I think the word we're all looking for is "propaganda". My wife put an article by Noam Chomsky in front of me. I was horrified to find how we (me included) have bitten on the bait. The article was in The SUN of October, 2003. Loooks like the URL is www.thesunmagazine.org

 

I remember posters on this forum (in general conversation before Pig Pen was established) who questioned our invasion of Iraq being labeled as Un-American, screaming liberals and subjected to all sorts of criticism by probably 95% of the other posters.

When Hermann Goering’s infamous statement was posted (below), the clamor from indignant posters was almost a solid wall.

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

The ironic part of all the flak from supporters of the invasion was that they were all quoting network media reports, which were basically verbatim press releases from our administration.

I don’t recall any of the dissenters, myself included, questioning the WMD scenario at the time; the big question was what Iraq had to do with 9/11 when Bin Laden and 16 of the 18 who carried out the attack were Saudis. Iraq was a third tier nation and it was difficult to conjure up a threat from Iraq when there were lots of bad guys out there who could be classified as real threats and operated their countries in a manner that made Saddam look like a god guy.

But the administration waved the flag and if you didn’t support our policy of invasion and occupation with the purpose of instilling democracy in Iraq, you were labeled un-patriotic (Goering’s statement). I see the same problem with the administration’s favorable assessment of our domestic economic problems while they’re desperately attempting to smooth over Iraq by begging for UN assistance (whom we told to go fly a kite when that body refused to sanction our invasion) before election time rolls around.

While the office deserves our respect, the actions and lack of supporting facts in our foreign policy have put the president in a position of having used the public in an attempt to serve a personal agenda. We were lied to. It doesn't take much brainpower to make anyone doubt the validity of current and future statements from our administration. Unless, of course, their sole knowledge base is 15-minutes of network news before the sports report.

 

Wow, there are a lot of well informed people out there. Seems like most of you are right where I am- support the Pres, just not necessarily all the tactics. I, for one am grateful that he attacked Afghanistan when he did. Maybe we missed the secondary objective, bin laden, but the primary one- freeing the country from the Taliban- was accomplished in record time. However, how can a reasonable person believe that there are no WMD somewhere in Iraq? Just because we haven't found them, doesn't meant they don't exist. If there were never any there, Hussein would not have balked at every attempt to do a proper search. The man basically admitted he had them by refusing to let us do the search that he agreed to!! I mean, think about it! Hussein said time and again, you can do your search- just not in there! there are no WMD in there, you don't need to search it. Shouldn't that type of behavior raise some eyebrows? I believe he has them and is just VERY good at concealing them. Yes, Iraq is a third tier nation. That is precisely why Hussein was in all likelyhood making a biological weapon- cheap and easy.

Just my $.02

 

Literally hundreds of Iraqi scientists and scientific technical people have been interviewed, interrogated and jailed who all say biological warfare R&D in Iraq ended years ago. A key part of our administration's rational for invading Iraq was that Iraq could use chemical warfare against aggressors within 45-minutes. Even after extensive searches no evidence or testimony has indicated any recent presence of biological weapons. I think you're beating a dead horse.

 

If they had the weapons, why didn't they use them? If they had built them to fend off an aggressor, I can't imagine there would have been a better time to drag them out.

 

Maybe he used them all up on his own people, or was that all made up, too? Maybe they are all gone now, but that doesn't explain the man's lack of cooperation...
besides, WMD's aside, isn't the world a far better place without that megalomaniac around to torture and kill his own people? Wouldn't it have just been a matter of time before he turned his aggressions toward the US in the form of terrorist acts? And anyone who doesn't support the President in fighting terrorism should be ashamed of themselves. I am proud to be part of the fighting machine of this country, and believe that we should do everything we can to rid the world of terrorism, in any form.

 

I believe WWII, Viet Nam and countless other samller instances have proven you don't defeat national resistance of an occupied nation with conventional military resources. You'd have to eliminate the entire populace. Bin Laden is the only identified 'outlaw' terrorist leader. Few people that can read or hear still believe Iraq was ever a past or future danger to the US.

I am proud of your commitment to serve in our military and follow your sworn duty. I am not proud of our administration having your brothers and sisters killed in an aggressive military occupation that does nothing to eliminate Bin Laden and certainly does zero to eliminate terrorism.

 

If not the military, who is going to do anything at all to stop terrorism? Until we develop some sort of 'Hit Squad' for that purpose, terror is still going to be the cheapest weapon of our religious enemies. (Of course we can't have a "hit squad." those things couldn't work, as the power would eventually be misused. Just trying to make a point.)

I say 'religious' enemies, because isn't that the root of the problem? We don't believe the same things they do?

As far as the administration goes, I still support the actions. I also believe that we will find both Hussein and Bin Laden eventually. I will agree that it is a shame for young people to die needlessly, but the job isn't finished yet. I would just like to see the soldiers better equipped and given permission to better defend themselves.

 

War is a major portion of history. Somebody wins, somebody loses. As long as we're the world's largest user of oil and a major source is located in the mid-east, we're going to support Israel, stick our nose in where its not wanted and be subjected to retaliation, formerly called resistance, now labeled terrorism. It'll take years and years for agents to infiltrate those tightly organized cells of resistance to a point where they can be effectively fought, so relax and enjoy the deadly roller coaster ride.

 

Stu
As you already see, most of us are intensely patriotic. I don't think you thought through George's quote from Goering. That is the definition of propaganda. Seizing on our fears, and justifying awful actions based on those fears is part of propaganda. If the UN (feeble as they were) AND our troops can't find them, they simply are not there. Dubya made the statement "usable in 45 minutes", if we can't find them cause they're so well hidden, how could sadly insane drag 'em out and fire 'em in 45 minutes? You see, the rhetoric don't match the facts. We got led to the killing floor, all of us.

Yeah, going into Afghanistan was probably justified. In fact, we probably should have:
A. Done it years ago
B.Wiped the whole damn bunch out
C. Left enough troops in place to take out the existing terrorists, who are referred to as "warlords".
Dubya didn't do that. He did it half-assed like his dad, who we also believed.

You can bet your bippy we know where some of these clowns in Iraq are holed up. Why not take them out, and "collateral damage" be damned?

You are being fed BS, and swallowing it, saying it tastes good because it is "patriotic". A good analogy is the Emperor with no clothes.

Your draft-dodging president, who lacked the cajones to even finish flying his really cool airplane is sending our sons and daughters to the meat grinder. And the North Koreans are rattling nukes. Do you really think Iraq had the ability to threaten us? If you think for yourself, you will note the lack of an air force, long range missiles, a navy, and now, the lack of weapons.

Come on, use your brain. Yes, the world is a scary place. The pres has committed your defense forces to some third rate, backwater country, bankrupted your children, and taken some of our finest men and women. And you are cheering! That is sick!

 

ouch!!

 

How can you put retaliation in the same category as terroism? What the North Vietnamese did was retaliation, of a sort. terrorists kill innocents in the name of God, or Allah, whatever the case may be. death in a war is to be expected, people die- a tragedy- everyday in wars. that's the purpose of them. I suppose our continued involvement in the middle east could be connected to the availabilty of oil. So what's the answer? In my mind it is to drill in Alaska. Let's make our own supply, since we are not imperialistic and don't want Iraq to be the fifty-first state. I'll agree with the fact that N korea is probably a bigger threat to world peace than Iraq, and I would like to see something done there eventually. We've proven we can win a war in mountainous regions, so why not? Maybe they are waiting to do it so they'll have more fodder for the 2008 election- LOL!!

As far as the president- the one that actually won the election (but we can argue that point another time,in another thread, haha)- being a draft dodger? Why is he more so a draft dodger than Gore? Didn't they both serve in some capacity? And if gore were president, I shudder to think of what his response to the attacks on 9/11 would have been!! Something like, "If you guys don't stop doing that, I'm going to get really mad..."

STU

 

I don't think the administration is under fire for their response to 9/11. Going in to Afganistan to chase Bin Ladin and Al Queda had support at the time. Admittedly, we came up short on our objective.
I think a lot of Americans are having trouble making the connection between 9/11 and the Iraqi war.

 

George isn't even capable of making the decisions your are blaming him for. At best he is a rubber stamp and the guy that gets to go in front of the camera's. I think a good share of the whole Iraq deal is just rattling sabres to all the middle east and showing them that yes we can and will kick your butts if you don't play ball. Sometimes I wonder how a good old fashioned takeover attitude would work. Like Spain and England did in the past. Hey, we have the European heritage. We can just do the Euopean thing and kick their butts then take their country. That's how we got this one.

 

On the other hand, there's always the possibility that a Gore administration might have managed to prevent 9/11 from happening in the first place. (Assuming you allow that a Gore administration would be more or less a philosophical continuation of the Clinton administration.)

For example:

In September of 1998, Clinton was underscoring the threat of terrorism to the United Nations:
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9809/21/un.assembly.01/

...but you probably didn't hear about it because of this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...nica092298.htm

It's interesting to note that many of Clinton's counter-terrorism initiatives were opposed and/or blocked by Republicans, including Phil Gramm, who opposed any restrictions on American business investments involving states that facilitated al Qaeda money laundering. Not to mention the all-consuming focus the Republicans had on the possibility of a Clinton impeachment--what issues didn't get discussed because of this?

Judging from the news archives, the Bush administration didn't appear to make terrorism a priority until after 9/11.