Saturday, September 09, 2006
Irrespective of the facts "we're the victims"
The other day a September 11th memorial display rolled into town apparently to commemorate the fifth anniversary of those events. Given the large number of deaths and lives impacted that is completely understandable. Unfortunately it seems the commemoration can't be allowed to pass without being hijacked by the pro-war crowd:
This is a whole field taken up with flags – each flag representing a person killed on 9/11. But note the sign prominently displayed in front – “Support our troops” it says (read: “support the war in Iraq”). So the organizers want people to remember 9/11, honor those who died, maybe feel some anger, and then turn those emotions to supporting the senseless war in Iraq.
Never mind that when cornered on this point war-bloggers will say that neither they nor Bush ever said that Iraq was related to 9/11. Never mind that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence just produced a report that confirmed yet again that Iraq and al-Qaeda wanted nothing to do with one another. In the every day propaganda that people are subjected to, of which this is an example, the two are conflated: “we are in this war because we were attacked” people are told. It makes things nice and clean and relates 9/11 to the war in Iraq in the same way that Pearl Harbor is related to the Second World War.
No country goes to war as an aggressor. They always go to war as a victim. And the hijacking of 9/11 allows the U.S. to do just that.
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This is a whole field taken up with flags – each flag representing a person killed on 9/11. But note the sign prominently displayed in front – “Support our troops” it says (read: “support the war in Iraq”). So the organizers want people to remember 9/11, honor those who died, maybe feel some anger, and then turn those emotions to supporting the senseless war in Iraq.
Never mind that when cornered on this point war-bloggers will say that neither they nor Bush ever said that Iraq was related to 9/11. Never mind that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence just produced a report that confirmed yet again that Iraq and al-Qaeda wanted nothing to do with one another. In the every day propaganda that people are subjected to, of which this is an example, the two are conflated: “we are in this war because we were attacked” people are told. It makes things nice and clean and relates 9/11 to the war in Iraq in the same way that Pearl Harbor is related to the Second World War.
No country goes to war as an aggressor. They always go to war as a victim. And the hijacking of 9/11 allows the U.S. to do just that.
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