Submitted by John Stauber on
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels observed that "the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." The Big Lie technique has worked well in Bush's war on Iraq. The New York Times reports that "organizers of the antiwar movement lament how well the administration argued that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, playing on Americans' residual anger and fear after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. About half the American public, according to several polls, believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in planning the attacks -- an argument the administration did not make." On the contrary, officials including Powell, Cheney and Bush, in tandem with Fox and other pro-war media, repeatedly linked Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, although there still exists no credible evidence for it. This is the essence of the Big Lie technique, when authorities repeat an outrageous falsehood until it is widely believed. Opinion polls and interviews with US troops show the effectiveness of the Big Lie.