Will News Media Help Bush Exploit the 9/11 Anniversary Again?

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Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:34:12 -0700 (PDT)

Will News Media Help Bush Exploit the 9/11 Anniversary Again?

 

 

 

 

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0825-24.htm

 

Will News Media Help Bush Exploit the 9/11 Anniversary Again?

Norman Solomon, CommonDreams.org

 

Published on Thursday, August 25, 2005

 

 

 

For a long time, the last refuge of scoundrels was " patriotism. " Now

it's " the war on terror. "

 

 

President Bush and many of his vocal supporters aren't content to wrap

themselves in the flag. It's not sufficient to posture as more

patriotic than opponents of the Iraq war. The ultimate demagogic

weapon is to exploit the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.

 

 

 

Next month, the fourth anniversary will provide the Bush

administration with plenty of media opportunities to wrap itself in

the 9/11 shroud and depict Iraq war critics as insufficiently

committed to defending the United States. A renewed attempt to justify

the war as a resolute stand against terrorism is well underway.

 

On Wednesday, eager to pull out of a political nosedive, Bush stood in

front of National Guard members in Idaho and read from a script that

was thick with familiar rhetoric: " Our nation is engaged in a global

war on terror that affects the safety and security of every American.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and across the world, we face dangerous enemies

who want to harm our people, folks who want to destroy our way of

life. " And: " As long as I'm the president, we will stay, we will fight

and we will win the war on terror. "

 

 

 

Such presidential oratory has become routine. And anniversaries of

9/11 are occasions when the White House ratchets up the spin.

 

" In the ruins of two towers, under a flag unfurled at the Pentagon, at

the funerals of the lost, we have made a sacred promise to ourselves,

and to the world, " President Bush proclaimed on Sept. 11, 2002. " We

will not relent until justice is done and our nation is secure. What

our enemies have begun, we will finish. "

 

 

 

At the time, the Bush administration was building its agenda for an

invasion of Iraq. " Mr. Bush wants the UN to compel Iraq to submit to

weapons inspections, or face the consequences, " ABC News reported.

" And though he did not mention Saddam Hussein by name ... the White

House says he had the Iraqi leader in mind when he warned America's

enemies. "

 

 

 

That's an example of how the propaganda tag-team of government and

media has conveyed implicit lies as actual facts. While talking about

9/11, Bush said: " What our enemies have begun, we will finish. " And

network reporting helpfully explained that " he had the Iraqi leader in

mind. " The absence of evidence didn't seem to matter much. Repeated

countless times, such slick media maneuvers were able to convince a

hefty chunk of the U.S. population that Saddam Hussein was involved

with the 9/11 attacks.

 

 

 

When the second anniversary came around, Bush went to Walter Reed Army

Hospital and visited soldiers who -- in the words of one TV network --

were " wounded in the war on terror, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. " The

president's comments in front of cameras were carefully targeted:

" We're going to a church service to remember the victims, pray for

their families, victims of 9/11, 2001. Today, this afternoon, Laura

and I are here to thank the brave souls who got wounded in the war on

terror, people who are willing to sacrifice in order to make sure that

attacks such as Sept. 11 don't happen again. "

 

 

 

During that hospital visit, the commander in chief made a pitch for

war without any foreseeable end: " As I've told the American people

right after Sept. 11, 2001, this will be a different kind of war and

this will be a long war. And we're fighting this war on a lot of

fronts, the major front of which is now in Iraq. "

 

Last year, Sept. 11 fell on a Saturday, and the president's weekly

radio address gained unusual visibility. Relatives of 9/11 victims

surrounded Bush in the Oval Office as he made his little speech, which

-- in the words of NBC News -- engaged in " linking the war on terror

to the war in Iraq. "

 

 

 

And so the media siege has gone, to this day. With routine assistance

from news coverage, the Bush administration touts the U.S. war effort

in Iraq as a legitimate response to what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

With the White House now desperate to shore up its sinking political

fortunes, a vast amount of such propaganda is on the horizon.

 

Norman Solomon is the author of " War Made Easy: How Presidents and

Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. " For information, go to:

www.WarMadeEasy.com. Audio of his recent speech on " Building Agendas

for War " is at: http://alternet.org/multimedia/24486

 

 

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0825-24.htm