Fear

Edmund Burke stated, “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as Fear.” The fear of death is the most basic fear.  It through history and tradition has left us with institutions with fanciful and delusional religious ideas based on nothing but beliefs.

However, fear can be used by ruthless leaders to mobilize people to any cause—even war. Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice both appeared on Sunday morning news programs on March 16, 2003 to promote invading Iraq based on the specious claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  Iraq did not possess WMD and both Cheney and Rice should have known that and they in fact may have known. They used a visual backdrop of nuclear mushroom clouds to work Americans into frenzy. The Cheney-Rice theatrics resulted in seventy-two percent of Americans supporting the war against Iraq. President Bush’s approval rating increased to 71% after the invasion. 

While I was not privy to any specific information on Iraq I had worked in Kuwait as an investment professional and I had been a hostage in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War so I understood the culture which was not a fertile ground for a Western way of thought.

Roosevelt is famous for saying, “the only thing you have to fear is fear itself” but the current president exploits fear as his primary instrument of motivating his base, gullible as they may be.

This takes us full circle to the Edmund Burke quote and the passion fear evokes and the consequences that follow.