9/11 was a very powerful event. For a very long time afterwards the administration was able to have its way in the media. There was a natural patriotic response to 9/11 that demanded we set aside our political differences as much as possible. There was an element of fear and confusion that called for us to set aside some skepticism and put some trust in our government. We needed someone to give us reassuring answers.
The administration did not reassure us, however. They did not take advantage of the environment of good will. As is now clear, there was a very good reason for this. They wanted to invade Iraq and they didn’t have support for it, they didn’t have a case for it, and they had no intention of being honest about it. Therefore, they had to bully virtually everyone to get their war. The CIA and state department were bullied by the Pentagon and Office of the Vice-President. The feud was so debilitating that it interfered with post-war planning. In an environment of official duplicity and mutual recriminations, no coodinated post-war planning could take place. The State Department was taken off the job of handling reconstruction…their plan was thrown in the garbage. The administration also bullied the Democrats. They timed the vote authorizing military force in Iraq to be a month before the 2002 midterm elections. They bullied the public by setting up a color-coded terror alert system and issuing bogus warning after bogus warning all thoughout 2002. They bullied our closest allies in Europe by banning ‘french’ fries and dismissing them as ‘Old Europe’. In this environment, the press became a willing participant in a massive campaign of faux-patriotism, xenophobic fear, jingoistic militarism, and rank disinformation.
But that is now changing. The administation is now losing the propaganda war against the American people. Take today’s NYT’s unsigned editorial. Here’s the opening:
It took far too long, but a report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.
Notice that they go straight for the jugular. The war in Iraq was ‘an unjustifiable war’. That’s strong language. There were many people in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, that knew the WMD and al-qeada connections arguments for war were bogus bureaucratic rationales. But they supported the war anyway for a variety of reasons. They thought the sanctions were ineffective, unsustainable, and causing blowback…for one example. Or they had humanitarian concerns and opposed his sponsorship of anti-Israeli terrorism. Or they had Great Game visions of controlling energy resources and keeping them out of the hands of Russia and China. Or they thought destroying the most-powerful non-U.S. allied Arab army would help secure Israel’s interests and provide a positive chip to restart the peace process from a position of strength. Or they thought that a democracy in Iraq would lead to a democracy in Damascus and Riyadh, and a better democracy in Iran. There were all kinds of justifications going around before the war. But the failure of the war has been so complete that people are basically embarrassed to make those arguments today.
Reality has so utterly destroyed the wishful thinking and shallow idealism of those earlier arguments that the New York Times has no problem coming out and saying that there simply wasn’t any justification for the war. And that means that the administration has totally lost their momentum and their ability to drive the narrative. This is the new common wisdom:
…it will be up to Mr. Rockefeller to finally determine how old, inconclusive, unsubstantiated and false intelligence was transformed into fresh, reliable and definitive reports — and then used by Mr. Bush and other top officials to drag the country into a disastrous and unnecessary war.
And that is a far cry from 2002.
