Brzezinski writes:
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."
Hey! Ziggy!
The Bush administration didn't manufacture a "culture of fear."
It warned against panic and encouraged people not to be afraid after the 9/11 attacks.
Acknowledging a state of war doesn't require fear.
That suggestion, that Bush and his people "deliberately (or instinctively)" used the "War on Terror" terminology to establish a fear-based mindset among Americans is really disgusting.
This guy is clueless.
HOW WAS THE U.S. SUPPOSED TO RESPOND AFTER 9/11?
WERE THE ATTACKS ACTS OF WAR OR NOT?
Brzezinski doesn't think so. Sure, he thinks they were horrible, but not nearly as horrible as the damage done by the Bush administration's use of the term "War on Terror."
That's sick. Seriously, it's worse than typical Leftist drivel and his usual criticism of the Bush administration's policies.
This crap is so ridiculous that it should be relegated to a kook fringe Left-wing blog.
In effect, he's saying that the Bush administration engaged in psychological warfare against the American people in order to trick them into submitting to its wishes to wage war.
That's nuts. That's true paranoia.
Brzezinski asserts that the Bush administration has wounded America far more severely than "any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves."
That's disgraceful.
Brzezinski is talking like a crazed Bush-hating loon.
Do you want to look for the roots of Islamic extremism?
You have to dig far deeper than January 20, 2001. You have to at least go back to the Carter administration and look to Ziggy's role in handing Iran over to Islamic radicals. (Nice going, Ziggy.)
...The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.
That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.
"NATIONAL BRAINWASHING"???
"MUTED REACTIONS OF SEVERAL OTHER NATIONS"???
The other nations that Brzezinski mentions did suffer attacks, but nothing remotely on the scale of the 9/11 attacks.
Does this guy remember what happened???
THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE WERE SLAUGHTERED.
Two 110-story towers crumbled.
A section of the Pentagon was smashed.
And United Flight 93 never made it to its planned destination, believed to be the United States Capitol Building.
Does it take brainwashing for a sane person to understand that the 9/11 attacks were acts of war?
To the contrary, it takes brainwashing to get people to believe that a muted response to such horrific attacks on our country would be appropriate and that there really was nothing at all to fear.
These look like images of war to me. They're frightening. But Brzezinski wants you to forget. At the very least, he wants you to believe that Bush schemed to manipulate the public with fear.
The images speak for themselves. No exaggeration by the Bush administration was necessary.
As if all of that isn't bad enough, Brzezinski goes on to bash the entertainment industry for exploiting the public's anxiety.
He also claims that this climate of fear has resulted in harassment and discrimination.
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.
The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.
Brzezinski is carrying water for CAIR. If that's not a red flag that Brzezinski is a terrorist appeaser, then I don't know what is.
He just doesn't get it.
That's what makes him and those of his ilk dangerous.
Ignorance will get you killed.
I question whether Brzezinski sincerely believes what he's saying.
I think he could be in CYA mode.
By being critical of the Bush administration, he builds a case to justify the lamentable policy decisions he urged the Carter administration to make.
Brzezinski can criticize the Bush administration to his heart's content. I think it would be wiser for him to beg forgiveness from Americans or to slink away and crawl under a rock. Nothing will change his role in handing Iran over to Islamic extremists.
He is in no position to bitch and moan about what he calls the "culture of fear."
He played a part in stoking the fire that fuels this war against America, the Islamic extremist culture whose greatest achievement to date is 9/11.
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