"The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said. "He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."
AP
The obvious answer is to remind the American people why it is necessary for America to continue its "defense of freedom" by fighting terrorism. But, this speech was about Iraq, not about terrorism.
Ever more obvious are the attempts by the Bush administration to link everything to terrorism. Last night's references to 9/11 were blatant emotional triggers meant to "remind" the American public of why the Bush administration goes after countries like Iraq.
In a similar vein, pro-Israeli policy advocates whip out the Holocaust, either directly or indirectly via cries of anti-semitism, to tug on the emotional strings, to remind the world why Israel must "protect" herself. Same song, different verse.
The Bush administration has taken a page right out of the book used in Israel's handling of the Palestinian people. Label your opponent a terrorist or associate your opponent with terrorist acts, whether factual or fabricated doesn't matter, so you can gain the emotional support of your citizens. There will be no peace in the Middle East.
Bottom line is that these are attempts to manipulate the logical analysis of the situation at hand by inserting references to emotionally-charged events clearly meant to obfuscate the issue under discussion. Unfortunately, the strategy appears to work quite well as most people can't seem to get past the emotion to see what is actually unfolding right in front of their eyes.
Technorati Categories: Current Affairs, Government, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Politics, Terrorism, War on Terror.
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