In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush played to people’s fears to rally the nation. Fears Americans have for their physical safety: “The terrorists continue to plot against America and the civilized world. … training and plotting in other nations and drawing up more ambitious plans.” Fears about economic security: “The tax reductions [Congress] passed are set… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (22)Page 1 of 1 pagesI do not know why the American people are allowing, this would be king bush, to be president. This is a corrupt regime and we are being smacked in the face with it over and over. Why haven’t we started the impeachment process? He lied to us about Iraq and so many of us knew it was a lie. We also knew bush planned a war on Iraq before 911. Until the majority of the American people say no to bush, he will keep up his atrocities. It is our duty to impeach bush and try him and his friends for treaon.
Posted by Linda on Feb 2, 2004 at 10:07 PM I have a question to all of those that said Bush lied.
Did Bill Clinton lie about WMD in ‘98?
I don’t think either of them lied, it was a bad intelligence report. Now we’re getting an investigation, is that good enough?
Posted by brad on Feb 3, 2004 at 4:59 PM This in response to Brad. You are going to trust an investigation of lies put forth by the teller of the lies? I’m not!!
Posted by Pat on Feb 3, 2004 at 5:24 PM Pat- You conspiracy guys are great!
Oh, and don’t forget that Russia, England, France, Germany, and Israel ALL said that Saddam had WMD’s. Even the Democrats said he had them. Tell me one person who said it was a lie before the war. Even that lunatic Dean said he was a threat who had weapons and had to go - before he ran for Prez.
When Democrats like Torrecelli chop the CIA up with moronic liberal views (and cut their funding) you aren’t going to get good intelligence. Clinton said that Saddam had to be stopped as he was too great of a threat to his own 24 million Iraqis (plastic shredders, rape rooms, mass graves, chemical attacks) and to the world (Kuwait, Iran, harboring terrorists, launching missiles into Israel).
By the way, do you understand what an “independent” investigation is? Do you think that means that Bush is in charge of the investigation?
Posted by Ty on Feb 3, 2004 at 6:05 PM Good Article, Joel.
Ty: I guess things like facts and actual physical actions do nothing to deter your rush limpbrain-like assessment of nearly everything.
I’m not all that sure that Clinton said, pre-9/11, that “Hussein must be stopped” or not—but the FACT is that Hussein WAS stopped!
He was flattened by over ten years of sanctions, regular bombings of whatever marginal military equipment he had left in the southern no-fly zone, and now we know his own people robbed him blind and lied to him.THIS was the “imminent threat” we needed to invade/occupy Iraq over?
LMAOF! of course this all very reminiscent of the Russian and Vietnam “Communist threat” we all had drilled into our heads by the powers that be.
Actions speak louder than words—just the facts please.
Posted by Tony on Feb 3, 2004 at 8:49 PM Bush’s speech to the UN last year- ``a grave and gathering danger,’‘.
State of the Union before the war- “Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent”
The administration has repeatedly and specifically denied Iraq posed an imminent threat to Americans.
Those are the facts.
Liberals never seem to care about saving people. 24 million free Iraqis, millions of Afghanis freed from the torturous rule of the Taliban. That is what Bush did.
Clinton let millions be hacked to death in Rwanda.
Posted by Ty on Feb 3, 2004 at 9:11 PM “The administration has repeatedly and specifically denied Iraq posed an imminent threat to Americans.”
weak, hypocritical pantload. now who’s parsing words? so when bushit stood there and dutifully repeated the British generated hype: “Hussein can access his WMD’s in 45 minutes” he was doing what?
“Liberals never seem to care about saving people. 24 million free Iraqis, millions of Afghanis freed from the torturous rule of the Taliban. That is what Bush did.”
ahh yes, as I step into the preskooler generated fantasy land where you reside I can see the freely elected Iraqi congress and president presiding over “their” country now. same for Afghanistan.
NOT.
give me a break. bushit and co. are stonewalling elections in Iraq—all while they edge closer to all out civil war ala Lebanon. Afghanistan? read any newspapers the past three weeks? the Taliban are again killing people and outside of Kabul they and the warlords still rule the country. opium production reinstated.
there’s your facts, junior.
as to “liberals not wanting to save people”: don’t even go there. the only scoreboard you have is 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of slaughtered innocents in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicarauga, Iran under the Shah, etc., etc.
and oh yeah.. good to see bushit and co. so actively pursuing the rescue of millions of N. Koreans.
weak.
Clinton let millions be hacked to death in Rwanda.
Posted by Tony on Feb 3, 2004 at 10:15 PM hee hee. love this site!
oh poor tony. sitting there fuming mad at a computer.
what are you going to do when bush is relected?
Posted by Ty on Feb 3, 2004 at 10:31 PM tony man you just got suckered need to reign it in.
now ty come on now do you mean what you say or do you think this was a good thing to have? how can it possibly be and do you see why people are upset or not? usa needs to stop doing these things all over the place and come home and fix our plights here cause lord knows we need it.
peace-trey
Posted by trey on Feb 4, 2004 at 5:56 PM I always tell my conservative friends, “Believe what you want and vote for who you want.”
Truth after all is subjective.
No question though this president is a serious liar. Check the facts and then render a version of the truth.
President Bush really does lie folks. And not just about a sexual affair with an adult woman, his lies get people killed in war and at work (World Trade Center).
Example: if you turn off the light in the room is it the truth it is too dark? too light? or just right? You decide. But the fact emains the same: the light was turned down.
Bush takes facts and makes up truth with no relevance to the the facts. That’s why I say he’s a liar.
Which is far worse than being a fear monger.
Posted by chris on Feb 4, 2004 at 9:34 PM Bush lied about the Iraq war? Let me guess, you think he lied about weapons of mass destruction? Well, if he did Congress, the UN, the CIA, the Clinton Administration, Britain, France, Germany, China, and who knows how many other countries were in on it because Bush isn’t the only one who said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. How do you figure he lied while the rest of the world was just mistaken?
Posted by Tom on Feb 5, 2004 at 1:56 AM Is this new? This was the ploy from day one. Terror sells. It has it’s good sides. Check this out:
CLOCKWORK ORANGE
TVNL LOOKS AT THE FEAR FACTORìÖthe only thing we have to fear is fear itselfónameless, unreasoning, unjustified terrorÖ”
On four separate occasions during 2003, Americans were notified by their government that the color of the day had changed. Only this wasnít summer camp, and no one was playing games. On each of these days, the nation was being warned that our lives were being threatened more seriously than the day before. The codified threat alert had changed from Yellow to Orange. There was nothing we could do. There was nowhere we could go. It was only a change of color, but it did the trick:
Americans everywhere were being introduced to the color of fear! http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/clockwork_orange_.html
Posted by Reg on Feb 5, 2004 at 2:44 AM Sure, most nations believed that Hussein had WMDs, but which of them claimed he had the capacity to strike Europe in 45 minutes or to launch an attack on the US? Tell me which other countries’ itnelligence services claimed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks…anyone?
Hello?
Bush Corp. consistently exaggerated the assesed threat of Iraqi WMDs (please note that this is different than claiming that they should have known the WMDs didn’t exist), repeatedly lied about how “Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in so we had to go to war” (a lie that is completely verifiable as such and that has been spouted by the Gibbon-in-Chief at various intervals and as recently as last month), and absolutly lied about Saddam’s ties to Al-Qaida (a claim which just about every competent intelligence service recognized as a total load of crap, but somehow we just keep on hearing, especially from Cheney).
But thank God we impeached a president who lied about oral sex, ‘cause an individual’s adultery is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really threatening to our lives and freedom.
Posted by Aaron on Feb 5, 2004 at 7:22 PM I think the “fear monger” side of Bush is also reflected in his decision to invade Iraq. It seems that Bush has either forgotten diplomacy as an option in foreign policy, or more likely, he is too immature and closed minded to have thought of it in the first place…So after trying to instill fear in other countries by using military force, he’s now trying to instill the same fear in the citizens of his own country.
Posted by Eric on Feb 5, 2004 at 10:24 PM What is quoted was the extent of the State of the Union address?
No, of course not.
Is the current state of our union one that must face that terrorist organizations are advocating and indeed planining the destruction of the US and Americans throughout the world?
Of course it is.
Should the report have been a pinkish sort of whitewash through rose-coloured glasses?
Of course not.
Had it been a whitewash and not addressed dangers faced by the country, you would have editorialized strongly about that wouldn’t you?Of course you would have.
Fear monger? Didn’t scare me.
Posted by Nus on Feb 5, 2004 at 10:27 PM I think the “fear monger” side of Bush is also reflected in his decision to invade Iraq. It seems that Bush has either forgotten diplomacy as an option in foreign policy, or more likely, he is too immature and closed minded to have thought of it in the first place…So after trying to instill fear in other countries by using military force, he’s now trying to instill the same fear in the citizens of his own country.
Posted by Eric on Feb 5, 2004 at 10:27 PM “forgotten diplomacy as an option in foreign policy”
What are the diplomatic methods that the US did employ in Iraq post-1992?
What diplomatic methods do you suggest would have been effective?
Posted by Nus on Feb 6, 2004 at 6:38 PM The area of greatest concern is not that the fear mongering is taking place, but that it is working. Since 9/11 Bush has brought on line and instituted laws and initiatives which suited his ilk long before 9/11 and have little to do with the war on terrorism. This should be of no surprise: was anybody paying attention during his presidential campaign? Did anyone (read: press) notice that the patriot act was written years before 9/11 and had broader motivations? To invade Iraq and turn over the administration of its natural resources to American contractors (oil), and to chock this up to fighting terrorism is absurd, but here’s my point: the American public buys it. The American media buys it. Freeing the Iraqi people is pretty cool- but anyone who thinks this is why we risked American lives and resources deserves a president who lies to them. We are becoming a paranoid population and a lazy democracy. We are not only afraid of the world boogy-man (who hates our freedom), we’re afraid of ourselves. For manipulating and fanning these flames-the Bush people are brilliant. In past and present history text books we learned how fearful and intellectually disengaged populations followed opportunist leaders into destructive directions. Even amoral opportunists, who craftfully scare a population into compliance, get to rule in a democracy like ours. Sure he’s a fear monger- but not enough of us, and surely the media which props him up, seem to care.
Posted by vicente on Feb 6, 2004 at 10:55 PM Nus,
was wondering if you had any thoughts on why Saddam was left in power after the first Gulf incursion?
Posted by Owen on Feb 9, 2004 at 11:01 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Also by Joel Bleifuss
- Obama’s ‘Ben Tre Logic
- Block ’Em, Sock ’Em
- Buy Back Our Government
- A Specter is Haunting Dems
- Bailout Bandits
- Building Utopia
A new documentary profiles the rise and fall of a Depression-era utopian experiment in the Bronx.
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1979 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
427 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2004 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
