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June 24, 2006

Branding fear

The nonWMD announced by Rick Santorum in order to boost his flagging Senate reelection bid is being pushed by a few lame assed rightwing hackospherians.

The new spin is that the government didn't tell the public about this "find" because they had to protect our soldiers:

If the United States were to have announced WMD finds right away, it could have told terrorists (including those from al-Qaeda) where to look to locate chemical weapons. This would have placed troops at risk – for a marginal gain in public relations. A successful al-Qaeda chemical attack would have been a huge boost for their propaganda efforts as well, enabling them to get recruits and support (many people want to back a winner), and it would have caused a decline in American morale in Iraq and on the home front.

Huh?

If we were to find WMD, wouldn't we secure it? How is it that we'd be telling Al Qaida where to find the weapons..if we already had them in our posession?

I find it tough to believe that this clown gives a rat's ass about troop morale as well. As if our guys would feel bad because we actually found some of the weapons the President used as an excuse to invade. Good grief.

The piece goes on to say that announcements of this find could have exposed informants and left open an intelligence advantage. Also ridiculous. These weapons are old, deteriorating material from the first Gulf War. Its not the WMD Bush claimed as authority for invading. We don't know if there was an informant who gave it up or if our troops stumbled upon it. And even if there was an informant..its someone who wasn't exactly giving up quality information.

The righty pundits and bloggers are constantly working to market this shit to Americans. They push their brand of foreign policy and dealing with terrorism like those who market consumer products in the US. As if their brand of soap is better than the other guy's.

We're so overwhelmed with their marketing messages that unless we're playing close attention--its truely tough to know who to believe. Especially when the Republicans work overtime at injecting fear into the discussion.

Its no different with the NSA spying and the government gathering Americans' banking records. They're marketed to us as tools to be used on the "War on Terror".

And we are unpatriotic terrorist lovers if we protest the compromise of American values which include those little things like "search warrants" and "courts" and "privacy". Or heaven forbid that we require the government to be open with the American people. That might give the terrorists a clue as to what we're doing to monitor them.

If the government decided to roll tanks into American suburbia with the excuse that martial law is required to capture terrorists--I swear these same assholes would go on the Sunday talk shows and thank the Bush Administration for beating back those pinko commie American liberals who dare oppose their fight to capture the terrorists.

There is no line that can't be crossed. Not when you're marketing that brand.

Update: Speaking of fearmongering, Roger Simon proves my point exactly. What a dick.

Posted by Carla at June 24, 2006 08:11 AM