Candace

Talmadge

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March 24, 2008

Fear-Mongering: How Bush Built Up Bin Laden 

Watch it and wonder. How did we ever let this happen? 

It is a 72-minute documentary, Leading to War, which is available free for streaming over the Internet. With minimal commentary, the film follows current and former Bush Administration officials as they make their case for invading Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It documents many of their 935 specific lies. 

Going back to January 2002 through the launch of hostilities in March of 2003, Leading to War recounts how the Bushies mounted a campaign of mass distraction that would do the propagandists of George Orwell’s novels and his political essays proud. Orwell’s Politics and the English Language should be required reading for every U.S. high school senior.  

Leading to War does a good job of sequencing lie after lie after lie, and of showing in their own words how top Bush Administration officials used and abused language to link Saddam Hussein and Iraq to 9/11 in particular, and to terrorists and terror networks in general. They would make the TV talk show rounds to repeat the same script verbatim. Yes, they were disciplined and “on message.” The small hitch: The message was a lie. 

That was more than half a decade ago. Hindsight is always 20/20. Why does it matter now? 

For starters, the Bush Administration is using the same insidious claims of another imminent threat to agitate for military action against Iran. For example, last fall the Pentagon lied about the nature of an encounter in the Hormuz Straits between U.S. Navy ships and boats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This time it’s not working quite so smoothly for the Bushies, however. The media quickly deconstructed the Pentagon’s version of events as a tissue of lies and exaggerations. 

So perhaps we are learning after all. Maybe that’s why Bush’s approval ratings have tanked and remain low no matter what the administration says or does. Still the Bushies keep on trying, as evidenced by the recent ouster of Adm. William Fallon, a sharp critic of the administration’s aggressive posture toward Iran. 

At least we have learned about this administration. But what about the next administration? What about a President John McCain or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

Although the name will be different, the issue is the same. Have we truly learned anything about how we make ourselves vulnerable to being manipulated by remaining fearful instead of facing the situation head on with a clear head and eyes and accurate information?  

It was bad enough that the Bush Administration lied repeatedly during its first term to make its case for war. The truly monstrous deed was top U.S. government officials terrorizing their own people for the sake of political expediency. In the infamous words of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”  

Whatever happened to, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”? It’s past time to stop allowing our fears to get the better of us and to call out those who try to stoke them in any fashion whatsoever. 

There are counterterrorism experts who believe that the Bush Administration all along has exaggerated the actual threat that Al Qaeda poses. They believe that in building Osama Bin Laden and his deluded followers into something larger and more menacing than the outlaws and murdering thugs they actually were, the Bush Administration endowed them with a stature and credibility they could not have hoped for in their wildest dreams. 

Small wonder the CIA analyzed Bin Laden’s message to the American public right before the 2004 presidential election and concluded that it was designed to manipulate voters into choosing Bush over his Democratic opponent. What did that say about U.S. policies that Bin Laden wanted Bush to remain in power? 

Although apparently unfamiliar with much of it himself, Bush always likes to cite history as future vindication for invading Iraq. Leading to War provides a good running start for future historians, and Bush does not come out well to date. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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