http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=10989Removed from reality, self-consumed and desperate, the Bush administration went on another PR offensive, in what is considered the “third most major public relations effort” in the last year.
In his first of a series of speeches, the president spoke of a world where pre-emptive wars are crucial to prevent the encroachment of terrorists, that “abandoning” Iraq would leave Americans at risk, where the terrorists would operate “in the streets of our own cities.”
“The war we fight today is more than a military conflict,” he told a group of veterans at an American Legion convention in Salt Lake City on Aug. 31. “It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.”
But five years after the gruesome massacre of Sept. 11, and three and a half years after the bloody and senseless war in Iraq — with death tolls that compound 9/11 many times over — the Bush administration must appreciate the enormity of its debacle. Instead of facing up to the mistakes, the administration has labored to lie about the initial motives, change the objectives whenever suitable, and play on the fear factor, adamantly trying to terrify an already vulnerable and fear-stricken public.
Just weeks after US tanks rolled into “liberated” Baghdad, the war went askew; war objectives shifted like desert sands: when no WMDs were found, the purpose of the invasion metamorphosed to that of imposing democracy; when the democracy pretence brought about sectarian politics, followed by a bloodbath, the democracy rhetoric was puffed-up to include the entire Middle East. It was meant as the perfect distraction scheme, which put Arab governments — ironically, mostly American allies to begin with — not the Bush administration, under international scrutiny.
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