Reply to John Kaminski
by Leonard Spencer

This is a reply to John Kaminski's The Lies of our Leaders

Dear John,

I've just read your article 'The Lies of our Leaders' on Peter Meyer's Serendipity website (a couple of my articles can be found there too).

I thought I'd drop you a quick line because I was struck very much by the article's gloomy tone and conclusions. Things may be bad, John, but the situation isn't yet hopeless. Who knows, there may even be some grounds for cautious optimism. Dubious? Consider the following.

1)  You may despair at the painful blindness of the American public, but in most other countries of the world I think you'd find cause for great encouragement. Take the UK. From the support given to Bush by Blair, many Americans probably think that the British public are right behind them. They would be horrified to know the truth. The great majority of the British people opposed the Iraqi invasion. On February 15th [2003] over two million people rallied in London's Hyde Park to oppose it — the biggest political demonstration in British history. The British people on the whole loathe Bush. He's seen for precisely what he is — a very dangerous buffoon wholly unfit for the office he holds. It is accepted as a commonplace that the whole Iraqi adventure was about oil and the mainstream media makes no effort to convince anyone otherwise. People are thoroughly cynical about the Bush administration's motives and its transparent hypocrisy. These are not the views of a few intellectuals pontificating on the internet, they are the views of the great majority of the British people and are expressed quite openly. This is rather heartening given that most of them have yet to be enlightened about the truth of 9-11. I should add too that the Iraq crisis had a remarkable effect on young people in the UK. School children (from about the age of six upwards) took matters into their own hands and organised their own mass demonstrations all over the UK, forcing schools to close and requiring teachers to accompany them. A whole new generation has been highly politicised by the crisis and it is profoundly opposed to US imperialism.

That's the situation in the UK, the USA's apparent best friend. You can rest assured the situation is pretty much the same if not more so throughout the rest of Europe and indeed the world.

2)  Although the rest of the world rightly fears US might and ambition, the Bush administration would be wise to fear the rest of the world. The US may be accustomed to winning its military battles but it is accustomed also to picking enemies who offer no real resistance. The last time it took on real opposition, the mighty Vietnamese, it lost. It will soon run out of soft targets. If its ambitions are to be realised it will eventually have to take on opposition of much sterner military pedigree. The Russians and the Chinese, for instance, not to mention the North Koreans. In history, no aggressively expansionist empire or would-be empire has ever succeeded in its goal, however overwhelming the odds once seemed in its favour. They make mistakes and errors of judgement. They get bogged down with unforeseen problems. Opponents fight with more tenacity and ingenuity than expected. The whole thing just unravels. The Bush administration has already shown itself to be error-prone and heavy-footed and there's very little to suggest that it will succeed where more sophisticated minds have failed in the past. It has for instance foolishly and avoidably painted itself into a corner over the Iraqi WMD issue, such that it will never be able to use that pretext again without raising howls of derision from around the world.

3)  Its biggest mistake however may turn out to be 9-11 itself. 9-11 was a pretty risky undertaking in the first place; immense rewards if successful, probable disaster if it failed. They must have thought they'd got away with it in the first few weeks, but maybe now they're not so sure. Despite their best efforts there is rather a lot of incriminating evidence lying around out there. 9-11 'scholarship' is getting sharper and more sure of itself as time goes on. Your own work is a fine example of this trend. Those who express uncomfortable truths in a time of mass deceit may be ridiculed, but their work will not go away and it will become only more pertinent as time passes. Its circulation can't be stopped either because there's as yet no way of controlling the internet. Are they really confident they can suppress the truth indefinitely? Mass brainwashing of the American public, though a successful ploy so far, is a rather precarious and desperate strategy over the longer term.

4)  Things could be much worse. The invasion of Iraq was not as horrific as many, including myself, feared it would be. Baghdad was not nuked and the death toll was relatively modest compared with some expectations. There has not been a major terrorist incident involving nuclear or biological weapons. Some of our gloomier prognostications thankfully remain unrealised. They got their oil, but everywhere except in the USA itself the propaganda war was lost. The majority of the world's citizens now view Bush's every word and deed with great suspicion. The situation of the American people is indeed perilous. Its public institutions are rotten to the core and probably irreparably so. The powers of state have been skilfully co-opted by a shadowy, sinister junta whose top priority appears to be the imposition of a police state. But at least the internet guarantees freedom of speech, whatever The Patriot Act or its successor may say. And at least the American people still have their guns, a right that may yet prove its value in the very manner that Jefferson wisely envisaged when drafting the Bill of Rights.

So cheer up John, all is not lost. There's still a lot to fight for. It may feel a bit lonely sometimes down there in Florida, but people all over the world read your every word. Millions of well-balanced, intelligent people share your views. You may feel you're banging your head against a brick wall, but you're not. The war is by no means lost. In 9-11 the Bush regime has a very sensitive Achilles heel and we must attack it constantly. You've got a fine quiver of arrows and are a good shot, so please stick around a bit longer. It is worth it you know.

Kind regards,
Leonard Spencer

Also on this website by the same writer:


The World Trade Center Demolition
and the So-Called War on Terrorism
Serendipity Home Page