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TERRORISM IS THE ULTIMATE MISUSE OF FEAR FOR POLITICAL ENDS. Indeed, its specific goal is to distort the political reality of a nation by creating fear in the general population that is hugely disproportionate to the actual dangers that the terrorists are capable of posing. That is one of the reasons it was so troubling to so many when the widely respected arms expert David Kay concluded a lengthy, extensive investigation in Iraq for the Bush administration with these words: "We were all wrong." The real meaning of those words, and of Kay's devastating verdict, is that for more than two years, President George W. Bush and his administration have been (wittingly or unwittingly) distorting America's political reality by force-feeding the American people a grossly exaggerated fear of Iraq that was hugely disproportionate to the actual danger posed by Iraq. Now how could that happen? Could it possibly have been intentional? It's a serious question-more serious than the laughter from the audience might imply. And there are some clues to the answer.
Here's one: the fear campaign aimed at invading Iraq was precisely timed for the kickoff of the midterm election campaign of 2002. You remember that campaign? The one where Max Cleland, who lost three limbs fighting for America in Vietnam, was accused of being unpatriotic? The curious timing was actually explained by the president's chief of staff as a marketing decision. It was timed, he said, for the post-Labor Day advertising period because that's when advertising campaigns for "a new product"-as he referred to it-are normally launched. The implication of his metaphor was that the "old product"-the war against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda-had lost some of its pizzazz. And so, in the immediate run-up to the election campaign of 2002, a "new product"-the war against Iraq-was being launched.
For everything there is a season, particularly for the politics of fear. Here's another clue: the fear campaign did serve to distract the American people and divert attention from pesky domestic issues like the economy, which were after all, if you look back, beginning to seriously worry the White House in the summer of 2002. So they needed to change the subject.
And of course the third clue is to be found in...