FORGETTING THE FILM ON THE FLOOR

Allow me, please, to remind you that most of those power brokers who misrepresented the need for war in Iraq are still in positions of power in Washington clamoring for further wars of preemption.

Paul Wolfowitz--"U.S. would be greeted as liberators" in Iraq--was rewarded by George Bush with the position of president of the World Bank where he was hounded out due to ethics violations. He is now visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which is heavily influential in conservative national security issues.

Richard Perl--said Iraq had a hand in 9/11--is resident fellow at AEI.

Douglas Feith--disseminated deceptive intelligence that contradicted the consensus of the Intelligence Community re Iraq--teaches at Georgetown University.

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and frequent Fox Noose commentator, who advocated, in 2006, a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, said, re Iran, "Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement." Here is the video link:

http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/krisiran.320.240.mov

The dogs of war are still loose in the land--the Neocon warmongers (and those Democrats who caved to the war hype) are NOT gone. Many of the same arguments used in the deceptions leading to the war of choice in Iraq--insurgents would welcome American intervention, etc.--are now being unleashed on the American public re Iran. This argument would be like saying that because Americans are critical of our government, we would welcome a Chinese attack to help us.

We should not think history a dirty word. It is true that from the beginning America has been a society not wanting to look at history: we were founded by people seeking to forget their European past. Today, we are nearly amnesiac--"Alzhei-Ameriac" (I just coined this one)--a condition in which, if you attend to the mainstream media, you are supposed to have forgotten the previous 15 minutes--and Vietnam and Iraq.

If we do not resist presentism--an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences--we will not understand the temporal/spatial reality in which we live. It will seem like an always-premiering movie, while forgetting that much of the past/present reality has been left on the film editor's cutting-room floor.