Will Americans Once Again Fall for the Politics of Fear?

By Byron A. Ellis, April 25, 2008

McCain and the Republicans are certain that they can again fool the American electorate. As a result, they are reengaging the nation in the politics of fair. Today, however, it is not Iraq; it is Hamas and Iran.

Jennifer Rubin noted that Hamas had endorsed Obama, and asked McCain if Obama had given the group a signal. She could have also asked if the group might believe that Obama can bring peace to their shattered land, but she did not.

McCain took the opportunity to say, “All I can tell you Jennifer is that I think it is clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States.”

Apparently, McCain fails to recognize that many nations and people in the rest of the world see Obama as a welcomed change to the Washingtonian politics of division, aggressiveness, and fear mongering.

Most nations are yearning for a different American posture, they are tired of wars and the adverse consequences that it produce: dead and destruction, as well as high crude oil and food prices.

The rest of the world knows what Hillary and McCain have promised. They have promised a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policy of more wars in the Middle East. Both McCain and Hillary have talked about bombing Iran. Furthermore, they want Americans to view Iran as an aggressive nation, as they were able to do with Iraq.

And, it is quite possible that Americans will again be fooled. In spite of the evidence, in 2004, they believed in the Bush-Cheney fairy tails about the need to invest American resources in Iraq.

Today, they are telling us that Iran is an aggressive nation. However, if we measure aggressiveness by the number of nations that Iran has attacked or invaded in the last fifty years, we would have difficulty naming those nations.