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Did Bush lie? What an amusing question. It raises the bar. It is so hard to
prove? Not one person suggesting it is difficult can say why it is hard to
prove.
I know it is high if I have a Jesuit education. But I am not interested is
sophistry. I am a scientist.
If you declare or imply a fact for which you have no evidence you are a
liar. It is not "have a reason to suspect" and it is not "have a reason to
believe." It is a plain and simple a lie to recite anything as a fact for
which you have no physical evidence. That means one is required to state
there is no evidence for the statement in addition to any and every other
qualifier.
Any statement which expresses or implies a thing without evidence is a lie.
It does not matter if it is in private or a political speech. If it is
stated without all the required qualifiers it is a lie. It does not matter
if it is inappropriate to the venue such as a political speech. If it is not
in complete and total context it is a lie.
If you intend to leave the impression without explicitely stating the lie
you are lying. It is the intention that creates the lie. If you intend
people to believe something as fact without the qualifiers to the belief you
are lying. If you want people to believe "we have reason to suspect" a fact
that is fine. If you leave out the "we have reason to suspect" then you are
lying. If you leave out the reason for the suspicion you are lying. There is
no excuse that it does not fit into a political sound bite or is out of
place in a speech. If you do it your are lying and you are a liar.
There is no impossibly high bar for proving a lie and a liar. If people are
induced to act on incomplete knowledge deliberately imparted you are a liar.
That it did not fit into a speech is not an excuse. That it was for the
greater good is not an excuse. Lying in a democracy is the subversion of
democracy and a cause for revolution, peaceful or violent, however the liars
want it.
We are now dealing with worse. Without the qualifications the statements
without basis in reality were presented as compelling war. Figments of the
imagination were not just political hype but an injuction to murdering
people whose only fault was defending their country from foreign invasion.
The worst of this lie is they lied saying they expected to get away with it
in a short, successful war with Americans greeted with flowers and a
democracy appearing as flowers in the wilderness after the first rain of the
season. We have the reality they knew would happen, hatred of the armed
foreigners and the murder of reporters who speak the truth about that
hatred.
They are liars. Bush is a liar. There is nothing more to say. Jesuits may
argue with me. Talmud scholars may argue with me. This is the result of this lie.
As if it needed to be said secrecy is also a crime
against democracy.
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