The Trouble with Propaganda -- Part 11,243

The trouble is that it works:

Many adults in the United States believe their country will enter a conflict against Iran, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 57 per cent of respondents think it is very or somewhat likely that the U.S. will be at war with Iran within the next year.

Note these other numbers from the poll:

How likely is it that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons?

Very likely 42%

Somewhat likely 33%

Not very likely 11%

Not at all likely 2%

"Soon." Note that the word is very helpfully left undefined. In addition, no evidence whatsoever has been presented, publicly or privately, that Iran is in fact pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. To the contrary, all knowledgeable experts agree that any "Iranian threat" continues to recede farther into the future. Well, never mind. We have a wider war to get started. No time to lose.

So more than half of Americans believe we may be at war with Iran within the next year, and three-quarters of them think Iran will "soon" develop nuclear weapons. Yet public life goes on in its uninterrupted stupor. As I recently wrote:

[T]he war chants rise once again, this time directed at Iran. If we should attack Iran in the near future, much of the world will treat us as we will fully deserve: as a barbarian, pariah nation, which no one can trust and which will join the most monstrous countries in history.

Is there a massive protest from Americans about the route we may follow? No. Are the Democrats who now control Congress at least trying to avert this catastrophe, which may be the last? No -- because they fully share the belief in American "exceptionalism" and in our "right" to worldwide hegemony. Is there even one prominent voice in America regularly explaining the horror of what we have already done, and what we may still do? No.

If this remains unchanged, and if we launch another war of blatant, unforgivable aggression, we will deserve everything we get -- and more. Historians, if there are any in the years to come, will see what we were and what we did, and they will judge us accordingly.

It's as if the last five years never even happened.

Remarkable. Horrifying. Stupefying. Utterly unbelievable.

And unforgivable.

See: Becoming a Barbarian, Pariah Nation: What Are You Waiting For?

Morality, Humanity and Civilization: "Nothing remains...but memories"

The Missing Moral Center: Murdering the Innocent

Time Has Run Out -- and the Choice Is Yours