March 21, 2006 | Chumped ETHICALLY, we have a kind-of 'out' as regards the Iraq invasion: it was fraud. Fraud involves the actions of the perpetrator, rather than the actions of the victim. Basically, at least under United States federal law as I understand it, you have a right to be told the truth; those representing a product or service have an obligation to tell the truth, and to warn you of danger, or of potential danger. If someone lies to you intentionally, or conceals a danger they know about, or should know about, and that hurts you in some way, they have committed a kind of a crime (called an intentional tort). That is called fraud. There are all kinds of fraud. Most of the games are actually very old. But you don't have a responsibility to know about them in advance. I also realize that the federal government is not covered by its own fraud law. But if a well respected body of law applies to toasters, it should apply to a situation where we put our trust in the hands of government officials on life and death issues. At least we can discuss it in theory. Put in plain language, when it came to Iraq, we were chumped. I speak as a society; I recall the Feb. 15 protests where millions of people poured into the streets around the world a month before. Let's assume those people represented a minority of the population, a minority of public opinion. Let's pretend that 51% is what counts, whether informed or not, and they are the ones who got fooled. All the elements of fraud are present in this situation. Knowing falsehoods were told -- to government officials, to the United Nations, to the media, to Congress and most importantly, to the people of the Western world. Lots of people fell for it. Some of the smartest people I know fell for it. The lies were told intentionally; there was damage done. Politics is an area of expertise like plastic compound engineering, requiring years of study or, alternately, extremely sharp instincts and fairly deep contact with one's own dark side plus a heck of a lot of experience; and I am fully aware that this lack of basic knowledge, or ability to sense an extremely dark agenda or really huge lies, and general goodwill in people, is what was taken advantage of in the march to war in Iraq -- this, and a lot of fear pumped out around the clock for many months. Ala, brainwashing. Now, it's all turned out to be a lie and we have a big mess and a lot of people are getting hurt, and our faith has been violated. And at the core of the issue is fraud. We could well ask when our responsibility begins. Let's use the federal fraud statute as an example. Under this law, you have one year to bring your lawsuit from the time you figured out what happened, and can prove it. For up to year, it's your responsibility to straighten things out by bringing a suit; and after that, you have given your approval. The courts are not casual about when that one year starts to toll, because fraud is defined as a "self-concealing crime." However, in our case, the fraud has been exposed. Over and over again. And time is going by. In applying my seven or so Aquarius planets to this issue, I come up with this analysis. There are a lot of people who are embarrassed that they were chumped, and who don't want to admit it, or who are angry at themselves for having been taken advantage of. Totally understandable. By people, I mean individuals, as well as people in the media, which is actually a lot more serious and another issue entirely. It's an embarrassing feeling, to admit you were fooled with an old trick, manipulated, and having had one's basic lack of expertise on a technical issue like national security plied upon by religious hucksters putting images of mushroom clouds in our heads. Okay, now we know -- and then what?