Poll on propaganda surrounding the Iraq War

[Writer]

Please choose the answer closest to your actual experience.

[Egnever]

1. Thanks in large part to DU

I was never fooled for a second.

[babylonsister]

2. Colin Powell 'convinced' me until I discovered it was all a lie. nt

[FrenchieCat]

3. I was trying to figure out why anyone was believing Powell's presentation

at the time I laughted at his cartoons and drawings and "satellite" photos of "stuff.

When he pulled out the vial, I nearly doubled up cracking up.

I read the foreign press, and they were also criticizing him.

It wasn't until I heard and read the American media that I realized that he was gonna get away with that shit. :mad:

[ccharles000]

4. Other.

I was 11 when 911 happened and was 13 when we went to war so I don't really remember.

[TahitiNut]

5. OK, kids! Tomorrow's class will be on Venn diagrams ...

... and the logic of mutually exclusive, overlapping, and congruent subsets. :dunce:

[Writer]

8. Okay, class. TahitiNut has something that he'd like to share with all of you.

He'd like to let all of you know that he didn't read the answers closely and can't discern the subtle differences in how each response is worded and phrased. He'd also like to admit to everyone here, class, that he doesn't truly know what the poll is actually measuring, and in doing so has made a complete :dunce: of himself.

Furthermore, given his unnecessarily rude response in an otherwise innocuous online poll, he has agreed that whatever personal issues he has with the OP will in fact be handled directly to the OP in a personal message. Otherwise, he may chance making a fool of himself once again.

Sincerely,

~Writer, PhD~

[BlooInBloo]

13. Curious: (a) What field is you doctorate in?

and (b) Do you believe that the choices presented are mutually exclusive?

[johnaries]

6. I listened to NPR every morning.

I don't see how anyone who listened to what NPR was reporting at the time could have believed Bush's BS.

[kenny blankenship]

7. Too many key assertions in the "case for war" had been proven to be bullshit

the aluminum tubes story was debunked - the tubes were inappropriate for centrifuge use. The IAEA stated categorically that there was no evidence of any renewed atomic program in Iraq. The yellowcake from Niger story was debunked - the memo was exposed as a crude forgery even before Joseph Wilson was sent to investigate. The famous British "dossier" which contained the explosive claim that Iraq could hit western Europe with weapons of mass destruction in a mere 45 minutes was revealed to be a clumsily cobbled together fraud with whole paragraphs and indeed most of its pages lifted verbatim, typos and all, from some American graduate student's "survey of the literature"; the grad student's material was TWELVE YEARS OLD in 2003 as Britain and the US marched to war, it was clearly not the internal product of British Intelligence services that it was presented as. (Nor was the material necessarily accurate when the student wrote it up twelve years prior). The exposure of the "dossier" as a sham happened the very same week that Colin Powell gave his performance of a thousand lies at the U.N. Security Council. By the time Powell got up there waving artists' renderings like this one around as his EVIDENCE,

you had to know they were bluffing their way to war.

Hindsight was not necessary in the case of the Iraq War. All these key assertions in the "case for war" were exposed as falsehoods before the invasion was launched. One only needed to be paying attention.

When someone lies to you THIS many times on a matter of absolutely fatal importance --and lies this badly and this brazenly-- you know enough to KNOW that nothing they are telling you is motivated by good will. You don't have to guess and wonder about their motives or their veracity. They are liars and killers. You also don't have to be able to prove EVERYTHING they're saying is a lie either - that would be an impossible standard for action in any case or any era. If they make up three big whoppers that is PLENTY. I think the people have a right to expect their elected representatives to be smart and courageous enough to protect them from liars and killers. I think the people have a right to expect their representatives would be PAYING ATTENTION to the debate on the claims presented by the Executive and/or military, and also paying attention to their Constitutional duties to act as a check on the ambitions of a power hungry Executive.

[Hippo_Tron]

9. I wasn't really sure, I bought into the arguments about the ripple effect of democracy

Granted I was 15 at the time and so I think that's a decent excuse for not having been as well read on the subject as I should've been.

On the other hand I still had reservations because I knew it was a war of choice and didn't really believe that we were facing imminent destruction if we didn't get rid of Saddam. I also knew that Bush had no intention of just getting the inspector in and was fully gung-ho about going to war.

I started reading DU about the time when the country was starting to realize that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

[anonymous171]

10. I never believed them, but I was still wrong. I thought it was for oil.

I hadn't even heard of "Neoconservatism" at that point, and naively assumed that Bush was just being his usual corporatist self. Little did I know.

[sandnsea]

12. I figured it was for regional control

Be the big bullies in the region and take the oil. I learned about PNAC in early 2003, iirc. And most of the country still doesn't know. And yet people on this site insist we have a fine group of journalists. :crazy:

[sandnsea]

11. DOD Denial & Deception

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/briefingslide.aspx?briefingslideid=150

Oct 2002 Briefing.

It's all easy enough to debunk. I don't think there was one charge made that hadn't been thoroughly debunked, certainly by the time of the invasion.

I was okay with the inspections, but by Mar 2003 it was absolutely clear it was a complete propaganda machine. And it wasn't all led by the Bush Administration either.

[fujiyama]

14. The only argument for the war that had any effect with me

was that of human rights. I was aware of the human rights violations under Saddam Hussein and when reading some accounts, at times for the sake of devils advocate I would try to say that it would be good to get rid of him but I knew that at the same time that was a silly argument because there are hundreds of cruel (and crueler) dictators that shouldn't be in power. I also had read enough about the different factions in Iraq, so I figured a civil war would be a likely repercussion of the invasion. In that regard I could see the US invading many countries for the sake of human rights. So looking back, I could say I was more conflicted than many other liberals, but by the time the war neared I realized that Bush wasn't giving the weapons inspectors the time they needed and that he was hell bent on going to war. I also knew that since Saddam was no imminent threat, going to war was unnecessary and a distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and those that funded them.

So I didn't trust the administration for a second.

I was astounded how many were stupid enough to believe Saddam had something to do with 9/11. I also had read enough accounts to figure he had no weapons of mass destruction. I too though Powell's testimony was laughable. I already gave up on Powell when he claimed Pakistan was a great ally on the war on terror so as far as I was already concerned he was a tool.

[meowomon]

15. Never CONvinced

I knew George Bush was a liar and evil from way back. I don't trust any right wing christians. I was raised bya couple of them, I know their ways.

[invictus]

16. I never believed a word these neo-cons said. n/t