HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA by Clyde Raymond Miller

HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA

Clyde Raymond Miller

If American citizens are to have clear understanding of present-day conditions and what to do about them, they must be able to recognize propaganda, to analyze it, and to appraise it.

But, what is propaganda?

As generally understood, propaganda is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends.

Thus, propaganda differs from scientific analysis. The propagandist is trying to “put something across,” good or bad, whereas the scientist is trying to discover truth and fact. Often, the propagandist does not want careful scrutiny and criticism; he wants to bring about a specific action. Because the action may be socially beneficial or socially harmful to millions of people, it is necessary to focus upon the propagandist and his activities the searchlight of scientific scrutiny. Socially desirable propaganda will not suffer from such examination, but the opposite type will be detected and revealed for what it is.

We are fooled by propaganda chiefly because we don’t recognize it when we see it. It may be fun to be fooled but, as the cigarette ads used to say, it is more fun to know. We can more easily recognize propaganda when we see it if we are familiar with the seven common propaganda devices. These are:

1. The Name Calling Device

2. The Glittering Generalities Device

3. The Transfer Device

4. The Testimonial Device

5. The Plain Folks Device

6. The Card Stacking Device

7. The Band Wagon Device

Why are we fooled by these devices? Because they appeal to our emotions rather than to our reason. They make us believe and do something we would not believe or do if we thought about it calmly, dispassionately. In examining these devices, note that they work most effectively at those times when we are too lazy to think for ourselves; also, they tie into emotions which sway us to be “for” or “against” nations, races, religions, ideals, economic and political policies and practices, and so on through automobiles, cigarettes, radios, toothpastes, presidents, and wars. With our emotions stirred, it may be fun and infinitely more to our own interests to know how they work.

Lincoln must have had in mind citizens who could balance their emotions with intelligence when he made his remark: “… but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

NAME CALLING

“Name Calling” is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear. He does this by giving “bad names” to those individuals, groups, nations, races, policies, practices, beliefs, and ideals which he would have us condemn and reject. For centuries the name “heretic” was bad. Thousands were oppressed, tortured, or put to death as heretics. Anybody who dissented from popular or group belief or practice was in danger of being called a heretic. In the light of today’s knowledge, some heresies were bad and some were good. Many of the pioneers of modern science were called heretics; witness the cases of Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno. Today’s bad names include: Fascist, demagogue, dictator, Red, financial oligarchy, Communist, muckraker, alien, outside agitator, economic royalist, Utopian, rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, Tory, Constitution wrecker.

“Al” Smith called (Franklin D.) Roosevelt a Communist by implication when he said in his Liberty League speech, “There can only be one capital, Washington or Moscow.” When “Al” Smith was running for the presidency many called him a tool of the pope, saying in effect, “We must choose between Washington and Rome.” That implied that Mr. Smith, if elected president, would take his orders from the pope. Likewise, Mr. Justice Hugo Black has been associated with a bad name, Ku Klux Klan. In these cases some propagandists have tried to make us form judgments without examining essential evidence and implications. “Al Smith is a Catholic. He must never be president.” “Roosevelt is a Red. Defeat his program.” “Hugo Black is or was a Klansman. Take him out of the Supreme Court.”

Use of “bad names” without presentation of their essential meaning, without all their pertinent implications, comprises perhaps the most common of all propaganda devices. Those who want to maintain the status quo apply bad names to those who would change it. For example, the (William Randolph) Hearst press applies bad names to Communists and Socialists. Those who want to change the status quo apply bad names to those who would maintain it. For example, the Daily Worker and the American Guardian apply bad names to conservative Republicans and Democrats.

GLITTERING GENERALITIES

“Glittering Generalities” is a device by which the propagandist identifies his program with virtue by use of “virtue words.” Here, he appeals to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood. He uses words like truth, freedom, honor, liberty, social justice, public service, the right to work, loyalty, progress, democracy, the American way, Constitution defender. These words suggest shining ideals. All persons of good will believe in these ideals. Hence, the propagandist, by identifying his individual group, nation, race, policy, practice, or belief with such ideals, seeks to win us to his cause. As Name Calling is a device to make us form a judgment to reject and condemn, without examining the evidence, Glittering Generalities is a device to make us accept and approve, without examining the evidence.

For example, use of the phrases, “the right to work” and “social justice,” may be a device to make us accept programs for meeting the labor-capital problem which, if we examined them critically, we would not accept at all.

In the Name Calling and Glittering Generalities devices, words are used to stir up our emotions and to befog our thinking. In one device “bad words” are used to make us mad; in the other, “good words” are used to make us glad.

The propagandist is most effective in the use of these devices when his words make us create devils to fight or gods to adore. By his use of the “bad words,” we personify as a “devil” some nation, race, group, individual, policy, practice, or ideal; we are made fighting mad to destroy it. By use of “good words,” we personify as a godlike idol some nation, race, group, etc. Words which are “bad” to some are “good” to others, or may be made so. Thus, to some the New Deal is “a prophecy of social salvation” while to others it is “an omen of social disaster.”

From consideration of names, “bad” and “good,” we pass to institutions and symbols, also “bad” and “good.” We see these in the next device.

TRANSFER

“Transfer” is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept. For example, most of us respect and revere our church and our nation. If the propagandist succeeds in getting church or nation to approve a campaign in behalf of some program, he thereby transfers its authority, sanction, and prestige to that program. Thus, we may accept something which otherwise we might reject.

In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. These symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation. A cartoonist by having Uncle Sam disapprove a budget for unemployment relief would have us feel that the whole United States disapproves relief costs. By drawing an Uncle Sam who approves the same budget, the cartoonist would have us feel that the American people approve it. Thus, the Transfer device is used both for and against causes and ideas.

TESTIMONIAL

The “Testimonial” is a device to make us accept anything from a patent medicine or a cigarette to a program of national policy. In this device the propagandist makes use of testimonials. “When I feel tired, I smoke a Camel and get the grandest ‘lift.’” “We believe the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is splendid; the CIO should be supported.” This device works in reverse also; counter-testimonials may be employed. Seldom are these used against commercial products like patent medicines and cigarettes, but they are constantly employed in social, economic, and political issues. “We believe that the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is bad; the CIO should not be supported.” (BJ: I would only note here that famous people are often used in the testimonial device, like actress Sally Field selling us bone-strengthening medicine.)

PLAIN FOLKS

“Plain Folks” is a device used by politicians, labor leaders, businessmen, and even by ministers and educators to win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves – “just plain folks among the neighbors.” In election years especially do candidates show their devotion to little children and the common, homey things of life. They have front porch campaigns. For the newspaper men, they raid the kitchen cupboard, finding there some of the good wife’s apple pie. They go to country picnics; they attend service at the old frame church; they pitch hay and go fishing; they show their belief in home and mother. In short, they would win our votes by showing that they’re just as common as the rest of us – “just plain folks,” – and therefore, wise and good. Business men often are “plain folks” with the factory hands. Even distillers use the device. “It’s our family’s whiskey, neighbor; and neighbor, it’s your price.”

CARD STACKING

“Card Stacking” is a device in which the propagandist employs all the arts of deception to win our support for himself, his group, nation, race, policy, practice, belief, or ideal. He stacks the cards against the truth. He uses under-emphasis and over-emphasis to dodge issues and evade facts. He resorts to lies, censorship, and distortion. He omits facts. He offers false testimony. He creates a smoke screen of clamor by raising a new issue when he wants an embarrassing matter forgotten. He draws a “red herring” across the trail to confuse and divert those in quest of facts he does not want revealed. He makes the unreal appear real and the real appear unreal. He lets half-truth masquerade as truth. By the Card Stacking device, a mediocre candidate, through the “build-up,” is made to appear an intellectual titan; an ordinary prize fighter a probable world champion; a worthless patent medicine a beneficent cure. By means of this device propagandists would convince us that a ruthless war of aggression is a crusade for righteousness. Some member nations of the Non-Intervention Committee send their troops to intervene in Spain. Card Stacking employs sham, hypocrisy, effrontery. (BJ: “The Big Lie” falls into this category: if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it. The release of falsified documents is included in “The Big Lie.”)

THE BAND WAGON

The “Band Wagon” is a device to make us follow the crowd, to accept the propagandist’s program en masse. Here his theme is: “Everybody’s doing it.” His techniques range from those of medicine show to dramatic spectacle. He hires a hall, fills a great stadium, marches a million men in parade. He employs symbols, colors, music, movement, all the dramatic arts. He appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to “follow the crowd.” Because he wants us to “follow the crowd” in masses, he directs his appeal to groups held together by common ties of nationality, religion, race, environment, sex, vocation. Thus, propagandists campaigning for or against a program will appeal to us as Catholics, Protestants or Jews; as members of the Nordic race or as Negroes; as farmers or as school teachers; as housewives or as miners. All the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to the group; thus, emotion is made to push and pull the group on to the Band Wagon. In newspaper articles and in the spoken word this device is also found. “Don’t throw your vote away. Vote for our candidate. He’s sure to win.” Nearly every candidate wins in every election – before the votes are in. (BJ: It is my fervent prayer that “one day a lemming will fly.”)

PROPAGANDA AND EMOTION

Observe that in all these devices our emotion is the stuff with which propagandists work. Without it, they are helpless; with it, harnessing it to their purposes, they can make us glow with pride or burn with hatred, they can make us zealots in behalf of the program they espouse. As we said at the beginning, propaganda as generally understood is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends. Without the appeal to our emotion – to our fears and to our courage, to our selfishness and unselfishness, to our loves and to our hates – propagandists would influence few opinions and few actions.

To say this is not to condemn emotion, an essential part of life, or to assert that all predetermined ends of propagandists are “bad.” What we mean is that the intelligent citizen does not want propagandists to utilize his emotions, even to the attainment of “good” ends, without knowing what is going on. He does not want to be “used” in the attainment of ends he may later consider “bad.” He does not want to be gullible. He does not want to be fooled. He does not want to be duped, even in a “good” cause. He wants to know the facts and among these is included the fact of the utilization of his emotions.

Keeping in mind the seven common propaganda devices, turn to today’s newspapers and almost immediately you can spot examples of them all. At election time or during any campaign, Plain Folks and Band Wagon are common. Card Stacking is hardest to detect, because it is adroitly executed or because we lack the information necessary to nail the lie. A little practice with the daily newspapers in detecting these propaganda devices soon enables us to detect them elsewhere – in radio, newsreels, books, magazines, and in expression of labor unions, business groups, churches, schools, political parties.

The 9/11 Epiphany

It was through realising the 'US government's official 9/11 conspiracy theory' is clearly an outright lie, that, searching for solutions, I came to the conclusion, the understanding, that those who believe in the religion of 'the state' form the most dangerous cult in the history of humanity. 

It is the belief in the legitimacy and necessity of 'the state' that empowers it, that makes it appear to be real.  It is not real, 'the state' only exists because people believe it is real and act as if it is real.  You think it is real?  show it to me, not its actors, not its buildings, its papers, its tanks, its schools, its violence.  Show it to me if it is real.

The world may always have bad people who want to cause and profit from harm.  The vast number of them, the psychopathic, gravitate to make use of the power this belief in 'the state' enables.  There is no possibility of restraining 'the state' to prevent its abuse (the USA is proof of this - the most liberally conceived nation in the history of humanity has turned into the most massive war machine in the history of humanity).  There is no modification of the model possible to prevent it from becoming a monster for, for no matter how great or small, it is always, and only can ever be, a monster (or a baby monster in the making).

The great thing about 9/11 - the one 'good' thing - is that: to those who are capable of opening their eyes, their minds, of doing the work, of undoing and setting aside a lifetime of indoctrination, to those capable, they can see that 9/11 was a colossal lie.   Once this is truly realised, really accepted, it is then evident that no other persons, properly informed and who examine the facts, can be of any other conclusion.  It is then logical that not only the US government but the governments of the whole world must also realise this evident truth too. 

So how can the governments of the world's nations continue to operate with such a colossal falsehood in their midsts and yet still be trusted, still be believed in?  They cannot.

How many more lies have been dealt to humanity, before and since, by governments?  How much harm?  How much stolen prosperity?  How much squandered happiness?  How many lives?  Plenty I say. 

Once the paradigm is shattered, once one truly breaks free from the indoctrination that 'the state' is real and valuable, once one learns to see that, far from struggle, without the belief in 'the state' humanity will thrive, one learns to see that 'the state' has caused humanity's progress to be wickedly thwarted and perverted.

When free from the belief one can see: whilst humanity has the propensity for good - that people are intrinsically humane, the opposite is true of 'the state'.  Without the use of force, the coercive threat of violence, with that faux legitimacy denied from 'the state' the state collapses, ineffectual.  The power that 'the state' is dependent upon does not legitimately exist for any individual, does not exist for any group of individuals, majority or not.  'The state' only exerts the power of violent force because it has, granted to itself, that monopoly.  That is, at its centre and fundamental to it, outright evil.

So not only is the religious belief in 'the state' a cult belief, it is a cult based in evil to its very core.  And the only reason why the world is not an even bigger mess, than it clearly is, is because that evil, the evil of 'the state', is moderated by the fundamental good inherent in humanity.

The One Certain Truth of 9/11

Whilst I am well informed of a broad range of suggestions I am highly resistant to advancing any alternative ideas with certainty as to how the events of 9/11 came about, none of them are based in solid, indisputable, factual evidence. None of them stack-up as unquestionable. And that includes the, so called, official theory. The official theory is full of inconsistencies that defy belief too.

There is just one thing I am certain of as regards 9/11 and that is we do not know, beyond any reasonable doubt, the truth of the events of the day. And we certainly do not understand the mechanisms by which any of the WTC towers structurally collapsed and how then so much of their residue had greatly disappeared. It defies logic and science.

Basing ones confidence just on the indisputably of the word of the US government and the main-stream media is not enough to 'hang your hat' on that as being fact. Take that notion out of the equation and the house of cards upon which the narrative is built collapses to the ground in a moment leaving nothing but dust blowing in the wind.

Understand 9/11 and You Understand We Must End 'The State'.

The core deceit is the impossibility of the narrative, ascribed by governments and mainstream-media across the world, in respect of all of the events surrounding the episode of 9/11. If one rejects the 'appeal to authority' fallacy contained within the authorised narrative and instead work to draw a conclusion based on independently gathered knowledge of the facts surrounding the events and then utilise unbiased logic to assess those facts the resultant conclusion is unequivocal: the 9/11 episode is seen to be a fraud of such a massive scale any further call to authority in regards of government or the mainstream media is impossible to maintain. It does not matter who caused 9/11 or how it was actually conducted, that is not what is important or what can be concluded with certainty, what is important is that one must conclude that government and mainstream media are completely untrustworthy. One must conclude that their intention is endless, endemic, mass deception.

 
We do not need to investigate, mitigate or mend. We need to reject the busted concept of government, we need to realise that the cult belief in 'the state' can only contain this inevitable propensity, for psychopathic corruption, in every aspect of its function. We need to end our acceptance of the inevitability of 'the state', our core belief that to have a functional human society some form of state, no matter how limited, is essential. We need to study to understand, to shatter the deep multi-generational indoctrination, that without any style of government, of any kind, human society will not only function but will function at its complete optimum for all but those who otherwise will always usurp the power of government for their own device and betterment.

Surviving the CIA Torture State

Some time ago I posted a video of an Amnesty International cinema 'advert' which described water-boarding onto my YouTube channel. Within a week it had 430,000 hits and my other selection of self-made videos, about war in Iraq, the death of Dr David Kelly, the EU, Blair's body language, the BA038 Boeing 777 crash and so on, all had viewings rocket accordingly too. I dedicated my time to vigorously responding to 'meathead' comments defending the NeoCon agenda and military heroism. I was brutal in my honesty.

Guess the result? My channel was close by YouTube with my old ISP numbers all today still remaining blocked by YouTube. I could never be certain the waterboarding video was the cause of the account's closure but it is my best guess. It was a successful 'truth' enterprise till then but I have not really got back, in the same way, into video blogging, one way and another, as a result.

Of America's use of torture, imprisonment without trial, spying, murderous wars of aggression, murder of innocents (at least hundreds of thousands in Iraq), financial malevolence and the clear fiction surrounding 9/11 causing fulfilment of the NeoCon Zionist 'Project for the New American Century' agenda: I blame the American people. They have allowed their government to be hijacked and have tolerated this since at least the time of JFK being killed and greatly before too. They have allowed their country to turn into a Police State and to be run as the tax-cow for a Hegemonic Corporate Fascist Empire war machine.

The bulk of the people are so dumbed down as to the truth and so hyped-up over false rhetoric it is shameful. The many Americans who do understand the dangerous nature of this conundrum need to act, have to act, else they are just part of the problem too.
Act or pay the price folk. You are at war, you are under attack. Accept this no longer. Do not rest or resign till you succeed or die. Fail to act and the outcome will be disastrous for you, for your land and for the people of the world.

Act does not mean violence. Violence will fail. The one thing your state is good at is violence. They want you to be violent. They want to kill you. Yes: they want to kill YOU. Don't give them any excuse for violence. Don't even just protest. Protest is just 'silly begging' of your slave-masters for them to grant a little change. Protesting is accepting the authority of 'the state'.

The action required is to get organised, find others to work with, share knowledge and resources, plan and then just get on with the business of educating your fellow citizen. Keep off the 'wacky', deal with the substantive. Teach people how to understand, for themselves, what is happening and introduce them to the range of topics. The ones so dumbfounded they cannot listen or understand: brush aside. Move on to the next and the next and the next.

Secondly: reject the false belief in 'the state'. It has not worked, does not work, will not work and never can be made to work. 'The state' is only the device of your enslavement and the best tool of your enslavers. All apparent benefits of 'the state' are deception and can be better achieved in other, more simple and efficient, ways. If you do not understand this yet: work on it. You will never be free whilst there is a state to contend with. And you will never be free in yourself until you get this set correctly in your mind.

Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia - the PNAC World View

The 'Disputed Territories' of Orwell's 1984 and the Ottoman Empire have many similarities - but not so many as those that exist between the 1984 world map and the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) War Plan Map! No, no!

Subcontracting your thinking

 

If one just blithely accepts that on 9/11 the WTC Twin Towers disintegrated and collapsed into their own footprint, at a without-resistance free-fall speed of gravity just because of aircraft impacts and the resulting fires, and if you do not even understand what 'Building No7' means; you are lost.

If one does not understand the nature of the plethora of glaring questions concerning the events 9/11 and subsequently everything that has 'logically' followed on from this you really do not understand the enormous danger this 'state erosion of privacy' represents to humanity in these modern times.

9/11 programming

Following the destruction of the World Trade Buildings I was unquestioning of the explanation that this was the action of Al Qaeda, a group of Islamic terrorists of who I had no previous knowledge. A few days later whist motoring in an open-top on a cold evening a large aircraft flew low overhead as I drove and as it did so water vapour plumed from it's wings. My immediate assumption was that this was a poison attack and I had been directly subjected to it. Fortunately I have survived.

Subsequently a friend e-mailed, just as a curio, a link to 'Spot the Boeing' the French website questioning the nature of the damage to the Pentagon and, right or wrong in every detail of it's thesis, it was this alternative view that made me start to examine the official explanation of these and other related events. That journey has lead me to the understanding that, upon the balance of probability, these events are all a part of an ongoing series of deceptions to control the minds of the majority.

One detail that I consider to be very telling is the date of the attack. 911 does not mean much to people in the UK, for a start we write our dates the other way around: 11.9.01. But for Americans this number being also the emergency phone number has deep set subliminal inferences. The number has connotations of fear, injury, loss and so on.

But most significantly, to use the 911 phone number (999 in the UK) is for a citizen to willingly capitulate responsibility to authority. I do not see how reference to this effect would contribute to the aims of Al Qaeda. And if one is supposed to think Al Qaeda did not realise the dates subliminal significance, why would they want to reference it and reinforced it's effect with the Madrid bombing being 911 days after '911' ?

I consider Al Qaeda would not want the people to abdicate authority to government, they would want people to reject authority as inept and powerless. Al Qaeda would want people to capitulate to them.

911 is the date of choice for a government that wants it as a memorable and fear invoking 'trigger' to be referred to daily, in one way and another, repeatedly to reminded the public of it's old and new meanings.

Indeed 911 was referenced by '311', the Madrid train bombings, and less commonly realised 311 occurred just a little over 911 days after Sept the 11th 2001 (Between the collapse of the second of the Twin Towers, the North Tower Building, and the first train's departure to Madrid there was - within less than 5 minuets - 911 days, 911 minutes and perhaps 911 seconds).

The Bali ONE took place 999 days before the London 7/7 attack. (999 is the UK emergency number).

Bali TWO took place on 1/10 - ( 110 is the police telephone number in Bali).

Who knows what is in a man’s heart?

To judge if there has been ’success in Iraq’ one would need to understand what the underlying objective was of those who worked so hard to bring the attack into being.

It is reasonable to assume that the prime objective was not because of the threat of (so called) WMD. This tissue of lies was patently cooked-up to attempt justify an otherwise unjustifiable attack.
It is reasonable to assume it was not carried-out to serve any interest of the civilian population of Iraq. They are in a manifold worse situation now, as a result of our attacking, and we cannot even answer how many innocents have died as a result (the murder and manslaughter of between 110,000 IBC to 1,100,000 Lancet).

If the object is thought to be related to ‘the war on terrorism’ this is manifestly false. Any form or threat of terrorism has only occurred as a result of attacking Iraq.

We can assume that these solemn truths will never be fully or broadly recognised because the resulting reparations due to and deserved by the people of Iraq would bankrupt us.

If the objective was related to the interests of Private Military Contractors, the complex of industries supplying Military requirements, oil production interests, central bankers and such; all their interests have been served, and served at the expense of the taxpaying public along with the populous of Iraq since and into the future. It has been a successful enterprise.

If the objective was to strengthen the security of Israel in a Middle East hostile to their presence and actions, as argued by Mark Weber here in: ‘Iraq-A War For Israel’ http://bit.ly/ccII7m then the outcome has been to reduce the threat to Israel considerably.

If the objective was to break a middle east nation that, whilst held together by a grossly unpalatable and harsh regime, did have a high standard of education, health care, women’s rights, self-determination and enterprise, a nation that had the potential to utilise its own petrochemical (and water) resource and enter the world-stage of developed nations, the attack and subsequent CPA mandate has achieved this aim.

If the objective was to demonstrate that disobedience towards the US/CIA imperialistic interests, such as that demonstrated by Iraq under Saddam Hussain, will not pass unpunished, that aim has been succinctly dealt.

For all those involved the British and American attack of Iraq has been a failure. But for all those who have stood-by whilst these events have taken place and subsequently reaped the rewards it certainly can be painted as a success.
But; who knows what is in a man’s heart?

I fancy that, however it may have been achieved, GW Bush was steered absolutely by those who advised him, those who were also a part of the political lobby group known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

To read those named on the PNAC founding Statement of Principles is illuminating: http://bit.ly/9gOQcJ – The names included Jeb Bush (brother of GW), Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby (Scooter), Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz amongst others.

PNAC’s stated aim was to make the case and rally support for: “American global leadership, [to] shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire”.
To President Clinton they wrote: ‘The only acceptable strategy is one that [removes] Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. http://bit.ly/a82Sr9

In their report ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ http://bit.ly/bU2a0F (PDF file) they wrote: ‘Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. (Report-P51 PDF-P63)
On the 11th of September 2001 Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC, wrote in The Washington Post a piece titled ‘We Must Fight This War’ proclaiming “an attack far more awful than Pearl Harbor” http://bit.ly/9HvCSZ

It is against this background that we must comprehend Britain’s part is cast. It would be clear that the US was primed to react to the attack of 9/11 in the manner prescribed by those who dominated the political administration and in a manner that had too been expressed with resounding clarity.
For Blair here was a simple choice. Would we have stopped them? I doubt it. Would the world be a better place with the US operating in isolation, without seeking any backing from the UN, without the veil of credence offered by its old comrade and diplomatic good cop. Take Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, extraordinary rendition, water-boarding, torture by proxy, shock and awe, black sites, depleted uranium, cluster bombs for some examples and imagine how the US would have behaved if utterly unrestrained.

If Blair had stood-back and demanded a clear UN mandate to attack, how would the situation have stood if then Britain was immediately struck by its own ‘Pearl Harbour’ and perhaps one of even more devastating effect?