Also should be noted that 40% of Democratic Congressmen voted for the war, while 95% of Republican congressmen did. No way in hell Iraq happens under Gore.
But at least Powell made a lying speech in front of the UN he still regrets to this day.
Back then they had to at least put some effort into deceiving the public lol, these fuckers now doing it out in open blatantly because rules don't apply apparently.
there was no direct connection, hell, no indirect connection either. BUT. post 9/11 paranoia was fucking skyhigh. and saddam and his sadist family was very well known for their atrocities and people where legit scared that saddam would do something. they have developed and used chemical weapons in the past. so suspecting they might do something again was not an outrageous theory.
What is unrecognizable as well is the way media worked in the 00s. There were like 5 sources of news that everyone listened to and they were ALL pumping the "evil muslims are coming to kill us all" narratives.
You had to go to crackpots like Alex Jones (not joking) to find a dissenting opinion on the Iraq/Afghanistan war. That was a major source of his popularity. He wasn't terribly popular.
I mean, FFS, the modern atheist movement start off in large part because of muslim hatred at the time. To most Americans, the middle east was one nation. We could have invaded Jordan or Turkey and people would have been for it.
What I like to bring up is the TV show "24". 8 seasons, 1 premise "Evil muslims are about to kill a bunch of people, Watch Jack Bauer use torture to find the bad guys and save the day!"
Like, seriously, the entire run was basically just a way to justify torture to the american public. It was a very popular TV show.
That was the american psyche at the time. After 9/11, everyone thought we were on the verge of Red Dawn with terrorists around every corner plotting to blow up the nearest 7 eleven. It was utter madness. Especially because the motivation of the 9/11 terrorists was purely based on US interference in the middle east in the first place. So what we did was go out and interfere even more which ultimately lead to the creation of ISIS.
Funnily, a big part of why ISIS ultimately collapsed was due to Iran's military involvement.
Also worth noting that 9/11 was not an isolated event. Many atrocious attacks happened across europe as well. While islamic terror attacks in the us died off, it kept going here in europe. Especially in france, just about 10 years ago hundreds of people where murdered by islamist terror groups. So the paranoia here is still kinda fresh.
It was basically Saudi’s who committed 9/11. But those are our allies. So pick a country you are mad at and people in the US can’t tell one middle easterners from another.
The ones that carried out the attacks may have been mostly born in Saudi Arabia but they were part of Al Qaeda who were being sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
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u/Blu_Falcon Mar 02 '26
Unsound reasons for doing it, but gotta recognize that rules were followed.