I never thought that GWB lied about WMDs in Iraq, for instance. The war was not built on lies, no matter what his critics on the left have said.
But it really seems right now like the Trump admin is lying about the "imminent threat." That is one more very disturbing thing about this whole affair. Just one more norm destroyed.
1) They will provide no details - not even in classified settings to our allies, which is common practice. Pompeo refused to say anything. Leaks from the DOD have suggested there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.
2) It is unclear how removing Soleimani would have stopped an imminent attack. Killing Osama on 9/10 would not have stopped 9/11. If the goal to was to stop an attack, different targets would have made more sense.
3) If the reporting is accurate, killing Soleimani was debated for quite some time, and promoted by Pompeo and others. When the mob of militia members (they were not "protestors") stormed our embassy, that seems to have been the last straw. That does not sound like imminent attacks.
4) According to Israeli and Iraqi sources, Soleimani was trying to negotiate a de-escalation when he was hit.
Our government is straight-up lying to us. Bald-faced lies, orchestrated from the White House.
I know you will all respond with various bits of whataboutism. But Bush never did anything like this; neither did Obama, or Clinton, or Reagan.
R or D, we should all agree this is really bad.