The current Middle East policy of the Bush administration sounds like the old sales tactic of "bait and switch the customer." After six months of military efforts to destroy Osama bin Ladin, all on the presumption that it was his terrorist organization responsible for the Sept. 11 bombings, Bush has announced that our "real enemy" is Saddam Hussein, and that the next stage of our War on Terrorism should be an invasion of Iraq.
Isn't this curious? A steady stream of propaganda from government and corporate media have kept the American public's attention focused on bin Laden and made his death or capture the ultimate priority. Yet now, President Bush informs us that bin Ladin has been defeated and that he is a non-entity -- all of this unsubstantiated in the face of our government's lack of any solid proof as to whether the man is even alive or dead. Meanwhile, Bush would channel the rhetoric and patriotism generated by the New York tragedy toward a war against his father's old nemesis.
Why do I suspect ending terrorism is not the real motive here? Doesn't it seem appropriate that Bush sent his vice-president � the same Dick Cheney who, as an executive for Halliburton, drew a multimillion dollar annual salary while hundreds of his employees in the oil fields were being laid off to the Middle East to whoop up support for a military campaign on behalf of U.S. oil companies? A war with Iraq would be about money--not yours or mine, but the folks who donated millions to the Bush campaign. But most people won't send their sons to die for someone else's money, so governments inevitably have to convince them it's for God, freedom, an end to terrorism, or something equally noble.
I predict that during the next few weeks, Bush and his PR men are going to attempt a lot of convincing. During the American Revolution, our Prussian ally, Baron von Steuben, observed that willey European soldiers obeyed orders without question, American soldiers never followed an order without being told "why" first. Let's hope that Americans return to that tradition and ask of our politicians "why?" before we let our government lead us to another disaster.
Jim Leiker
Assistant Professor of History
