How the War Party Works

Justin Raimondo writes:

In framing the Iranians for supposedly harboring "weapons of mass destruction," the War Party’s job is to keep up a relentless assault in the hope something will stick. Get ready for a barrage of "leaks" by pro-war factions inside the administration, and yet more "intelligence" reports planted by one or another foreign country with an interest in fomenting war, all of it backed up and "verified" by reliably biased experts. What makes the War Party’s job easier, in this case, is that it’s not hard to confuse the public with a lot of "scientific" terminology and wrangling over technical details: people eventually throw up their hands, and reason that where there’s so much smoke there’s bound to be fire.

The debunking of war myths has to be done carefully, and systematically: the process can take years. There are still those who believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a number roughly equivalent to the audience for Fox News. War propagandists erect their war mythos in layers, first laying the foundations by positing the absolute evil and inherent aggressiveness of their chosen enemy, and then building the case for war brick by brick, a construction consisting of whatever "evidence" can be found or manufactured at the time. This results in a somewhat unsteady, makeshift structure, but remember that longevity is not something the War Party is aiming for. The idea is to seize on the passions and politics of the moment to push us into war. What happens afterward is someone else’s problem.