Luke Melia

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March 10, 2003

3/10/2003, 12:39 pm – Redirecting Anger

If my government proceeds with their proposed invasion of Iraq, and is unable to garner UN support, it would be acting illegally. Not a very strong position when part of our beef with Iraq is disregarding the will of the U.N…

Without the law on their side and lacking international support, the administration has sought to drum up domestic enthusiasm and has succeeded to a scary degree. The spin that worked is to redirect Americans’ anger and fear about September 11th away from Al Qaeda and similar Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and towards Saddam Hussein.

In recent real-life conversations, I’ve heard the results of this psychological spin campaign. I’ve been told that we have to invade Iraq in order to prevent another September 11th and that we should invade Iraq because all Arabs are our enemies and want to kill us. The second, more disturbing comment was from a New York lawyer. He allowed that there were some good Arabs, like the ones serving in the US Army.

What the hell is going on?

Similar spin tactics are being tried elsewhere but without the same success. This article from down under notes a speech by Australia’s Prime Minister using the Bali bombing to justify a preemptive military attack on Iraq.

The father of a Bali victim is quoted in the article. “I’m concerned he’s using this tragedy to justify a further tragedy, with it having no connection whatsoever with my son’s death.”

I don’t think an invasion of Iraq will bring psychological closure to all of us Americans who were hurt by 9/11. And even if it could, it’s not right to secure closure by scarring the psyches of innocent strangers in another part of the world.

One Response to “3/10/2003, 12:39 pm – Redirecting Anger”

  1. Luke chimed in:

    Just noticed the Maureen Dowd column in the NY Times today, commenting on this issue: “…citing 9/11 eight times in his news conference was exploitative, given that the administration concedes there is no evidence tying Iraq to the 9/11 plot. By stressing that totem, Mr. Bush tried to alchemize American anger at Al Qaeda into support for smashing Saddam.”

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