Bush
PR Campaign:
Back To The Basics
By Ramzy Baroud
15 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Removed
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.
Casting blame, shifting battlefields,
and fiddling with rhetoric have served as the only definable strategy,
consistently infused by the Bush administration to justify its horrible
record, one that was ostensibly marred with letdowns and dishonesty,
not only abroad, but also at home. (The disastrous federal response
to the humanitarian crisis prompted by Hurricane Katrina was a clear
indication of how little the administration values some American lives.
A year after the heartbreaking disaster, New Orleans is still less inhabitable
than Baghdad.)
If the crises into which
the administration has plunged the nation took place in any other Western
democracy, serious Cabinet reshuffles would have taken place years ago,
and many policymakers and officials would have been held accountable.
It’s terribly disturbing that American democracy has been robbed
of its most fundamental elements of accountability to the public, and
that the media has deviated from its historic role to become a government
propaganda tool, instead of the eyes and ears of the people.
It must be noted however
that, from the outset, the ongoing publicity stunts are tailored in
ways that are anything but haphazard. To the contrary, the emboldened
rhetoric is concocted with clear logic and objectives, aimed at sending
lucid messages to the wary public that:
First, there is a clear strategy
and that the Bush administration is not a crisis management team, but
a responsible presidency that is fighting a moral and decisive war,
keeping to America’s role as the leader of the free world.
Second, the terrorist threat
is still very much real and if America quits Iraq, the terrorists could
chase Americans back to their own streets.
Third, while the administration
is determined to battle the terrorists wherever they may be, wary of
the high cost that must be paid to rid the world of the “forces
of darkness” holding peace and tranquility captive, Democrats
are cast as spineless and their attitude deemed “appeasing”
toward America’s enemies. This same approach was also sought by
Secretary Rumsfeld to induce painful memories of World War II, when
the allies (led by Britain) were accused of appeasement to avoid a total
war with Hitler. (It must be said that it was Israelis who invented
the analogy prior to the war on Iraq, and now they provoke the same
logic against Iran).
Finally — and in a
related objective — the war against Al-Qaeda and the terrorists
is equal in consequence, import and meaning to the greatest and bloodiest
war ever fought, that against Fascism and Nazism.
When the president first
introduced the term “Islamo-fascists” — immediately
after the UK announced the thwarting of a terrorist plot to blow up
several passenger jets on Aug. 10 — few expected that such an
event would be the official introduction of a decided PR campaign, where
a few cells united, even if loosely, by a medieval cleric, are equated
with the largest ever-recorded threat to mankind. According to Bush,
today’s terrorists are “successors to Fascists, to Nazis,
to Communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century.”
This fantastic analogy, however
contradictory to reality, is sure to send chills down the spines of
many Americans, with the hope that they will huddle even closer to their
tough, no nonsense president. Moreover, such an exaggerated objective,
that of fighting the Islamo-Fascist-Nazi-Communist threat will give
even a greater mandate to the administration to go after Iran, if not
Syria and perhaps Venezuela. The incessant description of Iran’s
President Ahmadinejad as the new Hitler — also an Israeli contribution
— would make a war on Iran the more justifiable, morally speaking.
(Israel insisted that the package of incentives offered to Iran to abandon
its nuclear program was precisely equal to appeasing Hitler when he
lashed out at his immediate neighbors and threatened a world war.)
Rumsfled has accused the
administration critics of not learning “history’s lessons.”
The truth is that neither Rumsfeld nor his bosses seem to be aware of
their historic mistakes. While shifting rhetoric might serve limited
political objectives in the short run, it will hardly begin to redeem
the awesome blunders that this administration has committed, ranging
from crimes against humanity to entangling America in one of its most
disastrous military engagements as of yet.
Indeed, WWII helped put America
on the map as an unequalled superpower.
However, the Bush administration
insists on spawning a third world war and if a fundamental change of
course doesn’t take place immediately it will surely undermine
America’s import, prestige and perhaps global relevance.
Ramzy Baroud
is a US journalist and author. His latest book, “The Second Palestinian
Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle” (Pluto Press)
is available in many bookstores and can also be found at Amazon.com.