POLLS: MANY AMERICANS ARE SIMPLY DUMBER THAN BUSH
MichaelP
by Paul Craig Roberts
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Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal
editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor
of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
paulcrai...@yahoo.com
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01/29/06
Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York
Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable
offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing
and understanding information.
Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation
agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio
are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the standard for
truth and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some degree.
Despite the media's failure, about half the population has managed to
discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that the
Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is not a necessary
component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence
of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.
Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the
respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of
anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent
approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the
threat of terrorism." Why does any American think that spying without a
warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than
spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which
Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel
of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the
law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons.
The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to
the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a
warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than
spying with a warrant.
Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with
the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between
civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false
and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to
escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading
choices before the people? The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally
striking anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of Bush's
performance as president. But a majority believe Bush's policies have made
the US more secure.
It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a
result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening
two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a
dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US.
Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a
favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.
A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told
the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to
recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times
its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has
succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.
We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan. In the
recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being
suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In
Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half
of the government. In Iraq, Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis
with Islamist Shia allied with Iran.
And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the
total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in
displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing
them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this disastrous
result makes Americans feel safer! What does it say for democracy that
half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion
from unambiguous facts? Americans share this disability with the Bush
administration.
According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the
election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the
US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration
astonished? The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly
believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the
US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up
colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve,
instead, purposes of the US government.
Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim
terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's
invasion of Iraq.
Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and
Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties
will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United
States.
The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the
inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand
information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.
America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance
and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.