Case Closed-Saddam and OBL

To the left we have a cover image from the Weekly Standard, a magazine founded and edited by Bill Kristol, a man that still makes the rounds on Fox explaining the world to the listening audience. This was a November, 2003 issue. The cover story is entitled "Case Closed". It details how there can now be no doubt of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's operational links. You can read the story (written by Steven Hays) here. The story of course is completely wrong, as was well known soon after this story was published.

It kind of reminds me of a campaign ad from the Bush campaign run just prior to the '04 elections. Fear is such an incredible motivator. You can get people to do all kinds of crazy things that they would never consider doing except to save them from a perceived threat. Republicans desperately want you scared, and they'll convince even themselves of ridiculous, unsubstantiated things to drive you into fear. And into their arms.



Do people notice that really the threat was overblown? Can we now admit that the Islamic terrorist threat is kind of silly? Americans are more likely to die from a coconut falling on their head than terrorism.This old tired fear method has of course been going on for a while. Here's Reagan's famous "There's a bear in the woods" ad. A lot of people thought that was kind of overblown. For instance here's Noam Chomsky talking about the Soviet Union in 1985. Sure, they're evil, and a real threat to the people that are under their domination. But they are not able to project themselves very far. There's no reason to be scared. Who was right? Are we going to continue to listen to the Bill Kristol's of the world?