What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war.
So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of hardened terrorists, posed an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the final stages of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.
As usual, anonymity was granted to U.S. officials to make these claims. As usual, there was almost no evidence for any of this. Nonetheless, American media outlets eager, as always, to justify American wars spewed all of this with very little skepticism. Worse, they did it by pretending that the U.S. government was trying not to talk about all of this too secret! but they, as intrepid, digging journalists, managed to unearth it from their courageous sources. Once the damage was done, the evidence quickly emerged about what a sham this all was. But, as always with these government/media propaganda campaigns, the truth emerges only when its impotent.
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