The new documentary Why We Fight features a retired New York City policeman and Vietnam veteran named Wilton Sekzer. It examines his turbulent emotions after his son Jason was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
At first Sekzer just wants revenge, and he understands the Bush administration to be saying Iraq was somehow responsible. So not only does he support the Iraq war, he asks the Pentagon to write his son’s name on a bomb. They do, and drop it east of Baghdad.
Obviously Sekzer wasn’t alone in feeling this way about 9/11 and Iraq. Until recently, polls showed a majority of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was “personally involved” in the attacks.
Those possessing a cerebellum know this didn’t happen by accident. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House Iraq Group ran focus groups to discover the most popular rationale for a war, and found it was an Iraq-9/11 connection.
Of course, they never (quite) came out and directly asserted there was such a connection. People would have asked for evidence. Instead, they repeatedly implied Saddam did it: “9/11…Saddam…terrorism…Iraq…Al Qaeda.” They correctly assumed many Americans—particularly those who don’t parse every single word politicians say for fine shades of meaning—would make the connection themselves.
But what’s gotten little attention is that, in 2004, a Bush official actually admitted this was a conscious strategy.
In other words:
(1) To put it in concrete terms, they sat in their offices and figured out the best way to fool a retired New York City policeman gutted by grief for his dead son.
(2) They were so proud of their cleverness they couldn’t help bragging about it to a reporter.
This appears in a November, 2004 article in Esquire about Dick Cheney. If you read the whole thing, you’ll see the “senior administration official” was probably Paul Wolfowitz or Scooter Libby:
But what were the real reasons for going into Iraq? I’d asked a senior administration official.
There were two basic reasons, the official said. “One was to be rid of the Saddam Hussein regime”… The other was containment…
As it was, the administration took what looked like the path of least resistance in making its public case for the war: WMD and intelligence links with Al Qaeda. If the public read too much into those links and thought Saddam had a hand in September 11, so much the better.
As Why We Fight shows, Wilton Sekzer was stunned when—many months after the invasion—George Bush explicitly said there was no evidence Iraq was involved in 9/11. He felt duped and betrayed. And now not only is his son gone, so is any faith he had in the U.S. government.
But that’s only bad from HIS point of our view! From the Bush administration perspective, if their marks fall for the con, so much the better.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:15 am
This quote from Nazi leader Hermann Goering has been oft-repeated in the progressive
blogosphere– but can’t be repeated enough!
1946 April 18, quoted in Gustave Gilbert’s book “Nuremberg Diary”:
Goering: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to
risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one
piece.
Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America,
nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship.
Interviewer (Gilbert): There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some
say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress
can declare wars.
Goering: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That
is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:39 am
You’re right, this quote can’t be repeated enough. The sad thing is, oft repeated though it is, Americans and others throughout the world continue to fall for their leaders’ lies.
I know the reasons for this are complex, but I remain taken aback by the numbers of people eager to become cannon fodder.
The recent death of My Lai hero Hugh Thompson, Jr. reminded me: without our cooperation, the slaughter will stop.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:02 am
I’ve seen the director of this film on Charlie Rose a couple of times. In addition to deftly fielding Rose’s inane questioning, he presents both himself and the film admirably. I am looking forward to seeing it.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:28 am
In a song he debuted in January 2004, Willie Nelson put it this way:
“We believe everything that they tell us/They’re gonna’ kill us/ So we gotta’ kill them first/But I remember a commandment/Thou shall not kill/How much is that soldier’s life worth?/And whatever happened to peace on earth?”
You can listen to the song by going here and scrolling down to near the bottom.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:29 am
“They correctly assumed many Americans—particularly those who don’t parse every single word politicians say for fine shades of meaning—would make the connection themselves.”
&
“Wilton Sekzer was stunned when—many months after the invasion—George Bush explicitly said there was no evidence Iraq was involved in 9/11. He felt duped and betrayed. And now not only is his son gone, so is any faith he had in the U.S. government.”
In other words, the minority took the time to examine what the administration said & found it unbelievable, while the majority uncritically swallowed it all & raced gleefully off to war. & now that the majority are beginning to awaken from their self imposed stupor & they’re discovering they’ve been suckered I’m supposed to feel sorry for them?
Sorry.
Isn’t going to happen.
From my experience of the pre-war run up, Americans ached for this & ached for it in a big way & now they have it. Tough effing titty.
Instead of Goering I’ll quote Tool
“Hope this is what you wanted.
Hope this is what you had in mind.
Cuz this is what you’re getting.”
You seem to forget that Americans make a very conscious effort to assist in their own dumbing down. I think it involves the inherent shallowness of our ‘feel good’ culture as it intertwines with the whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ meme.
After all, thinking interferes with folks ability to repeat such nifty catch phrases as:
‘But…but…Saddam killed his own people.’
&
‘911 changed everything’
&
‘Why,oh why, do they hate America?’
Boo-hoo. Let’s weep for the dumbf**ks.
Boo-hoo-de-hoo-de-hoo.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:34 am
Cynicism on that scale does more harm than good.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:57 am
Sekzer’s loss of confidence and credulity in his own government is NOT a side effect–it is actually one of the intended outcomes of the Bush administration.
Ever since Reagan, the Republican mantra has been that government does not and cannot work; that, in fact, government is evil. This is the underpinning for anti-tax nitwits like Grover Norquist–people who want to “drown” the federal government in the bathtub. Bush and his entire administration have worked hard to get the message through to Joe Average that his own government does not work and is not worth supporting.
If you think about it, the ideological drive to prove government is the enemy provides a better-fit explanation for nearly everything we have experienced under Bush. From tax cuts that bankrupt the country to No Child Left Behind that undermines the schools to the staggering incompetence of the War on Terror to the criminal negligence exposed by Hurricane Katrina. Each and every one of these showcases nicely that government does not and cannot work; Sekzer’s experience adds the nice punctuation mark that government is also fundamentally dishonest.
George Bush: He Hates America
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:57 am
pleasant fellow, that Richard.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:07 am
from reading the article it is pretty clear to me that “If the public read too much into those links and thought Saddam had a hand in September 11, so much the better.” was not something said by the senior official but rather something the reporter wrote. I’m not saying this was not the administration’s thought process, but no one in the adminstration admitted it in this article either.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:13 am
I think many people overlook the significance of the big lie that Bush told about 9/11, the lie that al-Qeada attacks us because of our freedoms when the truth is al-Qeada attacked because of specific foreign policies which they want the the U.S. government to stop.
Bush’s lie basically cons many Americans into risking their lives and not knowing why. This is an enormous crime against the American people, I don’t think this fact is given the attention it deserves. Bush’s lie is a disgusting attempt to serve the special agendas that want the specific foreign policies to continue. Bush’s lie prolongs and exacerbates the threat of terrorism against all of us. We need to start mentioning this big lie and not fixate just on the Iraq war. Bush Lied to the American People about 9/11 Terrorists’ Motives http://www.representativepress.org/whylie.html
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:14 am
nathaniel,
I disagree (of course). At the most I think you can only say it’s unclear whether it was something the official said or purely the author’s perspective. But as it comes at the end of several paragraphs where the author is either directly quoting or paraphrasing the official, it’s hard to make the case it’s just the author.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:17 am
You meant cerebrum. People lacking a cerebellum would be unable to walk or perform coordinated movement.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:27 am
Ken,
Thanks for your attention to detail! Believe it or not, I did actually consider cerebrum, and decided to go with cerebellum instead. It makes the sentence even more unkind, although I knew it would go unnoticed by most.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
Hee, hee! I wonder if Bush even possesses a Ventromedial Nigrostriatal Bundle!
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:59 am
Alas this is old news, but worth re-examining. I was chagrined in late 2003 to be the first to inform a dear friend that there was no Saddam/9-11 link. He’s a good man who isn’t much interested in politics. He made the assumption that if we were focused on Saddam, then Saddam must have had something to do with 9/11. This was not an unreasonable assumption to make. It was consistent with 50 years of American policy.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:12 am
Ken,
I don’t even know what you’re talking about but that has to be the funniest thing I’ve read in days.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:30 am
It’s true that the Bush administration used classical conditioning techniques to drum up support for the war: they deliberately used “9/11″ and “Saddam” in the same sentence so many times that people began to associate the two. All by themselves.
It was despicable. Evidence for “evil” in the enduring question of whether they are evil or stupid.
I think it would be appropriate now to always say “The President’s War in Iraq” rather than “The War in Iraq.” This is justified because Congress did not declare war, but gave W the right to decide whether or not to send troops. And it will have the effect of conditioning people to think of it as his and not ours.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:37 am
JuJu,
One does one’s humble best.
The ventromedial nigrostriatal bundle is some structure of the human brain. I learned about it in college but couldn’t tell you what it does.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Please excuse more of my damaging cynicism, but maybe one of you could explain how the Iraq War & Abu Ghraib & NSA spying & lying Presidents duping saintly Americans, etc., is inconsistent with the last 50 effing years of American foreign policy.
Because the only difference I can see is that we’re now overtly using little blue-eyed christian boys to do the sh*t jobs we delegated covertly to proxy armies of brown folk below the border.
I’m not a Bush fan, but acting like GW is taking us places we saintly Americans would never go without “classical conditioning techniques”is a bit disingenuous to say the least.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:46 pm
I suppose my own revelation was that I - and all of us - are simply citizens of an empire on it’s decline. Have we been duped? To a large extent? Was I duped? I’d have to say no to that. Did my not being duped by Bush’s big lie mean anything? Of course not.
Bush lied to us. But more importantly, he did what he did because he could. There’s nothing to stop him from doing it. So, me - or anyone - either believing or not believing him became irrelevant. The government has the power to do what it wants and no amount of protesting - short of armed rebellion - is going to change anything.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:57 pm
“When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose to conduct their lives within the limits of whatever fantasy the government supplies, then they are no longer consenting to be governed, they are begging to be ruled.”
— Michael Ventura
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
“It’s true that the Bush administration used classical conditioning techniques to drum up support for the war: they deliberately used “9/11″ and “Saddam” in the same sentence so many times that people began to associate the two.”
So am I to assume that if the pres used the words “sh*t” & “yummy” together in a sentence enough times, the American people would be lining up, spoon in hand, at restrooms all across the country for a little snack.
Personally, I prefer the Bugs Bunny paradigm: “What a gully-bull! What an im-becile!
It explains the America I see so much better.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Nothing says “love” like a bomb.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Has anyone seen the documentary yet? I am looking forward to it. I feel sorry for this man getting duped by the neo-cons but he can take some solace in the fact that about 70% of the country fell for the misinformation campaign as well.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Here’s another quote (Churchill, I believe): “People get the government they deserve.” If those who supported the war were too intellectually lazy to do five minutes’ worth of research on the internet (i.e., Saddam is secular + Al-Qaeda considered him an infidel = no possible connection between the two), then they have absolutely forfeited their right to complain. I do feel sorry for Mr. Sekzer, though.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I almost forgot, this writing names of dead people on bombs you are going to drop and create more dead people in a foreign country is really sick and twisted. Jingoism on steroids.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Not sure what you’re asking, Richard. I’m too young to remember WWII and wasn’t paying much attention during Vietnam, but what do “proxy armies of brown folk below the border” have to do with anything? I’d think Vietnam would be the closest analog here–the nation fraudulently taken into a disatrous war based on the Gulf of Tonkin non-event. I for one have never seen the like of our government’s shenanigans; I tell my sneering Republican coworkers that it’s as if Canada attacked us and we retaliated against Norway. I know we as a nation are far from innocent, but I’m still shocked at the hatred just below the surface that allowed and allows Shrubya the Magnificent to do anything His royal heart desires.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
In my wildest dreams I never conceived
it would ever become so evident that World War Three
could be started by an American President.
When the Land of the Free is officially proclaimed to be
“God’s Own Country”, there will be a tyranny without precedent.
Based upon a fundament of ignorant avarice — a “Fortress of Arrogance” — It grinds Innocence to dust beneath a boot heeled
with iron plate and high tech excellence…
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Well Ken, I’d suggest that you look up US involvement in El Salvador, Guatamala, & Nicaragua for starters. Then take a mosey down to your nearest bookstore & pick up Killing Hope by William Blum.
& if this requires too much effort, then read Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize speech for a nice thumbnail view of 50 years of nice guy America in action.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:03 pm
>They correctly assumed many Americans—particularly
> those who don’t parse every single word politicians say
> for fine shades of meaning—would make the connection themselves.
They correctly assumed that millions of people were really
stupid, and so riled up and bloodthirsty that they’d believe
anything, so long as the enemy looked a bit swarthy.
No “parsing… for fine shades of meaning” was
ever necessary to see that this Saddam/Al Quaeda
connection was pure sheepdip from the start.
An attentive 3d-grader could have figured it out.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Another great book is “Lies My Teacher Told Me” - it really shows what really went down vs. how it is portrayed in US Textbooks.
RE: Iraq/9-11. Do any of you guys recall that survey that showed that some large percentage of the US population thought that some if not all of the 9-11 hijackers were Iraqi?
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Ken, I don’t believe Richard was refering to the Vietnam war because Americans did die in that one. More like Bay of Pigs, the Afgani/Soviet Conflict, Pannama, Columbia, etc. Places where it was very much a CIA ‘advisory’ gurilliea war to destabilize the Anti-Corporate government and to instate people in power who would be more easily manipulated by American foriegn investment. Which is who the government has been working for for the past 150 years, ever since corporations recieved the same rights as human beings in an interesting and convinient typo in a Supreme court ruling during (or shortly after the Civil War) Read something about that in A People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons; which is about where I stoped reading, and consequently carring about much of the political machinations we are seeing now. Richard is right. What we are seeing now is just the logical extension of 150 years of foriegn policy. They have the power, they use the power, “the people” where long since taken out of the equation and NOTHING short of an Armed Rebellion is going to change that. As has been mentioned on the main blog quite a lot the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is which industry holds the strings.
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
I am probably wrong, and this is not extremely relevant, but it looks like the kid’s name was written on a thing that holds the bomb, not the bomb itself. I was in the navy 20 years ago, and they attach those fins to the back of the bomb when they assemble them prior to use. The light blue thing looks like something attached so the bomb won’t roll around if it comes loose from that cradle. That is a much bigger bomb than the ones we were used to using on the ship (aircraft carrier). I suppose it might go down with the bomb and just become more shrapnel or it might be saved when the bomb is dropped - bomb technology has moved on I suppose.
Interestingly and more to the point, if it is something that is reused, the administration has managed to screw up their promise to the guy.
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Jimmy–
Judging the scale of the bomb from the size of the pen and backpack next to it on the cradle, it looks like a 500-lb GP. If you look at the top of the bomb, you can see the two bomb-rack hanger hooks. The blue sheeting with fins is part of the bomb’s final assembly carry kit, and it goes down with the munition.
Bombs haven’t changed all THAT much in 20 years!
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:08 pm
What annoys me the most about the ‘Bush duped us’ excuse is the identity of the duper. George W. Bush…..silver-tongued old GW….the guy who speaks like he just discovered his tongue…..the guy who can’t put 2 sentences together into a coherent effing thought……the guy who told us to go shopping, fer Christ’s sake, in his 1st post 911 speech. I heard that little bit of wisdom & turned to my wife & said “We are f*cking doomed.” I still remember reading & hearing everyone blather on the next day about what a masterful speech that was. It was the same mish-mosh of generalities, rhetoric & hyperbole that still characterize his speeches to this day.
So what’s changed. Did Americans suddenly realize that people die in wars? They didn’t seem too put off by ‘Shock & Awe’ & all those nifty CNN graphics that went with it back when we were just blowing the sh*t out of somebody else. But now their kids are coming home in pieces & they’re just outraged. Well heaven’s to f*cking Betsy. Who could have ever imagined that this could happen? Other than those Americans that the gung ho-ers called traitor when they pointed out the painfully obvious to a nation too damn stupid to see it coming.
Bush stiil gets away with canards like “911 changed everything. Our oceans no longer protect us.” As if things like Soviet nuclear-tipped I.C.B.M.’s never existed. Or did I miss that science class where they explained how the oceans will jet up & block all incoming missles.
To me, these last few years speak volumes to the general intelligence level of we saintly Americans.
It also explains how things like pyramid schemes & pidgeon drops are still profitable & why televangelists still clutter up my tv.
So you’ll have to excuse me if my sympathy is in short supply today.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:39 pm
In regards to the quote…I must agree with nathaniel. It is at best extremely unclear that this is anything but the author’s own words and take on the issue. Bear in mind, I don’t mean to say that I don’t think “soft lobbing” the Iraq/9-11 connection was intentional - it certainly was - but rather that such a claim, given its weight, should be more clear. Nevertheless, we see an administration who has obviously forseen this exact circumstance (a complete shitstorm) and chosen their words carefully from the very beginning, with the sole intention of..well, of what?
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Casedogg,
Well, given you’re the second person to say this, maybe I should try to get the author of the piece to clarify this. I actually tried once to ask him about some other stuff when it first came out, and didn’t have any luck. If you’re curious about what happens, send me email and I’ll let you know if I find out anything.
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:09 am
Names on bombs? It gets a little more baroque than just that. In Iraq we set up a concentration camp (is there any other name for a facility made to handle a few hundred which ended up with a population of over 7,000?) officially called “Camp Bucca”, named after the NYFD chief killed at the WTC. There MP’s availed themselves of the opportunity to kick in the groin prisoners whose legs were forcibly being held apart, among other depredations. Apparently misdirected revenge can be delivered not just via explosives but via the toe of a combat boot in genitalia. Other punishment facilities in Iraq were named after WTC victims, a fact that is hard to explain away other than as official deception of the poor saps trying to take responsibility for Bush.
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:57 am
Richard,
I think I love you.
(So what am I so afraid of…)