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We\u2019re Number One<\/strong> – by Mr. Fish<\/p><\/div>\n Chris Hedges<\/p>\n Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. It was a conscious choice. I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I was an Arabic speaker. I believed, like nearly all Arabists, including most of those in the State Department and the CIA, that a \u201cpreemptive\u201d war\u00a0against<\/a>\u00a0Iraq would be the most costly strategic blunder in American history. It would also constitute what the\u00a0International Military Tribunal<\/a>\u00a0at Nuremberg\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the \u201csupreme international crime.\u201d While Arabists in official circles were muzzled, I was not. I was invited by them to speak at The State Department, The United States Military Academy at West Point and to senior Marine Corps officers scheduled to be deployed to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.<\/p>\n Mine was not a popular view nor one a reporter, rather than an opinion columnist, was permitted to express publicly according to the rules laid down by the newspaper. But I had experience that gave me credibility and a platform. I had reported extensively from Iraq. I had covered numerous armed conflicts, including the first Gulf War and the Shi\u2019ite uprising in southern Iraq where I was taken prisoner by The Iraqi Republican Guard. I easily dismantled the lunacy and lies used to promote the war, especially as I had reported on the destruction of Iraq\u2019s chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspection teams. I had detailed knowledge of how degraded the Iraqi military had become under U.S. sanctions. Besides, even if Iraq did possess \u201cweapons of mass destruction\u201d that\u00a0would not<\/a>\u00a0have been a legal justification for war.<\/p>\n The death threats towards me exploded when my stance became public in numerous interviews and talks I gave across the country. They were either mailed in by anonymous writers or expressed by irate callers who would daily fill up the message bank on my phone with rage-filled tirades. Right-wing talk shows, including Fox News, pilloried me, especially after I was\u00a0heckled and booed off<\/a>\u00a0a commencement stage at Rockford College for denouncing the war. The Wall Street Journal\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0an editorial attacking me. Bomb threats were called into venues where I was scheduled to speak. I became a pariah in the newsroom. Reporters and editors I had known for years would lower their heads as I passed, fearful of any career-killing contagion. I was issued a written reprimand by The New York Times to cease speaking publicly against the war. I\u00a0refused<\/a>. My tenure was over.<\/p>\n What is disturbing is not the cost to me personally. I was aware of the potential consequences. What is disturbing is that the architects of these debacles have never been held accountable and remain ensconced in power. They continue to promote permanent war, including the ongoing\u00a0proxy war<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0against Russia, as well as a\u00a0future war<\/a>\u00a0against\u00a0China<\/a>.<\/p>\n The politicians who\u00a0lied<\/a>\u00a0to us \u2014\u00a0George W. Bush<\/a>,\u00a0Dick Cheney<\/a>,\u00a0Condoleezza Rice<\/a>,\u00a0Hillary Clinton<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0to name but a few \u2014\u00a0extinguished<\/a>\u00a0millions of lives, including thousands of American lives, and left Iraq along with Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya and Yemen in chaos. They exaggerated or fabricated conclusions from intelligence reports to mislead the public. The\u00a0big lie<\/a>\u00a0is taken from the playbook of totalitarian regimes.<\/p>\n The cheerleaders in the media for war \u2014\u00a0Thomas Friedman<\/a>,\u00a0David Remnick<\/a>,\u00a0Richard Cohen<\/a>,\u00a0George Packer<\/a>,\u00a0William Kristol<\/a>,\u00a0Peter Beinart<\/a>,\u00a0Bill Keller<\/a>,\u00a0Robert Kaplan<\/a>,\u00a0Anne Applebaum<\/a>,\u00a0Nicholas Kristof<\/a>,\u00a0Jonathan Chait<\/a>,\u00a0Fareed Zakaria<\/a>,\u00a0David Frum<\/a>,\u00a0Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a>,\u00a0David Brooks<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Ignatieff<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 were used to amplify the lies and discredit the handful of us, including\u00a0Michael Moore<\/a>,\u00a0Robert Scheer<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Phil Donahue<\/a>, who opposed the war. These courtiers were often motivated more by careerism than idealism. They did not lose their\u00a0megaphones<\/a>\u00a0or lucrative speaking fees and book contracts once the lies were exposed, as if their crazed diatribes did not matter. They served the centers of power and were rewarded for it.<\/p>\n Many of these same pundits are pushing further escalation of the war in Ukraine, although most know as little about Ukraine or NATO\u2019s\u00a0provocative<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0unnecessary<\/a>\u00a0expansion<\/a>\u00a0to the borders of Russia as they did about Iraq.<\/p>\n \u201cI told myself and others that Ukraine is the most important story of our time, that everything we should care about is on the line there,\u201d George Packer\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0in The Atlantic magazine. \u201cI believed it then, and I believe it now, but all of this talk put a nice gloss on the simple, unjustifiable desire to be there and\u00a0see<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Packer views war as a purgative, a force that will jolt a country, including the U.S., back to the core moral values he supposedly found amongst American volunteers in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know what these men thought of American politics, and I didn\u2019t want to know,\u201d he writes of two U.S. volunteers. \u201cBack home we might have argued; we might have detested each other. Here, we were joined by a common belief in what the Ukrainians were trying to do and admiration for how they were doing it. Here, all the complex infighting and chronic disappointments and sheer lethargy of any democratic society, but especially ours, dissolved, and the essential things \u2014 to be free and live with dignity \u2014 became clear. It almost seemed as if the U.S. would have to be attacked or undergo some other catastrophe for Americans to remember what Ukrainians have known from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n