Whenever I hear about the Iraq war on the "leftist" podcasts I listen to (other than Media Roots Radio) I always get hit with the usual suspects to blame - freakin' Hillary, the 'Democrat' party leadership (most rank-and-file congressional Ds voted against Iraq), or the uniquely evil super-genius Bush.

Why does no one ever dive into opinion polls at the time showing something like 70-80% of wypipo supported the invasion? It isn't even uniquely interesting to point out 'hypocrites' like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump or Glenn Greenwald supported invading Iraq - because it would be really strange if they didn't. I do remember Bill Maher saying US troops would get their asses kicked in March 2003 but that was probably just part of his bit of being the ugly guy who gets booed

  • Malikto [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    We didn't have the internet to talk back and talk amongst ourselves back then. Well, we did, but it was the blogging era and wasn't as influential as today's social media. There was that blogger that took Dan Rather's scalp but that was after the invasion.

    Many people, myself included, simply did not believe the government could coordinate with the media to tell such gigantic lies. In my defense, I simply had no idea that they were that evil. I had no concept of it. I knew the US government could do bad things, or screw up, or be incompetent, but to launch a war on pretenses they knew to be false? And then the media, supposed to be government watchdogs, go along with it? It was just outside anything I had ever experienced.

    And they knew this, and counted on it. And after they fooled us, they felt nothing but contempt for us not having stopped them. They got away with it, and this emboldened them to even greater adventures. Say, can anyone tell me why we're at war in Syria? I don't know and neither do you.

      • Malikto [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Those were false flags. Happened right after Trump announced troop withdrawal.

        Independent analysts raised pertinent questions about several conclusions that the OPCW reached regarding the earlier incidents, and it was bad enough that mainstream journalists ignored or peremptorily dismissed those objections and critiques. But mounting evidence of outright OPCW misconduct during its investigation of the latest episode, the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma (a rebel-held Damascus suburb) in April 2018, should have triggered a massive inquiry by journalists. Instead, there is the sound of crickets.

        https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/medias-coverage-syria-april-2018-chemical-weapons-attack-disgrace-120806

        https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-wikileaks-bombshell-inspectors-dissent-syria-chemical-attack-narrative/5697871

        http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/assessment-by-the-engineering-sub-team-of-the-opcw-fact-finding-mission-investigating-the-alleged-chemical-attack-in-douma-in-april-2018