3 ms·

ICE was preceded by the INS. I'm under the vague impression they did the same sort of stuff, but I admit I'm not really familiar with the practical differences

ICE was preceded by the INS. I'm under the vague impression they did the same sort of stuff, but I admit I'm not really familiar with the practical differences between the former INS and ICE. > Alternate Facts and Fake News began in 2002 with the lies of WMDs in Iraq. This stuff definitely isn't new though. Those terms are nothing more than euphemisms for lies and propaganda, and the Second Iraq War definitely isn't the first time America dabbled in those things. For instance consider this incident in the runup to the First Iraq War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony And the Vietnam War started after the so called "Gulf of Tonkin incident", a pair of attacks on the US Navy in the span of two days... except Robert McNamara admitted decades later that the second attack never actually happened. Going back much further than that, the Spanish American War was the result of a strong propaganda campaign waged by America's yellow press; and the USS Maine explosion was almost certainly not enemy action (there were people in the Navy pointing that out from the start.) With respects to the First World War, there is probably something to be said about exactly what the RMS Lusitania was actually carrying...

froasty 6y ago
Oh, certainly. The United States (and every other country with a hawkish foreign policy) uses atrocity propaganda to justify their wars to their citizens. The difference between Nayirah, the Gulf of Tonkin, the RMS Lusitania, et. al and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that American citizens and international observers knew the pretense was fabricated at the time. These same citizens and international observers protested the fabrication, the ensuring invasion, the total capture of the media by the administration, etc. The only people to whom it was an actual surprise that Iraq did not have WMDs were Bush's low-information voting constituents.

froasty 6y ago

Oh, certainly. The United States (and every other country with a hawkish foreign policy) uses atrocity propaganda to justify their wars to their citizens. The difference between Nayirah, the Gulf of Tonkin, the RMS Lusitania, et. al and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that American citizens and international observers knew the pretense was fabricated at the time. These same citizens and international observers protested the fabrication, the ensuring invasion, the total capture of the media by the administration, etc. The only people to whom it was an actual surprise that Iraq did not have WMDs were Bush's low-information voting constituents.