Th e New Hampshire Gazette, Friday, May 29, 2015 — Page 1 First Class U.S. The New Hampshire Gazette Postage Paid A Non-Fiction Newspaper Portsmouth, N.H. Vol. CCLIX, No. 18 The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ • Editor: Steven Fowle • Founded 1756 by Daniel Fowle Permit No. 75 May 29, 2015 PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802 •
[email protected] • www.nhgazette.com Address Service Requested Th e Fortnightly Rant An Inconvenient Catastrope It is probably safe to say that, to obscure the truth: “Knowing after hearing innumerable tales what we know now, would you of chaos and bloodshed com- have invaded Iraq?” Th e question ing without interruption, for a falsely implies that “faulty intelli- quarter-century now, from the gence” had been the problem. alleged cradle of civilization, that A better question might be, the average American heartily “Knowing what we know now, wishes that Iraq and the whole would you have leaned on our Middle East would just go away. national intelligence services Th e average American, though, to cherry pick dubious factoids has never felt Ramadi’s heat, or from unreliable sources who had smelled its streets, or tasted its axes to grind, then fed that false dust. It would be a lot to ask information to complicit media of the atypical Americans, the stooges so they would write sto- members of the other one per- ries that would unduly alarm the cent, who have conducted Amer- public and convince Congress to ican foreign policy while wearing go along with your plans for an combat gear, to just write off illegal invasion of a sovereign na- and forget the place where their tion, then send a highly respect- brothers and sisters died.