Swallowing Propaganda's Pill

It's funny how politicians see reality. War is peace, Ignorance is knowledge, and Freedom is slavery are classic Orwellianisms. But, today, modern Americans are far too clever to fall for such simple mind-games. The politicians of today are faced with an ever-increasing challenge to hide their attempts at subverting the truth. As an example, while reading an article about President Bush defending his approach to the war on terror, I ran across the following quote:

He lashed out anew at critics "who make a case that, by fighting the terrorists, we're making our people less secure here at home. This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we're provoking them," he said.

The first thing that popped into my mind was this analogy:

The bully lashed out anew at critics "who make a case that, by poking dogs with sharp sticks, we're making our people less secure here at home. This argument buys into the dog's propaganda that the dogs attack us because we're poking them with sharp sticks," he said.

Anyone with an IQ level above a turnip can see that the only propaganda here is that which is being pushed by our government to maintain support for its floundering war on terror. This is a classic example of misdirection through projection. The way this works is for you to accuse your enemy of the very thing you're doing which diverts attention away from you by placing them in the spotlight, allowing your misdeeds to remain in the shadows. Unfortunately, most people fall for it.

 

Am I saying that we should close up shop in Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow and head for home? Not really. We've made a huge mess over there and we need to help bring some stability to the region. However, we need to tell the local governments that we're leaving their countries by a certain date regardless if they're ready for us to leave or not. In the interim, we can educate their people in policing techniques, etc. They need to understand that they must do things for themselves; that we're not there permanently to hold their hands.