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It seems you're misremembering or discounting the American psyche in the immediate shadow of 9/11. While later proven to be false, accusations of WMD, and the

It seems you're misremembering or discounting the American psyche in the immediate shadow of 9/11. While later proven to be false, accusations of WMD, and the insinuation they could be used against the US and/or Europe, were widely believed and likely highly motivating to the average American GI in 2003. I know men and women who enthusiastically signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq who had little prior intention to join the military.

scaramanga 5y ago
In the anti-war movement I can assure you that they were not believed. And with good reason, no evidence was presented. That is why we protested in huge numbers before the war began. If you go back and review press interviews with donald rumsfeld at the time you can see that even he could not provide evidence which convinced the journalists. Regardless, the media did their patriotic dtuy and reported them as fact. Check out the news clip of Rumsfelds "unknown unknowns". A journalist asks: "That is all very interesting but is there any evidence, because that would elevate our bind faith in to something actually reasonable and fact based?" Rumsfeld had nothing to offer.
HWR_14 5y ago
> accusations of WMD, and the insinuation they could be used against the US and/or Europe, were widely believed Were they widely believed? I know I was told they were widely believed, but I never saw polls that confirmed that. Colin Powell was literally laughed at for claiming there were WMDs when addressing the UN and the UN inspectors were very clear there were none.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> While later proven to be false They were largely debunked in realtime. The western media (I believe the Guardian specifically) published the receipts on the artillery balloon filling vehicles that Britain sold Iraq that the US/UK were trying to pass of as vehicles of mysterious origin that had to be mobile WMD labs before Powell’s presentation to the UNSC. At which meeting, other US allegations were debunked by UN inspectors. Heck, the British government memos about the way intelligence was being shaped to sell the war were leaked before the war the started. The American/British public went along with the war because of racist hysteria whipped up after 9/11, not any evidence that was uncontroversial at the time but later debunked. It's often sold as intelligence or media failure or clever executive deception that brought the public and lawmakers along and was later seen through, but that's largely B.S. The lies were documented in fairly stark terms before the war for the public and lawmakers, and they chose to go to war anyway because they didn't care about the facts. But narrowly focusing the blame on the media and the Bush Administration/Blair government lets everyone else absolve themselves.
- chitowneats 5y ago
  I wasn't attempting to relitigate the events of the 2000's. I didn't support the war at the time. It's important to understand the simple fact that a majority of Americans at the time believed the war was just[1], and that the government spent many months justifying and readying the nation and its soldiers for war. This is an important factor that helps explain the high morale of American troops at the start of the war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20Gallup%20poll,35%20percent%20and%2043%20percent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S....
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    > a majority of Americans at the time believed the war was just At least not a majority of elected Democrats.

scaramanga 5y ago

In the anti-war movement I can assure you that they were not believed. And with good reason, no evidence was presented. That is why we protested in huge numbers before the war began. If you go back and review press interviews with donald rumsfeld at the time you can see that even he could not provide evidence which convinced the journalists. Regardless, the media did their patriotic dtuy and reported them as fact. Check out the news clip of Rumsfelds "unknown unknowns". A journalist asks: "That is all very interesting but is there any evidence, because that would elevate our bind faith in to something actually reasonable and fact based?" Rumsfeld had nothing to offer.

HWR_14 5y ago

> accusations of WMD, and the insinuation they could be used against the US and/or Europe, were widely believed Were they widely believed? I know I was told they were widely believed, but I never saw polls that confirmed that. Colin Powell was literally laughed at for claiming there were WMDs when addressing the UN and the UN inspectors were very clear there were none.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> While later proven to be false They were largely debunked in realtime. The western media (I believe the Guardian specifically) published the receipts on the artillery balloon filling vehicles that Britain sold Iraq that the US/UK were trying to pass of as vehicles of mysterious origin that had to be mobile WMD labs before Powell’s presentation to the UNSC. At which meeting, other US allegations were debunked by UN inspectors. Heck, the British government memos about the way intelligence was being shaped to sell the war were leaked before the war the started. The American/British public went along with the war because of racist hysteria whipped up after 9/11, not any evidence that was uncontroversial at the time but later debunked. It's often sold as intelligence or media failure or clever executive deception that brought the public and lawmakers along and was later seen through, but that's largely B.S. The lies were documented in fairly stark terms before the war for the public and lawmakers, and they chose to go to war anyway because they didn't care about the facts. But narrowly focusing the blame on the media and the Bush Administration/Blair government lets everyone else absolve themselves.

chitowneats 5y ago
I wasn't attempting to relitigate the events of the 2000's. I didn't support the war at the time. It's important to understand the simple fact that a majority of Americans at the time believed the war was just[1], and that the government spent many months justifying and readying the nation and its soldiers for war. This is an important factor that helps explain the high morale of American troops at the start of the war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20Gallup%20poll,35%20percent%20and%2043%20percent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S....
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  > a majority of Americans at the time believed the war was just At least not a majority of elected Democrats.