THE LIES THAT BIND US TO IRAQ
by Robert Scheer

"The central sickness of human history is the notion that the ends justify the means, and it has disastrously gripped political movements from left to right, and from the secular to the religious. It is axiomatic that immoral means will inevitably corrupt the noblest of ends, as has been displayed from the fatal hubris of the Roman Empire down through the genocidal policies of the last century's nationalists, communists and colonialists, and on through the suicide bombers of today.

Yet this profoundly immoral posture has been embraced by President Bush in justifying his pre-emptive war against Iraq, even when the much-touted Iraqi threat proved at best to be based on inexcusable ignorance and at worst to be impeachable fraud. The undemocratic means employed by Bush -- misinforming the public, Congress and the United Nations -- are now somehow to be justified by the ends of "building democracy" in Iraq. This is a daunting challenge that the American people never signed on for and which seems as elusive a goal today as a year ago. "