this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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[–] Candelestine 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In the US there was a minority against the war. It was pitched to us for three different reasons: First as a response to 9/11, then as a search for WMDs, then as a regime-change maneuver to liberate the Iraqi people.

Naturally, some saw this shotgun blast of reasonings with suspicion, particularly when it was a petroleum-rich country that his father had been involved in a war with.

However, 9/11 had shocked most Americans out of the banal complacency of the 90's. Just for some context for how we respond emotionally to such shocks, I would direct you to one of our most famous leaders in history, and his famous Date Which Will Live In Infamy speech. Skip to 2:00 and listen for about a minute, and you will come away with exactly how we respond to such things:

https://youtu.be/lK8gYGg0dkE

As a result, the invasion had a broad amount of public support in our country. Someone, somewhere, was gonna get fucked up. We just got pointed at the wrong guy in our heated emotional state.

[–] wet_squid 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

And let‘s not forget that the claim, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, was a lie.

And lets not forget that world leaders and the “free world” were emotionally manipulated by a “nurse”:

The Nayirah testimony was false testimony given before the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990, by a 15-year-old girl who was publicly identified at the time by her first name, Nayirah. The testimony was widely publicized and was cited numerous times by U.S. senators and President George H. W. Bush in their rationale to support Kuwait in the Gulf War.

In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was Al-Ṣabaḥ (Arabic: نيرة الصباح) and that she was the daughter of Saud Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign, which was run by the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti Government. Following this, al-Sabah's testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda.

In her testimony, Nayirah claimed that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, remove the incubators and leave the babies to die. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony)

[–] BackOnMyBS 2 points 1 year ago

And lets not forget that world leaders and the “free world” were emotionally manipulated by a “nurse”

Interesting! This is the first time I hear of her. In your opinion, how much of an effect did her testimony have on the 2003 invasion of Iraq?