This title derives from a recent blog by Craig Murray, “We Are the Bad Guys.” Craig is not a nobody. He is a former UK ambassador. He begins his post by noting,
“In Murder in Samarkand I describe how as a British Ambassador, when I discovered the full extent of our complicity in torture in the War on Terror, I thought it must be a rogue operation and all I had to do was make ministers and senior officials aware and they would stop it.
When I was reprimanded and officially told that receipt of intelligence from torture in the “War on Terror” was approved from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary down, and it became clear to me that there was a deliberate promoting of false intelligence narratives through torture which exaggerated the Al Qaida threat to justify military policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia, my worldview was severely shaken.”
The Book of Revelation, Beast, Empire, and the West
I have been writing and thinking about the Book of Revelation for more than 25 years. During this time, I have thought hard about what the Beast of Rev 13:1-8 means for today. I submitted my manuscript for my commentary, Revelation: A Love Story, in June 2023. Since then, I have thought even more deeply about what this means for us today.
The problem is that the more I think, study, and unearth information, the more I become aware of how bad things are. (see my post from last week, “The War Machine Rolls on and Our Country Continues to lie.”
This is not a fun place to be. After all, who wants to be “that guy”? You know, the one who says, “Um, Can I say something? Have we really considered the possibility that we’ve been duped?” And when I say “duped,” I mean “duped.”
The problem is that no one wants to hear this, especially when we have been told and have come to believe that we are the good guys.
Now, this should not surprise me. After all, the Book of Revelation and the rest of the Scriptures agree that Satan is the deceiver (Rev 12:9; 20:8, 10). This is how he operates. Yet, the more I search, the more convinced I am that things are a lot worse than we thought.
NB: This week, the Determinetruth Livestream series will have one of our most important conversations yet. We will host a conversation with Boston University Professor of Ethics James McCarty to discuss his recent work, The Business of War. 
on Thursday, August 29, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST,
But is the deception really that bad?
Murray continues, “I have however now finally shed the last of my illusions and I am obliged to acknowledge that the system of which I am a part – call it “the West”, “liberal democracy”, “capitalism”, “neo-liberalism”, “neo-conservatism”, “Imperialism”, “the New World Order” – call it what you will in fact, it is a force for evil. . . .”
He continues, “The West are not the good guys. Our so-called “democratic systems” give us no ability to vote for anybody who may get into power who does not support the genocide and imperialist foreign policy.
It is not an accident and it is not genius that makes a man-child like Elon Musk worth 100 billion dollars. The power structures of society are deliberately designed by those with wealth to promote massive concentration of wealth in favour of those who already have it, exploiting and disempowering the rest of society.
The rise of the multi-billionaires is not a fluke. It is a plan, and the misallocation of more than adequate resources is the cause of poverty. The attempt to shift blame onto the desperate constituents of waves of immigration forced into life by Western destruction of foreign countries, is also systematic.
There is no longer any free space for dissent in the media to oppose any of this.
We are the Bad Guys. We resist our own governing systems, or we are complicit.
In the United Kingdom it falls to the Celtic nations to try to break up the state which is a subordinate but important imperialist engine. The paths of resistance are various, depending where you are.
But find one and take one.
In other words, yes, it is that bad!
Does our government lie to us?
Well, of course, it does. After all, the government can’t tell us everything. Some things are a matter of national security. But I am not asking the question this way.
I am asking, does our government spin a narrative that it wants us to believe, knowing full well that it is not true, to facilitate the aims and interests of those in power?
The answer is not only “Yes,” but it is way worse than we might believe.
On a simple level, consider the statements by President Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken:
Biden says, “I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the US is not in any war anywhere in the world.” What? The US is fighting wars all over the world. And we are sowing the seeds of war in many other places. The irony is that Biden’s very next sentence was, “We’ll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine.” (hmm, but this is not war. It’s just a conflagration that entails some weapons and bombs!).
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, in a post on August 12 on X, stated, “Today we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The United States reaffirms our steadfast commitment to respecting international humanitarian law and mitigating suffering in armed conflict. We call on others to do the same.”
Just because we don’t have any soldiers in said wars doesn’t mean that the US is not fighting wars. This is the whole point. Many of these wars have been instigated by the acts of the US.
John Mearsheimer has written extensively that the war in Ukraine is not simply due to Putin’s aggression but, as the title of his 2014 article noted, “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault.”
American Rhetoric in Israel-Gaza
Last week, the DNC convention took place. One of the speeches was a heart-wrenching plea from the mother and father of an American young man who is still captive in Gaza. (You can watch their presentation here).
The parents relayed that they meet with Biden and Harris regularly, and they claimed that Biden and Harris “are working tirelessly to bring the hostages home and to end the war.” Sadly, they are not being told the truth. Biden doesn’t have to work hard to end the war; He just needs to stop sending Israel weapons, and the war ends. He can force both sides to negotiate a just peace that ends the war.
Biden’s deceptive rhetoric was evidenced when he added, “I’m going to work hard to end the war in Gaza.”
Mr. Biden, you don’t need to work hard to end the war. All you need to do is stop sending them weapons. Done! See, that was easy!
Biden is facilitating genocide in Gaza, and he acts like it is someone else’s fault and that he is the one who is trying to end it. No, Mr. Biden, just end it!
Bring the hostages home by ending the war. Oh, and while you are at Mr Biden, why don’t you demand the thousands of “detainees” that are being held in Israeli prisons and detention centers be released as well?
Sadly, the US has spent tens and likely hundreds of billions of dollars this year alone to facilitate war. The US recently sent Israel $20 Billion more in weapons and arms.
It looks like Mr Biden is not working very hard to bring the hostages home after all.
All that money suggests, “We are the bad guys.”
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