The fear peddlers - by Jessy Jackson
Code red on U.S. airplanes.
How did the US administration respond? Vice President Cheney emerged to warn that the victory of Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary would embolden “al-Qaida types.” Joe Lieberman, embittered over his loss, went further, charging that Lamont’s call for changing course in Iraq will “strengthen” the “same people who wanted to blow up these planes.” Republicans—faced with the debacle in Iraq, the catastrophe after Katrina, the failed economic policies, the record trade and fiscal deficits, wages that don’t keep up with the rising prices of gas, health care, college and salaries—have clearly decided to run by accusing their opponents of weakening U.S. security.
Seven days after UK authorities arrested 24 British-born Muslims and announced that they and their American counterparts had thwarted a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights from London to the US, neither the British nor the American government has produced any facts to substantiate their dire claims. No details of the supposed plot have been provided, and no hard evidence that would justify the arrest of so many people or the imposition of chilling security measures that had wreaked havoc at airports in the US and Britain.What is the political context in which this latest terror scare takes place? Iraq has descended into civil war under the jackboot of American military occupation, Afghanistan is spiraling out of control, the US-Israeli war in Lebanon has ended in political failure, new opinion polls show Bush’s approval ratings once against sinking to record levels and antiwar sentiment rising to new heights.
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