Mass deception is a cornerstone of the state’s ability to maintain total control. One of the main methods used by government to convince the population of their legitimacy is the tool of propaganda. This is nothing new, and states throughout the world have engaged in this practice for all of human history. What is new, however, is the mass awakening that is occurring in this moment of imperial decay.
I believe this decay is the direct result of an expansionist foreign policy, which is focused on expanding the global empire rather than furthering the values of liberty at home. The systems established by our founders are no longer the guidelines by which our government operates, and they haven’t been for a very long time. Consider the fact that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is yet to receive Congressional approval for his reckless war of choice against Iran, launched on February 28th, 2026.
UnderArticle 1, Section 8of the U.S. Constitution, it is stated that the Congress is the body with the authority “To declare War.” However, the United States hasn’t officially declared war since World War 2. The U.S. President swears anoathto “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This oath, which these Presidents take with their hand on the Bible, is routinely broken.
As a result of this lack of respect for the founding documents, we have seen the United States engage in countless wars over the past century. Arguably the most disastrous of these wars was the second Iraq War, launched in March of 2003 by the George W. Bush administration.
This war was sold through a series of lies, which states that Iraq’s head of state, Saddam Hussein, had acquired weapons of mass destruction, and was collaborating with the jihadist terrorist group Al-Qaeda to use these weapons against America. This was a particularly engaging narrative because just a little over a year and a half prior, on September 11th, 2001, Al-Qaeda had hit the United States with a series of terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.
This narrative would go on to be proven false over the subsequent years. Saddam did not have WMDs and he was not aligned with Al-Qaeda. This war was the result of a group of people known as the neoconservatives hijacking the foreign policy wing of the Bush administration and using it to accomplish goals which they had already been pushing for before 9/11. The terrorist attacks simply served as their pretext for war.
Through a mixture of fake intelligence, foreign influence, and outright lies, the U.S. was led into a war that was against our interests.
This conflict started a chain of events that has resulted in catastrophe for our nation. The U.S. has never left Iraq, and between 2003 and 2023 the war resulted in anywhere from 200,000-600,000Iraqi civilian deaths,roughly 4,598 American troops killed, and countless more American veterans having taken their own lives in the aftermath due to mental struggles. We spent, borrowed, and printed trillions of dollars over the course of this conflict, which has resulted in inflation here at home.
Every war is sold through a narrative, usually one which paints a picture of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, or hero vs. villain. The U.S. government is usually described as a “liberator,” whose goal is to free the people of foreign nations from their oppressive regimes. This line was used not only in Iraq, but is even being used today to justify the war in Iran. Donald Trump repeatedlyexpressed a goalto “help” the Iranian people free themselves from their regime, as if the bombing of Iranian major cities was rooted in humanitarian impulses. How kind.
In reality, this is merely fiction. The truth has much more to do with global power, foreign influence, and the ideological drive towards big government, masked as principled conservatism.
Source: Antiwar.com
