Letter: America failing because war was built on lies

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006 | 7:44 a.m.

U. S. troops are caught between a rock and a hard place. They're in the mother of all dilemmas. We're told if they stay in Iraq it's bad and if they leave it's worse. The Iraq Study Group says the situation is "dire" and "deteriorating."

It's an unenviable position for the world's greatest superpower, yet here we are, courtesy of the Bush administration and a multitude of misinformation, miscalculations, misstatements and mistakes. And then there are the lies.

One of their first and worst lies was that the war was a response to 9/11. That was a dirty lie the administration intentionally instilled, encouraged, and allowed to linger in America's psyche.

They lied about the war being crucial to the survival of Western civilization when it was crucial only to the implementation of their neoconservative agenda and ideology.

They lied during the build-up to the war and after the war began. They minimized the conditions on the ground, calling the insurgents just a "handful of killers" in their "last throes." They recently told us we're "absolutely" winning when they know we're not.

So what did we gain from leaving Osama's cave in Afghanistan for Saddam's spider hole in Iraq? How has that helped us win the war on global terror? Why do we continue to let our troops die for a failed policy? How many hearts and minds have we changed for the better? Are we any safer? What exactly has four years of war in Iraq accomplished?

Close your eyes. What do you see?

Joyce Segal, Las Vegas