[extropy-chat] Back to Causes of War

[Randall Randall]

On Apr 28, 2007, at 10:01 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>>     "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the  
>> people can
>> always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All  
>> you have
>> to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the  
>> pacifists for
>> lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works  
>> the same
>> way in any country."
>
> Goering understood Germany of the first half of the 20th century,  
> but he
> did not truly understand the nature of freer countries where  
> dissent had
> a long tradition. Do you think that Bush today could simply  
> fabricate a
> "Gulf of Tonkin incident" the way LBJ did and get a declaration of war
> out of Congress against Iran?   Of course not.

Of course, he could.  It would be a lot harder now than
the mere suggestion of WMDs was, but he could certainly
do it and have a good chance of working, for a while.

Eventually it would all come out, but for a while, it
might well work.

--
Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com>
"If you are trying to produce a commercial product in
  a timely and cost efficient way, it is not good to have
  somebody's PhD research on your critical path." -- Chip Morningstar