When Martin Luther King, Jr. first began speaking out
against the Vietnam War, he declared, ?He who lives with untruth lives in
spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the
truth.? When I analyze my endemic cynicism over the state of American
democracy, I repeatedly come back to this concept.

Both democracy and freedom are dependent on the truth, as
without it, effective deliberation cannot occur. Without true deliberation,
citizens become highly susceptible to manipulation by interest groups
representing the rich and powerful. The people then are no longer fully
empowered to make their own decisions amid the static of fudged facts, and they
experience the spiritual slavery Dr. King described. This, once again, is our
current status ? the greatest democracy the world has ever seen, degrading into
a rusting city on a hill of lies.

Both major political parties as well as the media have
refused to pursue the truth over the specific reasons why the Bush
administration propagated egregious lies regarding our country?s true motives
for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This came to a head quite recently, as
Mr. Bush added a signing statement to the 2008 National Defense Authorization
Act ? signed into law Jan. 28 ? that negates Congress?s attempts to bar funds
for permanent military bases in Iraq.

Furthermore, Mr. Bush?s Nov. 26 ?Declaration of Principles
for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship? between Iraq and
the United States was enacted, without precedent, without the consent of even
Congress. The U.S. is planning on staying in Iraq permanently, something the
Bush administration neglected to mention to either the Iraqi or American people
throughout this entire escapade.

This is hardly surprising given the Bush administration?s
general distaste for the truth. A recent study conducted by the Center for
Public Integrity found that the Bush administration told 935 deliberate lies in
the lead-up to the Iraq war as ?part of an orchestrated campaign that
effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war
under decidedly false pretenses.?

Why this isn?t considered an impeachable scandal by
Democratic Party leaders or the supposedly independent press is beyond me. This
is now a country in which lying about a blowjob can get one president
impeached, yet the opposition party says impeachment is ?off the table? for
another president whose lies illegally pushed our country to war, ravaging our
economy, military and international reputation in the process.

Considering the continually looming prospect of a new war
with Iran, why are so few people in our government or the media pursuing the
truth over why we went to Iraq in the first place? The answer may be that the
power players already know the answer to this question, and they are simply
choosing not to speak about it. The conservative former Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan alluded to this in his memoir when he wrote that he was
?saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone
knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.?

Fortunately, there is no need to trust Mr. Greenspan?s word
alone, as many members of the Bush administration have written about similarly
imperialistic ambitions themselves. High-ranking Bush-allies Dick Cheney, Don
Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, Jon Bolton and even Bush?s brother Jeb
helped found the neoconservative think tank The Project for a New American
Century in the late ?90s. The signature report made by this think tank was
titled ?Rebuilding America?s Defenses,? and it was designed to build off the
work that Dick Cheney had done in the early ?90s when he was Secretary of
Defense for George H. W. Bush. Although this report was written about a year
before Sept. 11, it provides a disturbing view down the rabbit hole through
which Alice and all the rest of us have fallen. This report is designed as ?a
blueprint for maintaining U.S. preeminence, precluding the rise of a great
power rival.?

This blueprint calls for America to procure strategic
military bases in Iraq, Iran and North Korea through force. Although these
three countries were later dubbed the Axis of Evil, the need to invade was
specifically cited as transcending the desire for regime change. The report
unequivocally states ?while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the
immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in
the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.?

This is further emphasized by the statement ?from an
American perspective, the value of such [permanent military] bases would endure
even should Saddam pass from the scene.?

Right here, clear as day, are the true American foreign
policy objectives, and they do not involve us ?freeing? the Iraqis, Iranians or
anyone else. We have only cared about the permanent military bases that are
being established right now. We are acting imperialistically to ensure the
military and economic superiority of our empire, yet almost all members of our
political institutions are either too cowardly or corrupt to call for anyone to
be held accountable for this travesty or even explain to the American people
what has been done in our name.

We need to have a countrywide discussion over whether we can
be both an empire and a republic at the same time, and if not, which we?d
prefer to be. Only the soul of America is at stake, and I for one am sick and
tired of both political parties and the press equivocating about what we have
done and what we plan to do from here. It is the duty of all Americans to help
expose this, for just as it was when Dr. King spoke out in opposition to the
Vietnam War, ?the time has come for America to hear the truth!?

Harry Waisbren ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in
communication arts.