"We were tricked into supporting this war."

[Stravo]

I'm watching Farenheit 9/11 right now and one of the extras is about the release of the movie. At one point a woman says: "This movie gives us permission to discuss the fact that many of us were tricked into supporting this war."

I had to think to myself, as a former gung ho supporter of the war. Was I tricked? Or did I allow myself to be tricked? Did I WANT to believe the administration because they were pandering to my fears? Did many Americans support this war because they honestly believed what the president was saying because he was the president? Because a president would never take us to war for personal or trumped up reasons? How could we be this wrong?

Do I think the administration actively sold this war in one way to get a desired result for other reasons. I don't think there's any doubt of that at this point. But was I fooled because they were masterful at the war drum campaign or did I allow myself to be fooled for believing that a president would not lie and that fear was the real reason. Fear like the one I felt when I actually woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that my family and I were trapped in the city minutes before a terrorist nuclear weapon was about to detonate. The sense of utter hopelessness drove me to wake up with a start. Did they play upon those fears and did I allow those fears to drive me into support of a ghastly mistake?

I do not honestly know the answer. But I cannot state as this woman did unequivocally that I was tricked or duped. I think we all turned a blind eye to the inherent flaws of the argument and we collectively allowed ourselves on some level to be duped.

[Darth Wong]

I do not honestly know the answer. But I cannot state as this woman did unequivocally that I was tricked or duped. I think we all turned a blind eye to the inherent flaws of the argument and we collectively allowed ourselves on some level to be duped.

You were duped, because information was witheld from the American public. One cannot say with a straight face that the Bush Administration was being honest when they claimed the WMD case was a fait accompli even though their own intel and energy departments were still bickering about it.

However, you were also complicit in your own deception. Surely it cannot be coincidence that, when presented with the exact same facts and arguments, non-Americans were far less accepting of the Administration's claims than Americans. And simply dismissing all of that as "anti-Americanism" is a tired rhetorical trick that explains nothing.

In fact, the "anti-American" trick is what I believe sold people on the idea: doubts or skepticism were consistently portrayed as "anti-American", so Americans felt a self-conscious desire to prove their loyalty by fighting to defend the claims of their government against the attacks of outsiders. That whole "circle the wagons" mentality.

[Vympel]

I can't believe it was pretty much exactly 2 years ago when I actually attacked this issue with a gusto on the forum, since I knew (and by "knew" I don't mean fact but sheer preponderance of evidence) that the fuckers were lying, either to themselves, the public, or both. However, I always maintained that even if their claims were 100% factual regarding WMD, I was never convinced by the unsubstantiated-by-any-form-of-evidence-or-reasoning claim that they would given them to terrorists regardless.

However, you were also complicit in your own deception. Surely it cannot be coincidence that, when presented with the exact same facts and arguments, non-Americans were far less accepting of the Administration's claims than Americans. And simply dismissing all of that as "anti-Americanism" is a tired rhetorical trick that explains nothing.

There were also a lot of facts that the American press just didn't deign to relay- a lot of the things that I discovered from sources on the net either never appeared in mainstream US media, or did only after it was too late.

[Stuart Mackey]

Think this just a oncer, eh? Nothing unusual in this at all. 95% of people are followers and the rest lead to one degree or another. I often wonder how so many people can sayy 'baaa' and not know it.

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.......


Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us – the people – got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par – and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.

But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

[Ender]

I wasn't duped. I supported the war not on the grounds of WMD or anything, of that I didn't care. I supported it because I figured knocking off a genocidal dictator was the right thing to do. Now since then the people have actually been worse off due to the collosal mismanagement of this thing by Bush & Co., so I have changed my stance.

[weemadando]

Can I say: "Concession Accepted..." yet?

*flees from irate patriotic crowd*

Maybe not quite yet, but it is coming. Oh yes, it is coming.

[Stuart Mackey]

Can I say: "Concession Accepted..." yet?

*flees from irate patriotic crowd*

Maybe not quite yet, but it is coming. Oh yes, it is coming.

Yah know, you sound just slightly mad there

[frigidmagi]

I'm with Ender. I was more than willing to fight. I won't say I was happy or bouncing with glee, because frankly I'm not that nuts yet. Most of my unit was with me. While the military believed enough in WMDs to hold daily drills against gas and biologic attacks (gunny even told to us ensure our gear was arranged well, the causality replacements might need it.)

It wasn't about WMDs with us, it was about estblishing a free nation, where once only dictatiorship and brutality existed before. We have not done that. The occuipation has been mismanaged and bungled almost from day 1.

The worst of it is that Afghanistan is slipping to and that Bush does not seem to give a damn.

[Lord Poe]

I fully supported the war. No remorse at all. What I didn't support was the fact that there was no follow-up plan whatsoever once Saddam was toppled.

[Stuart Mackey]

I'm with Ender. I was more than willing to fight. I won't say I was happy or bouncing with glee, because frankly I'm not that nuts yet. Most of my unit was with me. While the military believed enough in WMDs to hold daily drills against gas and biologic attacks (gunny even told to us ensure our gear was arranged well, the causality replacements might need it.)

It wasn't about WMDs with us, it was about estblishing a free nation, where once only dictatiorship and brutality existed before. We have not done that. The occuipation has been mismanaged and bungled almost from day 1.

The worst of it is that Afghanistan is slipping to and that Bush does not seem to give a damn.

The problem is that while there is nothing wrong with getting rid of a dictatorship, there is an issue with the reasons for the war being an out right lie.
This brings the question of why go to war? I think its corporate welfare and greed writ large, after all who benifits from this war?

Iraq? possibly but at a huge cost in lives.

Not the American taxpayer, they pay through the nose one way or another

US Corporates{and others}? certainly they get to rebuild the nation of Iraq at the expence of the US taxpayer.

[Frank Hipper]

In the lead up to the war, I didn't hear ANYTHING that I didn't know already:

Saddam is bad. Check.
Saddam has used WMD in the past, and likes them. Check.
Saddam would like more. Check.

I didn't fall for Powell's UN performance, because to me it looked like shit and smelled like it too; fear mongering gets my hackles up.

Bush's speech in Cincinnati in October of 2002 was the final straw for me giving the administration any benefit of the doubt, it was pure, unadulterated rhetoric, and I was expecting him finally come out and make his real case. I was terrified to see that he'd been making his real case all along.

[Frank Hipper]

Double post ahoy!

[Crown]

I don't mean to be an asshole, but if you could not see through the Administrations bullshit while posting on this board, and listening to all of us 'little people' (non-Americans) poke holes in their arguements 2 years ago, then you really have no one else left to blame but yourself. Sorry.

[Durandal]

I never supported the war in Iraq because I never saw Iraq as part of the War on Terror. Though I maintained the stance that I wouldn't be surprised if we found weapons of mass destruction once we took the place over. The way Bush made it sound though, we should've been tripping over sarin gas canisters when we took the place over.

I also vividly remember asking, on this board, about the plan of reconstruction (timetables, numbers, costs) and during the occupation and not getting a single, decent response. When I asked who would pay for all this nation-building, all the smug pro-war conservatives rambled on about how Iraq would finance its own reconstruction.

So yes, Stravo, it is partially your fault. When Bush came out and said that our troops would be greeted as liberators, that was Bush-speak for "We don't have a post-war plan because everyone will love us." When Bush tried to link Saddam to al Qaeda, you should've asked yourself, "Why would al Qaeda want to do business with a secular dictator?" It's like any ulterior motive Bush might've had for attacking Iraq went completely out the window in 2003. You knew that Bush's family had it out for Saddam Hussein, you knew that Bush was buddy-buddy with the oil industry, you knew that Iraq was sitting on a lot of oil and you still took what the administration said at face value. Why should it come as surprising that they lied to trump up the case for war? Bush wanted Iraq's oil. He's always wanted Iraq's oil, even before 9/11.

This isn't a case of "hindsight is 20/20." That's yet another bullshit excuse that the Bush administration has drummed up (in addition to "nothing's perfect"). These are all facts that were known at the time, and these were conclusions that plenty of other people, including me, reached at the time.

[Enforcer Talen]

I supported the war.

its the peace thats pissing me off.

[Captain Cyran]

My opinion on this is exactly like Ender's. I didn't fall for the WMD's trick, but I supported the war because it involved kicking a dictator out. I really wished we had support from the rest of the world first, but oh well.

[Robert Walper]

In the lead up to the war, I didn't hear ANYTHING that I didn't know already:

Saddam is bad. Check.
Saddam has used WMD in the past, and likes them. Check.
Saddam would like more. Check.

I think it's prudent to add: Saddam abused the Iraqi people horribly. Check.

I will never believe that the intent of bringing freedom to the oppressed is a bad goal or should not be worthy of some sacrifice (slavery comes to mind). Whether that was truely the goal of the Bush admistration or that they have seriously fucked up this operation is another matter though...

[Xenophobe3691]

Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.…voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

I believe this quote symbolizes all I feel about the whole Iraq War scare.

[Xenophobe3691]

Shit, can someone fix the quote tags please? Thank you.

Tags fixed ~ Stravo

[Stuart Mackey]

My opinion on this is exactly like Ender's. I didn't fall for the WMD's trick, but I supported the war because it involved kicking a dictator out. I really wished we had support from the rest of the world first, but oh well.

I think you will find that the rest of the world does not have a problem seeing the back of a dictator, what the world objected to was America starting a war not to see the end of a dictator but to subsidise coporates and alow the Bush's to get even for 91. And what was worse, having a decent cover story a blind man could see through

[ArmorPierce]

I can proudly say that I wasn't duped by Bush, I never believed there was WMDs (well at least that he had strong evidence for it). The people that pissed me off were the people telling people to have blind faith in the president, he knows things that he hasn't told us yet due to security reasons or some shit.

[Saurencaerthai]

Personally, I supported military action to get a war criminal, be it US or UN. As time progressed, however, I saw more and more of the holes in the US plan, including an utter lack of contingency plans. My support steadily took a dive from there. I suppose you could say we had similar goals, but as Bush's steadily went from bad to worse, I quickly distanced myself from it.

One of the bigger reasons I was vocal in support (as was Enforcer Talen) was due to the fact that the anti-war faction in our school was being supported to the point where they practically were getting special treatment. Essentially, there was a huge anti-war bandwagon and no challenge to them to actually debate solidly, resulting in alot of "yes men."

[Sokartawi]

Saddam is bad. Check.
Saddam has used WMD in the past, and likes them. Check.
Saddam would like more. Check.

The United States is bad. Check.
The United States has used WMD in the past, and likes them. Check.
The United States would like more, and is producing more. Check.

[Stormbringer]

I fully supported the war. No remorse at all. What I didn't support was the fact that there was no follow-up plan whatsoever once Saddam was toppled.

I agree with you. I supported the war and I'm not ashamed to say that. Right now I do feel remorse that Bush and Co fucked up and made things worse for the Iraqi people.

[Stormbringer]

The United States has used WMD in the past, and likes them. Check.

And never mind that despite the glibness of both sides the uses were far different. The US used them to bring an end to a just war and in doing so saved hundred of thousands, if not millions, of lives. Saddam Hussien used them on people for no better reason than they opposed him.