BY now there should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the mendacious character of the Bush administration, but recent revelations still have the capacity to shock and anger. Of course, it's hardly surprising that it has finally come to light that torture was, indeed, discussed at the highest levels of the White House, and those who engaged in it on the supposed front line of the “war on terror” were hardly acting solely out of their own volition. The transgressions at Abu Ghraib and in CIA interrogation centers were not aberrations but, instead, US policy. Now, other, perhaps more mundane lies have made their way into the world's newspapers. Nobel Prize winner Jimmy Carter's negotiations with Hamas leaders unsurprisingly brought condemnation from the US administration, but the truth-challenged Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, went one step further and claimed that her department's top Mideast diplomat, David Welch, advised Carter against holding talks with Hamas and Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad. Carter said that Welch did no such thing. Also, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that President Bush gave implicit approval in a secret 2004 letter for Israel to expand West Bank and East Jerusalem Jewish settlements, a direct contradiction of the critical public statements made by Washington on settlement expansion following the Annapolis Conference. Washington denies the existence of the letter. Perhaps such connivance is one reason that settlement activity never brings any consequences to Israel. On the other hand, the last time Washington took concrete action in response to the establishment of settlements - when Bush Sr. cut loan credits for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Israel simply reconfigured its budget, taking US money from other areas and putting it into settlements - US action proved entirely ineffectual. With such unwavering support from the US, it is puzzling that, once again, the US has arrested a US citizen, this time an 84 year-old man, for supplying military secrets to Israel in the 1980s. Given that Israel is surrounded by nations that find its very existence extremely distasteful, a little paranoia may be natural. But if it doesn't trust the very nation that has continually been its guarantor of existence, one has to wonder about the stability of those running its governments. The contradictions of public statements and behind-the-scenes maneuvering is unfortunately a mainstay of political life. But when it comes to the most volatile region in the world, a bit more truth could prevent the so-called “peace process” from becoming a mockery of diplomacy
