The lock-step mentality of the present status quo in the U.S. among Washington courtesans and the corrupt corporate media with regard to a war in Iraq appears to be the result of a marketing campaign initiated in September 2000 by far-right operatives in a neo-conservative think-tank. Called “Project for the New American Century”, the scheme’s authorship reads like a Whitehouse phone book. That the American people give the general impression of having bought that campaign, speaks to both the effectiveness of this particular deception and the power of social engineering over the past few decades. If the majority of the U.S. population buys the story that the Bush regime has secret, but credible evidence of Iraq weapons of mass destruction, and that such questionable evidence gives just cause for a military invasion of Iraq without international sanction, then the mass marketing of empire and murder will be complete. Kafka would be pleased.

In his national radio address on Saturday, George Bush exclaimed: “This is not a court of law. This is a matter of national security and we have to go with the preponderance of the evidence.” The rational citizen might then ask: “Okay, may we see the evidence?” Well, according to the so-called Paper of Record, The New York Times, a “senior administration official” says “There are things of course that we’re not going to make public.” Which, translated into real English appears to mean: Yes, we have enough evidence to invade a sovereign nation and kill its people, but you cannot see it. Such is the state of discourse emanating from the Castle.

However, there is, we suppose, always the possibility that the administration will throw a bone to the people; a shred of iffy evidence that will be enough in the minds of some Americans (minds that have been well primed over the years by the mainstream media to mimic the platitudes and fabricated reasoning of the ruling elite) to justify invading a foreign nation, no matter how odious its ruler may be, without an international consensus. Call it Bush’s Bloody Glove, harkening back to the infamous bloody glove of OJ Simpson’s prime-time murder trial that was all the rage among the media-addicted, mind altered public a few years back. Was the glove planted evidence courtesy of the racist rightwing Detective Furman? Or, was it OJ’s own miscalculation returned to haunt him? Tune in tomorrow!

Everything changes, everything stays the same. Franz Kafka knew well the human penchant for nonsense and twisted logic. It lives still. We have today, all the evidence one would need to show that the looming war in Iraq is all about empire building and oil; all about a rightwing North American cabal dubiously entrenched in the Whitehouse, pursuing perverse dreams of world conquest. Yet, the pundits and newsrooms across the U.S. see only “WMD”; not ours, mind you, not even China’s or Russia’s, only those for which they have no evidence. Welcome to the Castle and to the world of its courtesans. Here’s a place where public opinion polls reflect the opinions of those who do the polling. Here’s a place where we all see the emperor’s fine clothes, a cloak of UN international weapons inspections and a crown of concern for international opinion, though he parades by us stark naked. Here’s a place where the preponderance of evidence is not evident. And here’s what Kafka’s character in The Castle said: To be precise, one is desperate. To be more precise, one is very happy. Happy days are here again. All one need do is follow along.