Iraq: Trying to spin the unspinnable

[bemildred]

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The power of spin is not infinite, however, as the administration is
now discovering. The consequences of its invasion of Iraq are now so transparently catastrophic that Republican control of Congress is threatened in the November 7 mid-term elections, in which Iraq is the hot-button issue.

Bad news has cascaded out of Iraq at such an astonishing pace that it defies credulity to suggest that the war has not drastically worsened the lives of Iraqis. At the same time, the initial rationale for the war has itself been further undermined.

The administration has nevertheless tried to spin the unspinnable as the elections near, with many Republican candidates fighting for their political lives and choosing to distance themselves from the White House on Iraq. Only the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US has offered the administration any respite, providing an opportunity it did not squander to tell voters, ad nauseam, that Iraq is the front line of its "war on terror".
The most immediate public relations challenge facing the administration is Iraq's civil war. The United Nations now estimates that 100 Iraqis at least are dying every day in sectarian violence. Dozens of bodies turn up daily in Baghdad, the victims of torture and execution by death squads, and bombs in public spaces turn everyday life into slaughter. Baghdad's central morgue alone counted 1,536 violent deaths in August.

President Bush's feeble response has been to split hairs, calling Iraq a "bloody campaign of sectarian violence" but not a civil war. The American people err on the other side of the semantic fence, however. A CBS News poll in June showed that 82% believed civil war was under way.

Asia Times

[bhikkhu]

1. I would imagine fear is one powerful tool left.

Portray the chaos and destruction as their failure, the difference between us and them, and again "fighting them there, rather than here". Of course this is a ridicuolous distortion of the cause and effect, but it is what we have been seeing. Catapulting the fear, as little other ordinance remains.

[Demeter]

2. Familiarity's Contempt Has Dulled the Edge of Fear

So unless George decides to blow up something (else), he's just going to have to take his political lumps. Better pack long johns, Dubya. It's cold and damp in the Hague.