Nothing to Fear But the War on Terror
The timing of the Sept. 11 terror attacks couldn’t have been better for al Qaeda and worse for us. When they launched the attacks, Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen were probably not aware that a radical coalition of neo-cons and Christian nationalists had gained control of the United States government — just as most Americans were not aware of the true natures of Dick Cheney, George Bush and the cabal that surrounded them.
A normal president would have rallied the public to conquer their fears and shoulder on after such a horrendous attack — as people have done in Britain, Israel and other places for decades. But this group of radicals operating out of the White House did the opposite.
Using carefully crafted rhetoric (and even a color-coded chart), they instilled a fear of terror in the public and then used it as a throttle to ratchet public paranoia up and down to suit their own politicals needs. The most dastardly bit of messagemeistering in this, however, was the way they aggrandized the attackers, raising them in stature from the ideological gang of street thugs that they are to warrior priests and adversaries worthy of the United States and its “global war on terror,” which they are not.
Here’s Zbig today in the Post:
The “war on terror” has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration’s elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America’s psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The Bush cabal could not have succeeded without a propaganda tool like the fear of terror. Bush could not have won reelection without his ability to terrorize voters — gay bashing would not have been enough on its own.
The attacks worked out so perfectly for them that it’s easy to see why some people believe 9/11 was an inside job. (It wasn’t.The Bushies are operationally incompetent and could never pull off such an elaborate fake.)
If our grandparents had been as easily terrified in the 1930s as Republicans are today, they would have watched in horrified silence while the Germans conquered Europe, and hidden under their beds when they came after us.
We need national leaders who call on us to be both brave and smart in combating terror. Using the military to fight terrorism, as I have said before, is like using a chainsaw to perform an appendectomy. The British army did not stop the Irish terrorists after decades of attacks, just as the Israeli army will never stop the terrorist attacks from Palestinian insurgents.
Stopping terrorism requires starts with street-level intelligence and a population on alert, but it also will require understanding the enemy in all its dimensions, not the cartoon characters presented to us now.
