After the past few days of testimony and media blitz (despite misleading headlines, there was not a report) by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker all I could think of was The Truman Show.

The Truman Show, a 1998 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carrey, is a fable about an individual’s attempt to gain freedom while he is being controlled on every level by all around him.

As an unwanted newborn, Truman Burbank is adopted by a television show. As he grows up, he unknowingly becomes a world-wide star of his own life’s reality show. The show’s creator, Christof, manages and directs Truman’s life realizing that he must keep Truman on the island set if the show is to continue. He does this by fear. From the moment Truman is born, he is instilled with fear.

As a child climbing rocks, his father screams at him to get down saying, “You’ve got to know your limitations.”  He is placed in contact with snarling dogs that terrify him and keep him in place. He helplessly watches his father drown in a staged scene resulting in Truman’s overwhelming fear of water. When he walks into a travel office, a poster on the wall reads: Travelers Beware – Terrorists, Disease, Wild Animals, Street Gangs. Another poster shows a jet being struck by lightning with the caption: It Could Happen to You.

Christof is aided in keeping Truman isolated and unaware of his situation because everyone on the island, including his parents, wife and best friend are in on the “trap.” Any actors who are uncomfortable with their roles and do not toe the line are forced off the show.

President George W. Bush has replicated all of Christof’s techniques in his disastrous war with Iraq. The very day after 9/11, fear became the modus operandi of his administration. Saddam Hussein, WMD, imminent threat, another 9/11, mushroom clouds, code red terror alerts, biological warfare, dirty bombs, smoking guns all bunched together in a never-ending stream of - All fear - All the time.  

Fear even became an overt part of the political landscape as terror levels were raised immediately following news that was good for Democrats and/or bad for Republicans. Can anyone forget Tom Ridge’s bewilderment when he hadn’t a clue as to why the terror level had been raised by John Ashcroft?

Any actor, who knowingly dissembled in the cause of Bush’s Iraq travesty, was rewarded. Tommy Franks, unable to stand up to Donald Rumsfeld, went to Iraq with too few troops and screamed at any subordinate who dared mention that there was no Phase IV plan for occupying Iraq after the combat phase. George Tenet said little of the real danger posed by Al Qaeda and enabled the threat from Iraq based on stovepiped intelligence to become a baseless reason for war. L. Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army and took away any future for all Baathists resulting in an instantaneous insurgency. All three received Presidential Medals of Freedom.

Any actor who was not on board was used as much as possible and then discarded. Generals Shinseki, Taguba and Admiral Mora stood for reality based reports and lost their careers. Richard Clarke’s “hair burning” warnings about Al Qaeda resulted in his being taken out of the security loop.

Colin Powell was this country’s great hope. He had the stature to stand up against fear and prevent a misguided debacle that was politically motivated. He was too important and trusted a figure to be tossed aside. However, Powell allowed himself to be rolled as “the good soldier” forgetting that he was the Secretary of State. After he allowed himself to be used, he too was discarded.

The testimony of David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker was actually quite startling. They painted a portrait of a dysfunctional Iraq. They gave us explanations of tactics without an underlying strategy. They painted no rosy pictures and in a moment of unvarnished truth, Petraeus admitted he could not say that our efforts in Iraq were making us safer at home. But, most striking of all was a question that was asked over and over which they did not answer.

Truman Burbank’s journey to freedom is initiated when, in an unscripted event, he meets and falls in love with a girl. It turns out this girl detests how Truman is being manipulated by fear and deception. She is wearing a button which reads: How’s It Going To End?

That is the question Petraeus and Crocker refused to answer. The tragic part is their refusal is almost certainly because they know the answer.