Cognitive Dissonance. 1) Us versus them mentality, the group bonding also known as tribalism, nationalism, group elitism, etc. seems partially learned behavior but also hard-wired into humans (like other animals) to enable group survival. The worst, most excessive forms of group bonding are also known as racism. Yet its an innate part of human psychological makeup to identify most closely with those whom we are close to and with whom we share group affinity, so Americans are always going to care more about Americans/Westerners as opposed to more distant foreigners; 2) The gruesome beheadings were deliberately and dramatically videotaped to ensure that US media brought the scenes into all US living rooms whereas the drone bombings of citizens of foreign countries are almost never filmed nor covered at all by US media. Thus to the majority of Americans, drone killings seem sterile, sanitized and surgical even though drone pilots who see the results up close know differently and some are even committing suicide. 3) Its apparent that even a large segment of the peace community does not understand that US wars and US-orchestrated regime changes indirectly created Islamic State (and other Al Qaeda type terrorist groups) and that US drone (and other aerial) bombing is giving rise to MORE terrorism, rather than working to reduce it. These two articles How the West Created the Islamic State and How ISIS Is Using Us to Get What It Wants describe the dynamic. As in all wars, the leaders of both sides are opportunistically using each other to empower each other. Robert Greenwalds video (below) puts it most succinctly: How Perpetual War Fuels Terrorism. (But the opposite is also true: terrorism fuels war). This is well-known by Western intelligence analysts and foreign policy experts, and its garden variety war manipulation for everyone except the duped US public. (Borowitz isnt really joking when he reports: Americans Who Have Not Read a Single Article About Syria Strongly Support Bombing It.) Its depressing otherwise to learn how many uninformed people there are that still think bombing the village to save it somehow can work. Such war on terror propaganda is actually effective on the liberal-minded who are more vulnerable to having their emotional buttons -- fear, hate, greed, false pride and blind loyalty -- pressed than it is on more pragmatic, cool-headed realists. Its being reported that a number of US journalists who should know better have even fallen for hyped terror threats used to justify the launching of bombing upon Syria. 4) A fourth reason why most Americans now go happily along with perpetual war in a kind of blissful stupor, cheering on their favorite war hawk politician comes from the lessons learned so well from the Vietnam War. Getting rid of the military draft and putting the trillions of dollars of mounting war costs on the ever-expanding and perfectly elastic national debt card was a stroke of genius on the part of the military industrial complex to wipe away any remaining Vietnam Syndrome. The new poverty draft that were left with constitutes another layer of us versus them type manipulation geared to getting the liberal, intellectual middle class on board as they perceive little or no costs and only benefits to perpetual war. Even when not directly profiting by working for military or national security contractors, many Americans have come to believe war creates jobs and ensures they are supplied with cheap gas and other resources.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:00:00 +0000
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