Large Numbers Of Americans Remain Ignorant On Iraq, Al Qaeda And 9/11

[JABBS]

Roughly half of U.S. adults are woefully misinformed on ties among Iraq, Al Qaeda, and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a new Harris Poll.

According to the poll, released today:

-- Only 46% said they knew the following statement to be not true: "Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001." Another 30% weren't sure, and 22% believed the statement to be true.

-- Only 42% said they knew the following statement to be not true: "Several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11 were Iraqis." Another 31% weren't sure, and 24% believed the statement to be true.

-- Only 33% said they knew the following statement to be not true: "Saddam Hussein had strong links with Al Qaeda." Another 24% were not sure, and an amazing 41% believed the statement to be true.

In other words, on three key questions regarding ties between Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11, a majority of Americans either are completely misinformed, or unsure of the truth -- and thus open to misinformation.

How can this be? The 10-member bipartisan 9/11 Commission last year found "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks against the U.S.

Specifically, the report says on page 66 that there was “no evidence” of any collaborative relationship between Saddam and 9/11 and no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with al Qaeda in “developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”

And yet, people are misinformed, or unsure of the truth?

Let's start with the lengthy number of high-profile speeches from senior Bush Administration officials to make the case connecting Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11. Consider this, this, this, and this from 2002 and 2003.

But that's old hat. How can people still be so unclear of the issues, four years after the terrorist attacks and roughly 18 months after the 9/11 Commission's report?

I blame the mysterious "they."

As JABBS has written before, President Bush often talks about the mysterious "they" when talking about the "war on terror." He mixes and matches events involving Al Qaeda and those involving the Iraqi insurgency, blending them as "they" or "them," discussing "their objectives," as if Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency thought as one.

By doing so, Bush simultaneously justifies the Iraq War as part of the greater "war on terror," and (perhaps inadvertently) fuels the right-wing mythmakers who hope someday to find proof tying together Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11.

In a national address in June, for example, Bush said this:

BUSH: "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

So, the "they" in Iraq are similar to the "they" that we know as Al Qaeda, in that they are willing to kill Americans. That's the rationale for the war -- or at least it is now. The original rationale was quite different, if you remember. Something about weapons of mass destruction that could be delivered to the U.S. or its allies in 45 minutes. Something about being satisfied with the evidence at hand, lest we wait for "the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

***

It may surprise you to think that there are some Americans continuing to make false claims of ties between Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11. But it's true. And there efforts only help to keep Americans in the dark.

According to a Dec. 28 story in the Wall Street Journal, the "media-savvy" and Orwellian-titled Move America Forward is advertising the ridiculous claim that newly discovered documents prove "extensive ties" between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Why haven't you heard about these documents from the media, or even the Bush Administration? According to Move America Forward, the discoveries are conveniently being "covered up."

There are people who believe the earth was created 5,000 years ago. There are people who believe that the Holocaust never happened. There are people who believe men haven't been to the moon. Evidence doesn't matter to these people -- it just fuels more conspiracy theories. If they close their eyes tightly enough and put their fingers deep into their ears, maybe they can avoid the truth. Unfortunately, the people from Move America Forward feel compelled to spread their "alternate truth" to the masses.

The group has raised more than $1 million, mainly in small donations, over the past two years, to get its message out. The Journal said, "The effect of the ads hasn't been measured."

I disagree. The ads are doing their part to keep Americans misinformed.

***

This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

[rzemanfl]

1. But I bet all these clowns know whether Britney Spears had a

boy or a girl. I don't and I don't fucking care.

[BlueIris]

14. You...you don't CARE about little Sean Preston?! TRAITOR!!!

You hate America.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. They must be RW drones, the Hannity-Limpball-O'Lielly followers

How else could the be so dumb?

[GrumpyGreg]

3. Dup---mea culpa!

[GrumpyGreg]

4. Did you ever see Leno's Jaywalking Allstars? There are a lot

of really,really stupid people out there.

[Daphne08]

5. "The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate."

~ Thomas Jefferson

[JABBS]

but the best chance for GOP control of the WH and Congress ...

is a dumbed-down electorate.

Think about the fact that if just 2% of the population voted Bush because of the Swift Boat Veterans, then ignorance essentially decided the election.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. "The ads are doing their part to keep Americans misinformed."

Exactly, but people will still read comments like this one below and think the guy is exagerating and blowing out of proportion the extent to which the American public has been propagandized and brainwashed.

The Making of the Enemy {Part One of Two}

by Manuel Valenzuela

Only in America


The coming years, like those of the present and the past, will see the continued spewing of fictionalized propaganda designed to manipulate the fears, hatreds, xenophobia and nationalistic tendencies of the population. The level of control over the masses and power over the nation in the years after 9/11 by corporatists intent on hijacking the country became, to them, a rousing success, thanks to the intense levels of fear and hatred engendered by the horrific events of that day. In the span of a few infamous days the corporatists had unleashed massive psychological warfare upon us, its effects still lingering in the minds of millions. Suddenly, those in power had become the puppeteers of the citizenry, free to manage us as they saw fit, our fragile and damaged psychologies traumatized, our thinking, human minds replaced by our more primitive, mammalian instincts and behaviors. An entire nation had succumbed, thanks to television, to images and emotions no people had ever witnessed, repeated over and over and over again. The making of America’s new enemy had begun.

The manufacture, marketing and dissemination of bogeymen enemies, both real and fictional, for a long time endemic in American society, has always worked to perfection, becoming the inertia used to control the population. It becomes the energy needed to maintain America’s permanent wartime economy. The creation of unseen bogeymen into supernatural evildoers fits the perfect mold of how the American citizenry has been brainwashed over the years through the use of Hollywood movies and television, with the constant themes of good versus evil, of fantasy and sensationalism, and of course the always needed happy ending, where the good guy always triumphs over the villain.

<snip>

Using Arabs and/or Persians – who just happen to be native peoples of the Middle East, the very same lands saturated with underground fields of oil that the military-energy industrial complex craves – as the new American enemy gives our corporatist government the perfect excuse to invade, occupy and devastate desired lands with American imposed capitalism. Accorded the face of evildoer extraordinaire, stereotyped and marginalized through the lens of fiction, the Arab/Persian people, diverse and complex, unknown to the undereducated, act as the key to unlocking the American people’s historical reluctance to fight wars both immoral and of choice.

If the Arab/Persian can be demonized to be hated and feared by a population brainwashed by the hypnotizing glare of television, the nation will be much easier to militarize, the people’s children will be much easier to enlist as cannon fodder and the internal policies of the nation will be much easier to control and manipulate.

http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2005/12/making-of-enemy-part-one-of-two.html

[Rude Horner]

7. The dumbing down of America isn't an accident

Less money for education, more news coverage about stuff like missing blondes and celebrities - it all leads to a dumb public. Which is exactly the way the Repub's want us.

These poll numbers don't surprise me a bit. "Distract and confuse" is the motto of the current Republican party.

[MellowOne]

8. Explains bushCo's marketing of the war

Throw enough implications around long enough, we will believe it. Nominated.

[ClintonTyree]

9. A large number of Americans are ignorant. Period.

When asked, 90% of Americans will state that they are of above average intelligence. Think about that. Think about how ignorant the "average American" is and then think, 50% are more stupid than that. And these people are primarily grouped in "red states".
Any guesses as to why goerge bush is our president?

[DemGirl7]

10. I wonder what idiots were asked the questions

They are two groups of idiots, The FOX News Watchers who are brainwashed fools that think * is the greatest president on earth, and can't do no wrong, so they believe the BS that comes out of his mouth, along with the BS of the pundits.
And there are the idiots who just don't watch news, except for the crap that is on the E! channel, and have no clue about what is going on in the world.
These were probably the people who seem to remain ignorant when such questions are asked.

[JABBS]

11. they asked 1,891 u.s. adults

they use statistical sampling to get the right demographics on male/female, races, religions, regions of the country.

they don't test for stupid, though.

on my blog, there is an article from late last year about the difference between fox viewers and NPR viewers, according to a University of Maryland study. The intelligence gap is striking.

[Bru]

12. bin Laden wanted to kill Saddam!

It is just utterly and completely preposterous to believe that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were linked. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam. He wanted to invade Iraq with an army of jihadists during the first Gulf War. He thought Saddam was an infidel. If there was any connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, it was that they wanted each other dead.

But details be damned for our stereotype-happy uninformed sector of society which tends to subconsciously classify all Arabs as the same.

[FM Arouet666]

13. I cannot believe this

What, how can your story be true? Note the journalistic integrity imbued within the pinnacles of modern media; Fox News, Rush Limbaugh etc etc. Say it isn't so, how is it that so many Americans are misinformed?

Remember when the credo of journalism included words like integrity, honesty, the truth. Ah, the good old days, naivete?

Oh, wait, you are quite right, the good old days did include journalism on par with what we are experiencing today. Goebbels would be proud.

Reading your post, one must conclude the obvious, a significant portion of the United States is flat out ignorant. Guess you could have concluded that from the last election.

[ngGale]

15. Yep, and....

misinformation seems to be working in my area. The holiday coffee clutches made me want to pull my hair out. Even college degrees at times, makes no difference.
Ignorance is bliss?:evilfrown: