Reading Reflection - Assignment Example

"Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War" The United States as a super power has not accurately used its wide knowledge of the “marketplaces of ideas’ to promote peace and allow for truth to prevail in other democracies or regime that are different from theirs. An example is that US failed in her “marketplaces of ideas” during the war with Iraq as they did not come up with accurate facts regarding the regime that was controlling Iraq; therefore, declared war on the country based intangible reasons.

Moreover, the public did not also find reason in the pool of “marketplaces of ideas” as they were swayed to believe that Iraq as a country posed threat to the c US citizens living both at home and abroad. The government used such agencies like the media to convince the public and suppress the truth, thus acting on false information which contradicted the democratic “marketplaces of ideas” which the country is based on.The question on the threat of inflation is quite confusing because democratic “marketplaces of ideas” are known for making accurate decisions, but as the case of Iraq may suggest, they flaunted this and acted on their own personal and selfish interest.

A closer look at why the marketplaces of ideas was not applied into the case of Iraq is that US as a country had various strategic advantages which propelled both the citizens and leaders to declare war on the country. An example is that the media and the atrocities of the September 11 were responsible for the failure of marketplaces of ideas in the case of Iraq.Failure of the “marketplaces of ideas” in Iraq’s case was because of a number of reasons like biased manipulation of democracies buy selfish individuals for their own gains.

Secondly, is that the control of information was only restricted to a fraction of individuals who were thought to have the country’s interest at heart and lastly the authority exerted in foreign policies. Work CitedKaufmann, Chaim. "Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War." International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 5-48.