Well, here we are ...

Hiding in plain sight:

I must admit that these days I'm feeling much as I did in the weeks and months after 9/11, when it seemed the whole nation had gone mad -- and deaf as well, simply not hearing the crimes and atrocities and immoral, dishonorable actions that were being planned and promised in their names. For example, what in God's name did people think Dick Cheney was talking about when he announced on national television -- on Sept. 16, 2001, just five days after the attacks -- that "we will also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will"? Or when George W. Bush declared on Aug. 7, 2002: "There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland." Or in the long, slow build-up to the act of aggression against Iraq, when the most transparent lies were told -- easily debunkable by the most ordinary person with an internet connection or the slightest acquaintance with recent history, as I used to demonstrate week after week in the Moscow Times -- much less by savvy "foreign policy experts" like Joe Biden?

To speak out against all this -- to simply point to plain facts and the obvious implications of what national leaders were actually saying, to take the very traditional and indeed conservative position that America should not wage aggressive war and should obey its own laws -- was in those days like shouting into a hurricane. Nobody listened, nobody cared, and any nay-sayer was denounced as a crank or a fool or a traitor, whose dangerous carping would give aid and comfort to the enemy, and help the bad guys win. Strange days indeed.

And here we are again. Joe Biden stood on a stage before the world Wednesday night and, echoing Barack Obama's own positions, clearly promised more hell on earth for us all. ...

[Read Tongue of Flame: A Speech Presaging Endless War]