Yep, I very distinctly remember watching this speech on the TV in the breakroom at work, thinking, “Hold up, what the fuck do WMDs in Iraq have anything at all to do with the people who crashed those planes?” But the general vibe of people actually cheering as they listened to the beat of the war drums was terrifying. There were a lot of us who never bought that bs
They were pushing that narrative pretty fucking hard. At the same time some clown was sending anthrax letters around and they used that too. There were also protests at the white house before the invasion about no war for oil, so it’s not like support was universal and plenty of people saw through the ruse.
But then there was that whole freedom fries thing… dear God.
He was easily the most identifiable “bad guy” in the middle east aside from Yasser Arafat in the public’s imagination. Probably contributed to it a bit…
So many young people have no clue how fucking terrifying it was, and Bush’s image has been somewhat rehabilitated as well. People are afraid of Trump bringing about a fascist revolution, but he’s a clown compared to the Bush crowd. A lot of the shit we’re dealing with today got started or really accelerated under Bush. Reagan is in a similar position.
Very respectable and dedicated man, professional public servant who’s hollow in the inside and only wishes for the blood of the innocent. Classic “banality of evil”.
I remember watching CNN and seeing “evidence” of WMDs found. It was some piece of shit flatbed truck with a load of pipes covered by a tarp: dirty, crudely cut, metal pipes. Apparently they were possibly raw materials for … missiles.
He maintained that he really brought anthrax to the UN that day. Which either means he was one of the most reckless people on the planet or that you can’t trust a word he said. We’ll probably never know now.
I think that’s the craziest thing. Significant numbers of people were calling them out on their lies while they were saying them and they still managed to get massive amounts of support to invade Iraq.
I’d have to double check, but I’m pretty sure everything they found was just old stock they already knew about that hadn’t been safely disposed of yet.The US finally got rid of the last of it’s chemical weapons stock.
They made a big deal about high grade aluminum cylinders they found because they could have been used for uranium enrichment, but they were really just intended for components in regular missiles. The guy who ordered them got needlessly high quality aluminum basically because when you live in a dictatorship failure could end in your execution.
David Kelly, the UK weapons inspector, who lead dozens of UN teams to Iraq and inspected facilities and sites first hand said Saddam was committed to developing chemical and nuclear weapons. That’s the guy who’s been there under the UN banner, the guy judged trustworthy to lead an international team. And that was partly based on what they found, partly on how Saddam had excavated previous weapon decommissioning sites to recover parts, and partly because Saddam and his team would repeatedly lie at every turn. Kelly regarded all of the “ready to launch in 45 mins” as made up bullshit, and he repeatedly contradicted the UK and US governments when they tried to make the threat sound more immediate. So despite calling out all the politics bullshit, Kelly was still a supporter of regime change because it was - speaking as someone who’d dealt with Saddam repeatedly - the only way to stop a man who’d used chemical weapons before using them again…
France as well! Republicans gave us French so much shit for standing up to the US and refuse to support the invasion. “Freedom fries”, “Surrender monkeys” and all that crap.
Refusing to get pressured into wartime adventurism was absolutely the right move, and the French said so at the time despite the juvenile insults being tossed their way by our dimmest politicians.
I remember when Republicans tried to hit Obama for going on an “apology tour” after W and his clowns trashed our most cherished alliances.
The worst part is that they’re too cynical or stupid to be embarrassed for themselves.
Freedom fries… hehehe je trouve encore ça drôle. À bien ý penser c’était un des premiers signes de la transformation débile de la politîque américaine.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a conservative area, but most of the people in my area bought the WMD thing hook, line, and sinker. Granted, I don’t even think a lot of people needed even that much of an excuse to support going to war. There was a lot of anger after 9/11 and a lot of people who couldn’t tell the difference between Iraq and Iran wanted to bomb the middle east and the Dubya administration was more than happy to tap into that anger.
Aside from Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi meeting with Osama Bin Laden and being labeled as an extremist by him which led him to going back to Iraq to partake in leaving the Iraqi militancy movement.
Living through an event isnt the same thing as being knowledgeable about it.
But it can definitely help to understand the background before the event which is something that wouldn’t typically be captured by regular news reports.
There are dangers with just “experiencing” a thing. Most of us that experienced it were just watching whatever news cast or government speech we chose that was currently being broadcast. Even if you were directly affected by 9/11 by being near it, you really didn’t have any more tangible information about what caused it than all the stuff that’s come out since then.
I saw the rubble in person, I smelled the fuel/whatever that stench was. (seriously I’ve smelled decay, that wasn’t decay) But for seeing it I got no better information than someone sitting at home watching a TV.
In fact it might have been worse because at the time we were all blindly angry. We weren’t wrong to be angry, but people don’t think clearly in those conditions. Meanwhile politicians are brainstorming spin and advantage. Military contractors are spinning up presentations to prepare for the upcoming bids.
Living through an event isnt the same thing as being knowledgeable about it. eg. There are plenty of 911 truthers that were around when 911 happened.
And they think everyone just ate the WMDs in Iraq thing. No, I was there at the protests. Many of us knew it was a bullshit excuse.
The only thing Iraq and Al Qaeda had in common was the Q. We knew that then.
This fucken clown.
Yep, I very distinctly remember watching this speech on the TV in the breakroom at work, thinking, “Hold up, what the fuck do WMDs in Iraq have anything at all to do with the people who crashed those planes?” But the general vibe of people actually cheering as they listened to the beat of the war drums was terrifying. There were a lot of us who never bought that bs
So many people back then thought Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Poll after poll showed it. It was so damn depressing.
They were pushing that narrative pretty fucking hard. At the same time some clown was sending anthrax letters around and they used that too. There were also protests at the white house before the invasion about no war for oil, so it’s not like support was universal and plenty of people saw through the ruse.
But then there was that whole freedom fries thing… dear God.
There were protests nationwide, at many college campuses and federal courthouses.
We had over 4,000 people protest at some podunk town. We even had a bunch of news cameras cover it.
He was easily the most identifiable “bad guy” in the middle east aside from Yasser Arafat in the public’s imagination. Probably contributed to it a bit…
So many young people have no clue how fucking terrifying it was, and Bush’s image has been somewhat rehabilitated as well. People are afraid of Trump bringing about a fascist revolution, but he’s a clown compared to the Bush crowd. A lot of the shit we’re dealing with today got started or really accelerated under Bush. Reagan is in a similar position.
Rumsfeld… that guy just seemed to straight up want to kill people…
Very respectable and dedicated man, professional public servant who’s hollow in the inside and only wishes for the blood of the innocent. Classic “banality of evil”.
Yep, never forget it was the elder Bush’s regime that brought us the Sonic Youth song “Youth Against Fascism” 30 fucking years ago
They’ve been at this shit a loooooong time
https://youtu.be/eWzIlCJAw-o?si=Gsj21oHJEdYC_H_k
They’re doing for Bush what they did for Reagan
Well they’re not trying to name everything they can get their hands on after Bush, yet…
Yep, I was fired up, on board.
“So, Iraq…”
Wait, what?
I remember watching CNN and seeing “evidence” of WMDs found. It was some piece of shit flatbed truck with a load of pipes covered by a tarp: dirty, crudely cut, metal pipes. Apparently they were possibly raw materials for … missiles.
Yeah.
He maintained that he really brought anthrax to the UN that day. Which either means he was one of the most reckless people on the planet or that you can’t trust a word he said. We’ll probably never know now.
And it was obvious that they’d already decided to invade Iraq long before Powell’s infamous UN presentation.
The US has contingency plans filed to invade every country on the planet.
Would like to see the Vatican ones lol
His career really got started with covering up the May Lai massacre and got worse from there.
So you’re telling me the “a” is a conspiracy? Interesting… nods profusely
I think that’s the craziest thing. Significant numbers of people were calling them out on their lies while they were saying them and they still managed to get massive amounts of support to invade Iraq.
That’s because Saddam did have as chemical weapons program, it just wasn’t advanced as the US/UK governments wanted to believe it was…
I’d have to double check, but I’m pretty sure everything they found was just old stock they already knew about that hadn’t been safely disposed of yet.The US finally got rid of the last of it’s chemical weapons stock.
They made a big deal about high grade aluminum cylinders they found because they could have been used for uranium enrichment, but they were really just intended for components in regular missiles. The guy who ordered them got needlessly high quality aluminum basically because when you live in a dictatorship failure could end in your execution.
David Kelly, the UK weapons inspector, who lead dozens of UN teams to Iraq and inspected facilities and sites first hand said Saddam was committed to developing chemical and nuclear weapons. That’s the guy who’s been there under the UN banner, the guy judged trustworthy to lead an international team. And that was partly based on what they found, partly on how Saddam had excavated previous weapon decommissioning sites to recover parts, and partly because Saddam and his team would repeatedly lie at every turn. Kelly regarded all of the “ready to launch in 45 mins” as made up bullshit, and he repeatedly contradicted the UK and US governments when they tried to make the threat sound more immediate. So despite calling out all the politics bullshit, Kelly was still a supporter of regime change because it was - speaking as someone who’d dealt with Saddam repeatedly - the only way to stop a man who’d used chemical weapons before using them again…
Got any book recommendations or anything? I’d love to read more.
I’ve heard Sam Harris talk about how we only knew the end story was bs afterwards, and that there was no credible opposition…
Canada Not following USA into that war should should have been a good clue
France as well! Republicans gave us French so much shit for standing up to the US and refuse to support the invasion. “Freedom fries”, “Surrender monkeys” and all that crap.
Refusing to get pressured into wartime adventurism was absolutely the right move, and the French said so at the time despite the juvenile insults being tossed their way by our dimmest politicians.
I remember when Republicans tried to hit Obama for going on an “apology tour” after W and his clowns trashed our most cherished alliances.
The worst part is that they’re too cynical or stupid to be embarrassed for themselves.
Freedom fries… hehehe je trouve encore ça drôle. À bien ý penser c’était un des premiers signes de la transformation débile de la politîque américaine.
Well, there was trickle down economics before that. Reagan was the downfall.
You hear all about Freedom Fries, but I’ve never heard of Freedom Toast.
Or Freedom Kiss.
Sam used to be cool. I’m so disappointed in him.
Sam was never cool. You were duped.
You’re right.
I’ve heard him say so many bad takes. I used to really like the guy too
What do you mean someone who tries to sell a theory on objective scientific morality has many bad takes?
To be fair, I was a fan before that point.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a conservative area, but most of the people in my area bought the WMD thing hook, line, and sinker. Granted, I don’t even think a lot of people needed even that much of an excuse to support going to war. There was a lot of anger after 9/11 and a lot of people who couldn’t tell the difference between Iraq and Iran wanted to bomb the middle east and the Dubya administration was more than happy to tap into that anger.
Aside from Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi meeting with Osama Bin Laden and being labeled as an extremist by him which led him to going back to Iraq to partake in leaving the Iraqi militancy movement.
But it can definitely help to understand the background before the event which is something that wouldn’t typically be captured by regular news reports.
There are dangers with just “experiencing” a thing. Most of us that experienced it were just watching whatever news cast or government speech we chose that was currently being broadcast. Even if you were directly affected by 9/11 by being near it, you really didn’t have any more tangible information about what caused it than all the stuff that’s come out since then.
I saw the rubble in person, I smelled the fuel/whatever that stench was. (seriously I’ve smelled decay, that wasn’t decay) But for seeing it I got no better information than someone sitting at home watching a TV.
In fact it might have been worse because at the time we were all blindly angry. We weren’t wrong to be angry, but people don’t think clearly in those conditions. Meanwhile politicians are brainstorming spin and advantage. Military contractors are spinning up presentations to prepare for the upcoming bids.
Most people don’t understand the events they live through let alone the background of them, so, no.
“Most” is not all.
Plus each person has their own perspective on an event, even if it is just their singular isolated life.
Til that most != all. Thanks for the English lesson.
To be fair. Truthers for 9/11 don’t disbelief in the event ala Holocaust Deniers or “Covid Truthers”
They believe that the event was arranged by the US government in order to go to War… which many believed at the time and still do “No blood for oil.”
January 6th too