March 19, 2018

43% still support the Iraq war

Slate -George W. Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Iraq fifteen years ago today. Bush said the invasion was justified because Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of massive destruction (he wasn’t) and supporting al-Qaida (no). There are still American troops in Iraq—seven died last week, bringing the count of U.S. military fatalities in the country since 2003 to 4,540. The death toll for Iraqis has been much more severe; an estimated 200,000 civilians have died violently there over the same time period. The civil war and chaos that the U.S. invasion created resulted in the rise of ISIS.

All in all, a pretty solid showing by the ol’ USA, eh? Forty-three percent of Americans think so, Pew has found:

HISTORY OF THE IRAQ WAR TOLD ENTIRELY IN OFFICIAL LIES

2 comments:

Matt said...

It clouds clear thinking to refer to this as a "war." It was unequivocally an "invasion." Not the same. Though Vietnam was also an invasion and now we have a generation of old soldiers who are too ignorant to be ashamed of going and what they did there. Years of referring to it as a "war" has bamboozled subsequent generations who can't be bothered to actually study it for themselves. I've gotta end here because there's gossip on MyFace that I've got to go read.
Cf. G. Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

Anonymous said...

Vietnam was an opportunity to test weapons on an expendable population which included hippie boomers. That an operation is called a war maintains the appearance of government involvement. As Eisenhower noted we have a military government. Its function is to experiment with ecocide and human extinction. This calls for the next redefinition of what it means to be human as outlawing killing of any kind much as the abolitionists redefined humans as unownable or Jefferson as being created equal. All people are unkillable.The right to life as a global enforceable right in the UN.