Lies Taking us to War

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it. --Mark Twain

It's a reality check all Americans should take.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - A January 12th headline in the Wall Street Journal: "Humanitarian gestures and covert actions won't stop Iran's bomb."

They lie and they know it! Show them the wisdom of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: "The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted."

On March 6, Mitt Romney wrote: "The same Islamic fanatics who took our diplomats hostage are racing to build a nuclear bomb."

He lied and he should know it! Romney is an expert at ignoring what Aristotle warned against: "The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold."

Benjamin Netanyahu told a crowd of thousands at a March 5 AIPAC meeting: “My friends, Israel has waited and waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work. We’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.”

A typical snake-oil salesman, this fear-monger is a sociopathic liar! The Russians have a perfect proverb for Netanyahu: "With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back."

Senator Joe Lieberman referred to Iran's "illicit nuclear activities." Someone should teach Lieberman the Yiddish proverb: A half truth is a whole lie." Their nuclear activities are not illicit. They're perfectly legal. Lieberman knows it and he lies!

Repeatedly the intelligence community has reported that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program.

Can the truth from those who know be clearer? Say it again. Say it aloud: Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program.

The chicken-hawks in Israel's Likud Party and in AIPAC and in the Republican Party, who want you to believe the lie, have no valid evidence to support that lie.

Challenge them. Some will tell you that Ahmdinejad said that "Israel should be wiped off the map."

That is a mistranslation - a lie.

Professor Juan Cole explained that in the 1980s Khomeini gave a speech in which he said "in Persian 'Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.' This means, “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the arena of time.”

Those who know the truth have been ignored by those who want to believe or spread the lie to get the world into another war at the behest of Israel and its supporters.

Congresswoman Michele Bachman expanded the lie by claiming that Ahmedinejad "would use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.” Bachman has made five trips to Israel.

Even President Obama distorted the truth when he addressed the UN in September, saying, “Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map.”

To continue accepting the lies of those who have nothing but war and destruction in mind is self defeating. There are already more than a million deaths from 10-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These lie-based wars have already bankrupted America and will engender more death and disaster. How many families of those killed by Americans will seek an opportunity for revenge?

Our wars do nothing but invite more death and destruction. How unfortunate it is that this needs to be repeated, but repetition is essential until the message sinks in.

Challenge the lies. Insist on the truth. Mark Twain wrote “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

When Netanyahu says, “I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation,” he is selling` a work of fiction based entirely on the possibility that Iran may someday develop a nuclear weapon.

What truth is stranger than fiction? Israel, with 200 – 300 nuclear bombs, feels threatened with annihilation by countries that don’t have a single atomic weapon.

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com

Paul has had more than 350 articles published, focusing on companies, personality profiles, entrpreneurs, women achievers, journalists and the media, the Middle East, American politics, the Internet and the Web, consumer reports, Arabs, diplomats, dining out and travel. Paul's articles on Salem-News.com are frank and enlightening. We are very appreciative of the incredible writings Dr. Balles has generated for our readers over the years, and we are very pleased to list him among our most valued contributors.

Indulging the hard subjects that keep the world divided is our specialty at Salem-News.com, and with writers like Dr. Paul Balles on our team, we amplify our ability to meet challenges and someday, will see the effects of this exist in context with a more peaceful and generally successful world.