The following article appears first and formost on the Ron Paul Institute (RPI) website.
For libertarians — and even many non-libertarians — it’s not shocking to discover that a U.S. administration lies and deceives the electorate.
For government on all levels, lying to the American people is as American as apple pie. Sometimes the liars are held to account for their deception, but most often they are not.
Watching these early months of the Biden administration it’s hard not to think that lying, deceiving, and manipulation is rising to a whole new level.
Take "ending the endless war" in Afghanistan.
President Biden was cheered for achieving what even Donald Trump could not deliver: an end to the pointless 20 year — and several trillion dollar — war in Afghanistan.
By the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we were told, the war would be over.
The only people furious about this decision were the bombmakers at Raytheon and the rest of the military-industrial complex and the laptop warriors in the Beltway think tanks.
It turns out, they really didn’t need to worry.
The U.S. is not finally leaving the Afghan people alone to run their country as they see fit.
Just this week, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the U.S. is increasing — not ending — its airstrikes on Afghanistan.
The U.S. would be pulling regular military troops out of the country (though likely keeping CIA, Special Forces, and mercenaries on the ground), but it would continue to bomb Afghanistan using “over the horizon” facilities from the Persian Gulf.
I’m sure that makes Afghan victims of U.S. bombs feel much better.
Then last week Biden announced an "end of the U.S. combat mission" in Iraq by the end of the year. While we’ve heard that line before, still it seemed like good news. However, as usual, the devil was in the details.
While the "mission" was over, the U.S. troops would remain in-country in an "advisory role." This is despite the fact that the Iraqi Parliament formally requested last year that US troops leave the country.
Biden has bombed anti-ISIS militias supported by the Iraqi government twice this year (so far).
The 900 U.S. troops illegally occupying Syrian territory would also remain in-country, the Biden Administration announced last week.
Also, just over a week ago President Biden told us that if we got the vaccine we would not get COVID. Then a few days later his own CDC released data from a Massachusetts study showing that 78% of the people who caught COVID were fully vaccinated. Is it any wonder Americans have lost all faith in "the science" as it pours forth from the politicized "scientists" in charge of U.S. public health institutions?
The U.S. mainstream media has morphed into a de facto arm of the Biden administration, however, covering up for all of these lies and word-games and holding precisely no one in government accountable. So much for a free media acting as a check on government power.
In fact, any "enemy" country overseas with such a subservient press would be targeted for a State Department color revolution.
Governments lie.
We understand that.
It's the nature of politics and power.
In the absence of independent institutions to hold government accountable, however, such lies become indistinguishable from facts, and soon "freedom" itself becomes slavery, as Orwell wrote.
Let’s hope more of America wakes up soon.
Ron Paul is a physician, author and former Republican congressman. Paul also is a two-time Republican pr'esidential candidate and the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1988 U.S. presidential election. His latest book is "Swords Into Plowshares." Read Ron Paul's Reports — More Here.
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