knows with these people? — by hurling a deadly Koran at the most feared, best-equipped soldiers in the universe. He was unceremoniously gunned down. In all, five people were killed, including an unarmed woman and several unarmed men, while a Bin Laden wife and daughter, both unarmed, were wounded. You don’t screw with the Seals, man!

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