Good for you! Too many people just "ate up" the stuff coming out of the Whitehouse. But, then, back in the Viet Nam days, the public did the same thing. Only after years of bloodshed and money and a lot of war protest did the public come around to the idea that the war was a bad idea. Now, many many books came out generally saying the same thing. Even McNamara--one of the biggest hawks there were--has, it seems, tried to make amends with two books and I read one of them (In Retrospect) but the Halberstam book (The Best and the Brightest), which I have but have not read yet, is supposed to be better.
Yeah (sigh), ain't it tragic? Also, back some three decades I was into reading what the CIA and NSA do and read a few books. Its amongst the highest of hipocrasies to hear our politicians (and our history) tend to brag as if we are always the "goodguys" and they (wherever THEY are), are the "badguys" and then we have, within our own "system" two subsystems (CIA & NSA actually there are more) who go out and do things like undermine foreign governments, manipulate their leaders, bribe or kill important figures, etc. Of course, its easy to justify it based on: eg. we have to do it because the Russians have the KGB & GRU, the Isralies have the Mbuttad, the British have MI-5 and MI-6, the Chinese have whatever they have, and there has been spying everywhere (including industry, and science eg. Watson & Crick vs. Paulings son) and even going back into ancient times. Fight fire with fire? Do unto others: i) as you would have.., ii) after they do to you...., iii) before they do to you....
Maybe there is no answer to this issue.
