Unspun

Thanks reader Riccardo for forwarding Unspun this parable of the Spinning Bush below which appeared in the online version of my alma mater, Asia Times  :

CAIRO – In the modern age, politicians are accustomed to being rescued from the tar pit of failed policies by the wondrous powers of spin.

The administration of US President George W Bush, for example, when faced with a public outcry over Iraq, has with great effectiveness disseminated expertly crafted, razor-sharp talking points into the ether to persuade voters to believe what they hear and not what they see.

The power of spin is not infinite, however, as the administration is now discovering. The consequences of its invasion of Iraq are now so transparently catastrophic that Republican control of Congress is threatened in the November 7 mid-term elections, in which Iraq is the hot-button issue. ….you get the idea. To read more go here.

Some people never learn the old dictum that you cannot fool all the people all the time. It is now becoming more apparent that Bush and Blair distorted the truth so they could go to war in Iraq. They thought they could stop terriorsm but instead they radicalized some Muslims all over the world and spawned a new generation for terrorists, as reported by the BBC today.

How does one undo what they have done? The most cogent analysis I’ve read so far belongs to Louise Richardson in her book What Terrorists Want. We need to understand the terrorists, what makes them do what they do and acknowledge it could have been any of us, if circumstances had been different, before we can even hope to combat it. The danger is insuccumbing to Bush/Blair in trying to paint them as murderous psychopaths.