Two points: First, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind. Still criminal state activity and of course the US got away with it free (mostly) just like how it gets away with all its crimes against humanity or whatever. A better example would be the US commiting genocide on the native population, which was one of the most intense and successful ethnic extermination campaigns in history.
Second, it was pretty obvious at the time that all that shit was made up. I called it hard and was right. So did many, many others. They were just afraid to say it out loud because the county was very, very rapidly being pushed toward turning into a fascist nightmare. (Seriously, people forget how fucked up it was.) After Colin Powell'a speech to the UN my father and i had a conversation and made a bet. If what Powell said turned out to be false then my father would leave the Republican party and stop supporting that kind of crap. If it turned out to be true i would join. Now i really didn't want to vote Republican, had no intention of doing so, but i knew i wasn't going to lose that bet. My father, for his part, stayed true to his word.
The point of the Iraq lie isn't simply a redirection that "the US also does it." it's that the empire is capable of widescale deception to manufacture consent when the need arises. you may have realized it was a crock, but enough people were fooled the wholesale destruction of multiple sovereign nations went off without a hitch. "Bush lied, people died" only became the majority opinion after they had gotten away with it. Even now the popular consensus is that "mistakes were made," not that there was a wilful deception for the sake of expanding US global military hegemony.
first, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically a genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind.
The other difference is that one actually happened and the other did not.
Also, if we were about to go to war with China, I bet it would suddenly become obvious to a lot of people that the US has been making shit up since the trade war started.
pretty obvious
iirc around 76% of Americans supported the Iraq war.
Two points: First, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind. Still criminal state activity and of course the US got away with it free (mostly) just like how it gets away with all its crimes against humanity or whatever. A better example would be the US commiting genocide on the native population, which was one of the most intense and successful ethnic extermination campaigns in history.
Second, it was pretty obvious at the time that all that shit was made up. I called it hard and was right. So did many, many others. They were just afraid to say it out loud because the county was very, very rapidly being pushed toward turning into a fascist nightmare. (Seriously, people forget how fucked up it was.) After Colin Powell'a speech to the UN my father and i had a conversation and made a bet. If what Powell said turned out to be false then my father would leave the Republican party and stop supporting that kind of crap. If it turned out to be true i would join. Now i really didn't want to vote Republican, had no intention of doing so, but i knew i wasn't going to lose that bet. My father, for his part, stayed true to his word.
The point of the Iraq lie isn't simply a redirection that "the US also does it." it's that the empire is capable of widescale deception to manufacture consent when the need arises. you may have realized it was a crock, but enough people were fooled the wholesale destruction of multiple sovereign nations went off without a hitch. "Bush lied, people died" only became the majority opinion after they had gotten away with it. Even now the popular consensus is that "mistakes were made," not that there was a wilful deception for the sake of expanding US global military hegemony.
The other difference is that one actually happened and the other did not.
Also, if we were about to go to war with China, I bet it would suddenly become obvious to a lot of people that the US has been making shit up since the trade war started.
iirc around 76% of Americans supported the Iraq war.