Nor were these war claims the only notable lies from Hubbard. He repeatedly lied about being a nuclear physicist for example. His penchant for grandiose lying is well known and documented.
Yes, it is. But scientology indoctrination instills a way of thinking that is the opposite of critical thinking. When faced with a mountain of lies, patterns of lies, policies that promote lying, decades of lying, and even Hubbard himself openly explaining how he's lying to them, scientologists will still find a speck of dust that was not exactly the shade of brownish-gray that the critic said it was. So there. Critics are lying!
They can't help it. Scientology is a kind of odd masterpiece of manipulative techniques. L. Ron sure knew a lot of ways to manipulate, but he failed miserably in one respect (failed in many respects, but one mainly): he did not turn his critical attention toward himself. Instead of engaging honest self-reflection, the old goat instead spent his brain power on justifying his crimes, criminalizing anyone who frightened him or disagreed with him, and making up wild tales to puff himself up.
What started out as something that could have been developed without the borg-like evangelism and delusional authoritarianism into something that might have been useful to humanity. But don't think I'm lamenting this - there is nothing offered by scientology that can't be had elsewhere and without the slavery and mindfuck to go with it. Well, except for the 50's sci-fi fantasy cosmology. That's uniquely scientological, but even that is not very original.
Some of the tricks Hubbard implemented are linguistic, some rely on common human fears/desires, some on the ego and emotions, some on repetition, some on faking appearances, but all rely on dishonesty.
