Bush's Political Survival Depends on Terror Threats

[cal04]

The president is trying for the third time to make terrorism his big campaign issue -- are Americans going to finally snap out of it?

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror -- whether real or fantasized -- reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with alarming news. A monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme measures taken to tighten security.

By William Greider, TheNation.com.
http://www.alternet.org/story/40280/

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. They have NOTHING to give, but fear itself. Running on empty.

[AX10]

2. We all knew that this was going to happen. Yes, terrorist do exist...

and are a threat, but the fact that these "alerts" come right before every election is very telling.

[ixion]

3. The neocons promote the nightmare they reject...and the nightmare

will continue as long as they are in office.