Here's part of the source of my concern about the mutable "reason" we went into Iraq:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/ ... index.html
Readers will notice a certain ideological slant, but the numbers speak for themselves. Excerpts:
"Before the Iraq war, a Knight Ridder poll showed that nearly half of Americans surveyed believed, erroneously, that there were Iraqis among the Sept. 11 hijackers. During the war, a Los Angeles Times poll showed that 59 percent of respondents were convinced, despite all available evidence, that Saddam was either partly or mostly responsible for Sept. 11. Now that America's failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is becoming an increasingly contentious political issue, a third of respondents in a University of Maryland poll believed that the weapons already have been uncovered. A fifth of those polled think Iraq actually used such weapons in the war."
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, Bush told Americans, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," though American intelligence agencies knew the only evidence underlying this assertion was a crude forgery. At his press conference on March 6, Bush said that Saddam Hussein "has trained and financed al-Qaida-type organizations before, al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations," though no link between Saddam and al-Qaida has emerged. On "Meet the Press" on March 16, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[W]e believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. On Polish TV on May 30, Bush said, "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
Before the war, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that only 38 percent of Americans felt the war would be justified even if weapons of mass destruction were not found. When the same pollsters asked that question two weeks ago, 56 percent of Americans felt the war was justified even if the weapons are never uncovered.
Says Ward, "I've been at demonstrations trying to talk to those who are in support of the Bush administration. It's remarkable how thoroughly convinced they are that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. No matter what you tell them, they end up saying that the president knows things that you don't know. Even if true information gets out there, there's no guarantee it's going to convince anyone."
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I for one haven't been particularly convinced that Bush either understands or communicates what is actually going on with the gulf war. This is the guy who during his pre-war press conference was asked a number of tough questions about the rationale and implementation, and his answers bore almost no relation to the questions. Each was a string of sound bites and platitudes about freedom and children and crap apparently committed to memory or printed on note cards at his lectern. As I watched I became convinced that either the man was completely unable to engage in a intelligent and spontaneous discussion and had to rely on prepackaged propaganda nuggets, or he was straight up lying to us.
I don't know which is more concerning, but there's something about the puppet concept that really terrifies me. Here's a guy who coasted thru school on his daddy's name, get drunk and used some coke, found God, made some $ with his connections, and a short time later is president of the United States of America. Why??? What was so attractive about a cadidate whose characterizations of the world are about as complex and diplomatic as action quips from the Star Wars films? It was as if people just got accustomed to the idea he was going to be the Republican candidate, and then that the war was on, without really thinking about it or deciding anything. For example, pre-war we were treated with a variety of headlines, that while nothing had really changed, gradually introduced us to the idea that war was basically already decided on, primarily on the basis of WMD threats, but now everyone supports the idea that we went in for humanitarian reasons, forgetting that the conditions in Iraq haven't changed in many years. We weren't for war before, and what changed was our perception of reality. Enemies were picked for a receptive public by our leaders. Didn't that happen in "1984" in a more conspicuous manner? Sure 1984 was worse, but it was satire, designed to call attention to more probable deceits in the real world. Isn't that where we are?
Note: nothing above should be construed to mean that I'm fond of any politicians NOT mentioned.