Years of Manufactured Fear

It is said that 9/11/2001 changed everything. The airplane-missiles targeted on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the first taste of foreign attack within the US since 1812, and they shattered the sense of absolute safety most Americans had felt since World War II. The oceans were no longer a sufficiently large moat.

The response was quick and decisive. George W. Bush declared a "War on Terrorism" and moved rapidly to invade and occupy Afghanistan, then more deliberately to invade and occupy Iraq. The horrific events of 9/11 were played again and again on TV. Fear was rampant.

The world did change five years ago, but not in the way Bush thought. It was America that changed—it became less sane and less safe. Other nations had already experienced terrorist tactics and had learned to minimize and localize their effects, working cooperatively through diplomacy and shared police efforts. America's reactive transformation—under Bush's belligerent, kleptocratic leadership—has been precisely the reverse of these sensible counterterror tactics; and we are all now in much more danger than we were in August 2001.

The escalating violence and death in Iraq have endangered us, and many Americans are now convinced that Bush does not know how to end the war he started. But the disastrous response to Katrina is the final straw, proof that this administration is oblivious and incompetent. We see anarchy in a major American city, bodies rotting in the street, and tens of thousands of poor black citizens abandoned. The society does not work properly any more. It can no longer afford either preventive measures or timely response, now that war and tax cuts have drained the treasury. The US is vulnerable to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and terrorists alike.

Bush's radically antigovernment policies have led to this sad state, and they benefit only two groups: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their associates, and Osama bin Laden and his associates. To maintain their power, both generate baseless fear. To maintain their power, both cultivate hatred and misapprehension of the Other. Bush, Cheney and bin Laden are the bookends of our fear, and they hold each other up. Bush said several years ago that he doesn't think of Osama bin Laden often.

Iraq played no part in the disaster of 9/11/2001. Bush said Saddam Hussein had biological and weapons of mass detruction and he was working on making nuclear bombs. Bush said he knew where this was located in Iraq. While at the same time the inspectors said no such weapons. No such weapons were found.

On March 19, 2003, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq to show the world that he could finish what his father did not do. Of couse, he and Cheney could taste the oil revenue in Iraq and turn it into gold for their pockets. We now have 26,129 American casualties, 3,545 American dead. 68 killed this month. Bush Iraq Civil War has now cost the American taxpayers $500 billion.

Bush Iraq War is not winnable with his lunatic leadership. Our nation would be better served if Bush and Cheney were impeached. If this is not done, the total American dead may reach 5,000 when he leave Washington on Jan. 20, 2009.