Stoking Fear: We Must Remember How the Iraq War Was Sold, Part 2.

by Roy Eidelson

The high-level machinations that produced the Iraq War are far from unique. (Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

After the invasion of Iraq, when WMD stockpiles couldn’t be found, the Bush administration simply shifted gears a bit. It continued to feed the public’s fears by linking the war in Iraq to the larger “global war on terror.” Speaking at the National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C., in 2006, Cheney offered this: “On the morning of September 11th, we saw that the terrorists need to get only one break, need to be right only once, to carry out an attack. We have to be right every time to stop them. So to adopt a purely defensive posture, to simply brace for attacks and react to them, is to play against lengthening odds, and to leave the nation permanently vulnerable.”

When debate over the correct course in Iraq intensified even more the following year, the president yet again resorted to “It’s a Dangerous World” appeals. Bush warned of looming catastrophe with public statements like this: “If we do not defeat the terrorists and extremists in Iraq, they won’t leave us alone—they will follow us to the United States of America. That’s what makes this battle in the war on terror so incredibly important.” The fearmongering didn’t stop when Bush left office. In a 2010 Veterans Day speech in St. Louis, General John Kelly—most recently Donald Trump’s chief of staff—insisted: “Our enemy is savage, offers absolutely no quarter, and has a single focus, and that is either kill every one of us here at home or enslave us with a sick form of extremism that serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever grasp.”

Today it’s clear that Iraq did not have an active WMD program. Yet many Americans—including more than half of Fox News viewers—continue to erroneously believe that such a program was found. So too, in a 2011 poll almost half of Americans believed that Iraq either gave substantial support to al-Qaeda or was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Neither claim is true. The persistence of these false beliefs demonstrates the staying power of manipulative psychological appeals designed to exploit our fears.

But despite the devastation wrought, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the Iraq War created its share of winners too. Consider the executives and largest shareholders in companies like Halliburton’s former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root; General Dynamics; Lockheed Martin; and ExxonMobil, to name just a few. These corporations garnered huge war profits through no-bid defense contracts, oil sales, environmental cleanup, infrastructure repair, prison services, and private security. Indeed, speaking to defense contractors at an August 2015 private event, the former president’s brother Jeb Bush—who failed to gain the 2016 Republican presidential nomination—explained, “Taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.”

Sadly, the high-level machinations that produced the Iraq War are far from unique. History shows that fearmongering has long been a standard tactic used to rally public support and acquiescence for military interventions that are both unwarranted and unwise. It has happened many times before, it has happened since, and it will happen yet again—perhaps soon—unless we collectively learn to recognize, resist, and counter these false appeals from self-serving peddlers of war.

Roy Eidelson is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 25 Mar 2019.

Whoa! Take notice! It’s back again!

by Kathie MM

It’s 9-11.

A day that changed everything. A day that changed nothing.

A day when a terrifying new threat thrust itself into the consciousness of millions of people who, perhaps, had not been paying enough attention.  Sort of like when the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the first atomic bombs. Think about what that event triggered—the “Cold War,” bomb shelters, and lessons to school kids about hiding under desks if the United States was bombed by those dirty Commies.

Or consider the fallout from that ominous non-event, that unconscionable non-attack on the U.S. in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to the Vietnam war and the loss of thousands of American and millions of Indochinese lives–plus the gains of millions of dollars to the arms industry and other war profiteers.

The beat goes on.  New enemies, old enemies, new losses, new profits.

Remember the lyrics, “When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn”? Ask yourself, have you learned yet that violence only breeds violence (and profits for the rich and powerful)? Have you studied war no more, preferring to put your time and energy  into studying politicians’ records and promises kept and forgotten?  Have you educated yourself about the new threats–e.g., drones— to innocent lives being carried out on innocent men, women, and children elsewhere by the U.S. military and CIA ? Have you heard that those who live by the sword often die by the sword?  Have you enlightened yourself concerning the resurgent threat of nuclear arms that rest in the shaky hands of unscrupulous power-holders in the United States and other rogue states? Have you looked ways to resist war–e.g., here at engaging peace and other sites?  ?

Which side are you on, babe, which side are you on?  Life?

Or death?

Find a way to act now.