The War for Terror

The BBC has been running a documentary series called "The Power of Nightmares" that has apparently hit quite hard. Here is a rundown posted on Commondreams.org. The doc argues that the engines of the U.S. Cold War military build-up were none other than Ford's Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld and Chief of Staff Cheney, who, with defense industry ties, instigated a campaign to whip up fear of new Soviet armaments whose non-existence could not be proven (sound familiar?). Nixon's good faith talks with the Soviet Union did not cut it for the arms industry. So while the CIA maintained that the USSR would not last another decade or two, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the gang formed "The Committee on the Present Danger" to manufacture a sense of threat, stock interview shows with experts, etc. And the people predictably said, "Better safe than sorry." Tried and true politics of fear. As it turned out years later, excepting the detractors, "We were all wrong."

The documentary can be viewed in its entirety in multiple formats to those blessed with BitTorrent. If you don't have BitTorrent, get it; you'll need it later.

Here is a great site for accessing recent progressive documentaries online.