Now that war has started, I feel I have to blog about it somehow. I'm not sure what there is to say. It seems like the Bush administration was going to go to war no matter what. No matter that Iraq has no connection to 9-11, or that Hans Blix says that Iraq was showing real cooperation, or that the evidence showing they were after nuclear weapons has fallen apart, or that the UN rejected this war. So what is there to say? What's the fucking point anyway, this invasion of Iraq could not have been stopped.
I remember reading Lies My Teacher Told Me. Towards the back, it had some interesting statistics about how people will tend to believe that the government is doing the right thing. For example, if the government has not said anything about Issue A, polls might show popular support at 50%. Then if the government supports Issue A, the popular support would skyrocket. Illogical, right? But obviously the same thing is happening with regards to the Iraq war. How many Americans supported invading Iraq 2 years ago? Now, it seems that 75% of Americans support this war. Would 75% have supported it two years ago? I sincerely doubt it. But those who didn't support it two years ago, and now support it , I wonder what the difference has been. It could be Bush's fear-mongering. It could be Bush's circular logic regarding inspections (We know they have WMD's, so if we don't find any that means we have proved they have hidden their WMD's). It could be public confusion between supporting the war and supporting the troops. I don't know what it is, but it certainly doesn't mean that the invasion is justified.
Posted by ahyatt at March 20, 2003 09:27 AM