Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [45]
Because of September 11, Wolfowitz and his right-wing hawk buddies had found the enemy they could sell to the public. Former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey joined in, declaring that World War IV had begun (the Cold War being “WWIII”). By this thinking, the “War on Terror” would be unilateral and without limits; it could last as long as the Cold War (fifty years) or longer, maybe forever. And if you don’t believe me, maybe Donald Rumsfeld can convince you: “[I]t undoubtedly will prove to be a lot more like a cold war than a hot war,” Rummy said. “If you think about it, in the Cold War it took fifty years, plus or minus. It did not involve major battles. It involved continuous pressure. . . . It strikes me that that might be a more appropriate way to think about what we are up against here.”
Wow—a war without end. If you get the people to believe this, they’ll let you do anything, just as long as it’s in the name of protecting them. This is Bush’s version of the old mafia protection racket. There’s somebody out there who’s gonna mess you up. Osama, he did it! Saddam, he did it! Those crazy ayatollahs, they might do it! North Korea, they could do it! Hello, PLO! We’ll protect you, just give us all your money and all your rights. And keep your trap shut!
For the next year, leading up to the 2004 election, all you are going to hear from Bush is how there is a war going on, a war on terror, a war to liberate and rebuild Iraq, a war against Iranian clerics, a war against North Korean nuclear madmen, a war against Colombian drug lords, a war against extremism, a war against Communism in Cuba, a war against Hamas, a war against . . .
And to maintain the endless war, they need endless fear, a fear that can only be extended indefinitely by taking away our basic civil rights.
The right wing needs to keep this war, that war, going for as long as possible because it keeps people distracted. Everyone—except those who die in it—loves a good war, especially one you can win quickly. We, good. Them, bad. Them, dead. We win! Cue the cameras, the victorious POTUS is landing on the aircarrier!
This is how Bush intends to run his entire reelection campaign. “I won you a war. Then I won you another war. But there are more wars, and you need me to win them, too!” It’ll be that old slogan, “You shouldn’t change horses in the middle of the stream.”
But this is no stream, folks. This will be a tidal wave that can swamp our democracy. Give these guys four more years, and do you think they will give up their megalomaniacal schemes peacefully to a duly elected Democrat or Green? How many of our freedoms and our children are we willing to sacrifice just so they can line their pockets with all the money that can be made from a terrified nation and a permanent war?
You are not going to be killed by a terrorist. We have seriously lost our sense of perspective. And it is being used against us, not by the terrorists, but by leaders seeking to terrorize us.
A great president once said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He encouraged and inspired a nation. Now we have nothing to fear but George W. Bush. It is my firm belief that Bush and his cronies (especially Attorney General John Ashcroft) have only one goal in mind: To scare the bejesus out of us so that whatever bill they want passed, whatever powers they want Congress to give them, we will happily hand it over.
Immediately after September 11, Bush was able to enact into law his USA PATRIOT Act (an actual acronym that stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”). The Act gives the government unprecedented freedom to collect information with little regard to civil rights or privacy concerns. The Senate voted 98 to 1 in favor of the act. Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was the only true patriot in the Senate that day, casting the sole dissenting vote, as he stood and spoke these eloquent words:
There have been periods in our nation’s history when civil liberties have taken