Tell us honestly

[Casandra]

When the pre-war hype was being rammed down our throats (mushroom clouds, WMDs, attacking us at home etc..etc), will anyone here talk about how they received this propoganda. I know I never believed ANY part of it, for one moment, and I had major battles within my family when I stood up for what I considered to be B.S. All I had to do was to look at *'s eyes, shifty, empty and 'lying'..it was all B.S.

I found the whole 'scam' so transparent, that my shock involved the American public being so gullible that it was almost beyond belief!! I went on message boards anywhere I could find to post, and got flamed over and over again. I wrote Congressmen, Senators.. I was 'out there' trying to get someone to listen; this was all a scam! Cancelled outings with family, friends...too much arguing. Talk about feeling like an 'island'....

Anyone else have any similar experiences?

[whatever4]

1. Very similar, though my family agreed. All nuts, all the time, the war nm

[soleft]

2. I believed Scott Ritter and Blix

[lumpy]

39. Ritter, Blix and various articles

convinced me the war talk was propaganda and Colin Powell's ridiculous presentment before the UN was the cincher.

[eridani]

64. Ritter and Blix were my sources as well

Most of the people I hang out with voluntarily shared my opinion that all of the WMD bullshit was indeed bullshit.

[Avalux]

3. I never believed any of it.

So many people thought I was nutty; I couldn't understand why they didn't see through the bullshit.

I always knew those of us who never bought into it would be proven right. The truth always comes out in the end.

[SteppingRazor]

4. Sure., Very similar...

I remember picking my jaw up off the floor after Colin Powell's asinine speech in front of the UN was greeted by the media with deep gravitas as they congratulated the administration on such an airtight case. I still can't believe so many people could so readily buy such obvious crap.

[LibertyLover]

17. It was seeing Colin's speech

at the UN that made me realize once and for all what a lying bunch of SOBs Bush, et al were. While I was too young to understand John Kennedy's presentation to that same body with respect to the Cuban Missile Crisis, I have since then seen what he had presented to the delegates and we had them pretty much dead to rights. What Colin showed was an embarrassment - 'here is an artist's conception of what a WMD stockpile might look like in Iraq', 'here is a bridge that we believe may have been used to transport WMDs'. I believed Blix and Ritter when they said Iraq had to WMDs and I could not understand how people were persuaded by Colin's piss-poor presentation. Never underestimate the ability of people to be deluded.

[Walt Starr]

5. DU Knew for a fact it was piffle. Will Pitt wrote a book about how it was

piffle.

[TahitiNut]

28. Yep. Many of us even marched in 2002 to stop the invasion based on lies.

The vast majority of DUers knew it ... even though some were led along by their blind partisan noses by Vichy Democrats.

[MadHound]

6. Yeah, I thought it was so much horseshit from the beginning

And judging from the messages going to Congress, most people did too.

But I was expecting something along these lines, after all, it is a Bush going into office. War, and a bad economy always follow.

[Dr Fate]

7. Unlike the DEMs who voted for the war, I have "Google" on my computer.

And a spare 1/2 hour per day.

[amitten]

8. I saw through it, too.

I believed not a word of the pre-war hype. It was the most obvious load of B.S. from Washington I'd seen to date. It was clear even then that Bush was trying very desperately to make something out of nothing, just to get the war ($$$) he and his friends wanted. I was amazed by how easily Iraq replaced Afghanistan as far as terror-fighting priority. It made no sense whatever.

My family and friends, luckily, were of the same mindset. All of us saw through the lies (wasn't too hard, you know).

[0rganism]

9. Yes.

I had some great exchanges with rightwingers on another message board about the justifications for invasion. I was told all about how I was "unqualified" to hold my opinion, how I should just blindly believe the authoritarians because they had all this "intelligence" I didn't. In retrospect it was pretty fucking hilarious, cos they were wrong about EVERYTHING!

I would LOL, if it didn't cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

[babylonsister]

10. I didn't vote for *, but the appearance by Powell at the UN

tempered my disbelief, sadly. When I found out he was just as full of shit as the rest of them, all bets were off. But initially I couldn't believe our gov't would lie to us . Needless to say, I've learned alot.

[libertynliberalism]

11. I had mixed feelings

On one hand, I knew Bush was going to attack Iraq no matter what. On the other hand, I wasn't too sure about Iraqi govt statements either. It was a case of doubting both of these entities.


But I think around March 2003, Iraq invasion had like 70-80% approval in the country.

[newyawker99]

51. Hi libertynliberalism!!

Welcome to DU!!

[meganmonkey]

12. I was in the streets marching in DC in October of 2002

6 months before the war started. And again in Jan of 03.

I didn't believe any of it. And where I worked...oh man, those people thought I was the devil for protesting. I am so glad I don't work there anymore!

[TahitiNut]

31. Yep. Lots of us were marching.

[stop the bleeding]

13. All of it pure BS, thought I was missing something, but NO pure BS

from the start.

[Jane Austin]

14. I was suspicious of the constant drumbeat that started that summer and

fall.

I was like "Whaaaa . . .? Where's all this stuff about Iraq coming from all of a sudden?"


Mr. JaneAustin and I spoke of the manufactured alarm often and with sinking hearts.

[amitten]

15. And I'm still reeling from the mass stupidity.

I practically lose my breath thinking about the genuine, seemingly unchanging gullibility of the American public. No matter how many times, NO MATTER HOW MANY, the government lies to them, they continue to believe. Even when the lies are blatantly exposed. If the President or his cronies say it, then by God it must be gospel. Unreal. And so, so disheartening.

[longship]

16. It was obvious to the casual observer.

However, that presumes that you had access to all the information. Not everybody heard Ritter, Blix, O'Neil, Clarke, and others who were telling the truth behind the spin.

My wife listens to KFI-640 which has a string of RWers. She is a liberal, but she listens to that lawyer guy in the morning. She *loves* Dr. Laura for her "good advice to people". Oi vay.

She's more or less with me on Iraq--get out now. But she basically gets no information from the media to reinforce the articles I cycle to her.

And this is a very educated woman.

[bloom]

18. I didn't believe any of it either.

Not for a minute.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. You really want to know?

I'm not proud of it, but you asked for honesty. I didn't care. I was pissed. I took 911 very personally as it decimated my hometown area. I figured the goal was to kick some butt asap and that Saddam was the weakest (we knew we could do it; we did it before.) one out there. I believed that the radical Islamic culture respected military strength more than diplomacy.

Not pretty, I know. I have had anger issues now and then and this was one of those times.

Please don't beat me up...Like I said, I'm not proud. I would like to be "better than that" but I'm not.

[meganmonkey]

23. Hey, you're honest, and you are willing to change your mind

in the face of facts. No one can ask for more. And now you are contributing wonderful things to the anti-war discourse here.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

27. Thank you very much

for the kind words. I guess emotions like mine keep war alive. Sadly.

[Arkansas Granny]

41. What keeps war alive are the persons who are willing to play

on people's emotions for their own gain. Their timing was good, because a lot of emotions were running high and we already knew that Saddam was a brutal person.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

50. You are right

I was not frothing for war, but I understood it. If cooler heads had prevailed I certainly would not have taken to the streets demanding it. Yes, I feel to a certain extent my anger was used.

[WilliamPitt]

42. The fact

that you allowed facts and hard data to get through your anger over 9/11 shows that you are a person of character. It also, for me, provides hope that there are more like you. I believe there are, and the poll numbers bear me out.

Cheers.

[eridani]

65. Honesty much appreciated

However, did you actually think of Saddam's regime as radical Islamic at the time? Or was that something you found out later.

[sandnsea]

68. There were plenty at DU like that

I came here just after the war started. I was trying to get people on board for a fight to get a Congressional Investigation into the intelligence. It's really stunning, the number of people I fought with who were in a panic, "what if they find WMD". As much as I fight with people now "who knew", there were just as many then who thought they'd find WMD. Who didn't "know" at all. Plus another group who supported the invasion completely. So don't feel bad.

I think now as I did then. I thought they'd find WMD, but I also didn't think there was any evidence to justify an invasion and that the Administration had exagerrated and manipulated the evidence and the threat. There was never an iota of evidence to suggest an "imminent threat" or any kind of threat, it was always a war of choice. Bush lied about the threat, he lied to Congress, he lied in the SOTU, he lied to the UN, to the world, to the American people. It always should have been about those lies, not any stupid vote. The dumbest thing the left has ever done is to make this war about that damned vote and not Bush's lies.

[jwirr]

20. I have not trusted the bush addy from before 9/11.

I also was getting my news more from the internet than tv. Thus I was not as strongly effected as I could have been. I do remember being at my daughter's home on the first day of their war. I made them very mad when I said it was just another exercise in boosting a war economy. I did not realize at that time that I was so right and they soon began to see that I was thinking clearly. Today they are right beside me in this.

[Terran]

21. They never made a case for invasion, lying or not.

Even if Saddam did have tons of biochemical weapons, they never made any compelling case to show that he could deliver those weapons anywhere in North America. Thus, Iraq was never shown to be a real threat to the US, so there was never enough justification made to invade Iraq, period. That's where I stood at the time. And of course, I have never believed *anything* this administation has said publicly, so naturally I didn't believe anything the claimed about Iraq either; that was just common sense.

[LaurenG]

22. Almost exactly except

I knew in 2000 that he was a creep and felt only disdain for his egotistic f-ing banter. To this day I cannot listen to him talk. I have to hear it through someone else. I forced myself to watch the debates but other than that I WILL ALWAYS change the channel.

The good news is my mom now feels the same and she is a republican who voted for him twice.

[Imalittleteapot]

24. I didn't take any of it seriously.

First, I knew Bush to be a liar.

Second, I believed Scott Ritter.

Third, I did a little google research.

Fourth, I read DU posts.

And fifth, Powell's computer generated graphics cinched it for me. As a graphic designer I know that you can create any convincing material in Illustrator and Photoshop. I questioned why they had to do it in the first place.

I'm really in the mood to spread my I TOLD YOU SOs far and wide, but I'll wait for DeLay's, Frist's and the WH's Plame fate.

[Stephanie]

25. And I bet you were out marching on February 17: The World Says No to War

You and me and a million others in NYC and millions more around the world. Fuck these lying liars. We KNEW it was lies. We knew THEY knew it was lies.

[deadparrot]

26. Never for a second believed it.

I've been wrong about a lot of things in life, but this wasn't one of them. I was a sophomore in high school at the time of the invasion, and I just remember saying "It wasn't Iraq that attacked us." But to most of my freepy classmates, the countries of the Middle East are interchangable.

And, of course, if you don't support the war, then you also hate soldiers, love Saddam, etc.

[Greyhound]

29. I have been in absolute shock since the repug primary in SC in 1999

I could not, and still can't quite, believe that anybody with an IQ above body temperature could vote for that incompetent boob. His whole history is failure. He has never succeeded in anything he has ever done and he gets to be prez?
When they first started bleating about going into Iraq my confusion was doubled, "how can they expect anybody to believe this shit?", but they did.
I, like you, have lost the last shred of respect I had for the sheeple of amerika. They are literally too dumb too live. My only hope now is that it will hold together long enough for me to get my loved ones out.

[Neil Lisst]

30. I thought he probably had chemical weapons, but not ...

... but not nuke-cue-lar or biological, and therefore no justification for any invasion.

I figure we GAVE him chemical weapons in the 1980s, and by WE I mean Reagan and Bush I.


---------------------------------------------
want to know who is behind the terror threats?
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst

[WilliamPitt]

32. Pretty similar

Written July/August 2002.

[VelmaD]

45. So...

you wrote this book.

[SmokingJacket]

33. I was out of the loop in those days, on a kind of sabbatical...

and not plugged into the news. When I got back home and found out that suddenly everyone was all rah-rah for the war, I couldn't believe it. I just didn't believe that we would actually invade Iraq, since I had missed all that fake posturing garbage.

I do remember telling my mother two things: 1)there would be no WMD, or not much anyway, and 2) it would be a bloodbath. She laughed at me.

But no one is laughing now. Wish I was.

[damntexdem]

34. I rejected it.

I knew that Saddam and Osama could never be on the same page. I knew that Saddam had had chemical weapons, so given to him by the U.S., I had heard the evidence that they had been destroyed. So, I thought that he might have a few but not an entire arsenal (and I remember the questions being raised at the time here on DU about what if it turns out that Saddam DOES have a lot of WMDs -- I argued against that on here). I was active in a local peace group, and we were actively demonstrating against the coming war (not easy in a conservative midwest city at the time). And I didn't trust ANYTHING coming out of the Bushista Administration -- also true of most of the other posters here on DU.

Someone could search back through the DU archives and find some representative exchanges on the coming invasion -- that would answer much of your question.

[sendero]

35. I felt..

... exactly the same.

To believe that crap you'd have to believe the weapons inspectors who'd spent years poking around were incompent beyond belief.

I never bought any of it and frankly I don't think that many Americans really did. Everyone was still pissed about 9-11 and just wanted to take revenge, anywhere.

Well, when you take your revenge against an innocent party, you build up some bad karma.

[mattclearing]

36. It was obviously wrong.

I was shocked that people who lived through the Clinton Administration could buy it for a second. Iraq had been reduced to nothing through sanctions. It was laughable.

[Arkansas Granny]

37. Months before the invasion, I knew that there was nothing that

Saddam Hussein could do to prevent Bush from declaring war. Bush wanted this war from the beginning and was willing to do whatever it would take to get American troops into Iraq.

My theory was that as his ratings were beginning to slump after 9/11, he decided that the WOT had been very good for him, so why not extend it into Iraq. And it worked, at first anyway, and his ratings went back up.

Of course, he had to rush into it, because contrary to popular opinion, Saddam had let the U.N. weapons inspectors come back to look around and they weren't finding anything. Since the WMD angle was the main reason he said we had to invade, he couldn't have anyone messing around and proving that there weren't any stockpiles, so we had to invade quickly.

On top of all that, he had to show Poppy that he was a real man who wasn't afraid to go into Iraq. And the icing on the cake was the oil. What a deal.

[mokawanis]

44. Their determination was equal to the depth of their lies

It all looked very transparent to me too. I never believed what the bushites were saying, and felt that, even if their info was true, there was still time to let inspections and diplomacy work. I went to NYC with my kids for the International day of protest in February 03 and remember thinking "this is great, but we're screwed because shrub wants a war and he's gonna get it, one way or another."

[Armstead]

38. I believed it might be true -- But I also believed they were lying

My honest reaction was that Sadaam probably had a warehouse of nasty stuff stashed away, and was working on getting more. He was a bastard, and a rich one...I frankly worried that people like Dennis Kucinich who stated so unequivocally that there WERE NO weapons would be embarassed after we went in there.

However, I simultaneously believed that all of the warnings and reasons we were being given were falsehoods, and that people were being told untruths to manipulate us.

Those two beliefs are not contradictory. I figured there was a good chance something was there, but that no one really knew, so any claims to certainty were lies.

I also believed that short of posing a direct threat, invading Iraq was not the way to deal with it.

[Emit]

40. Me too.

In fact, what I sensed was some weird, frantic, psycho mania, especially on Bush's* part.

I have a background in psychology, and have worked with a number of dual-diagnosis addicts (addicts with mental health problems) and bipolar personalities (as well as other personality disorders and severe mental illnesses). There was definitely a strange manic feeling emanating from Bush & Co., and it was spurred along by the loud, incessant drum beat of war from all the cable MSM channels.

I never believed any of it. I could tell they were all lying back then; stretching and fabricating and trying too hard to be convincing with their fear-mongering and perpetuating prejudices. It was too easy for me to see. And I had run-ins with a few people about it, but most of the people around me saw it, too.

[Fleshdancer]

43. you and I were in the same boat

The only other person I knew who thought it was all BS was my husband. As for everyone else I knew, they either believed it 100% or had mixed feelings.

My big gullible moment was actually believing that Powell would have the backbone and the ethics to put an end to the nonsense. His sham at the UN felt like a massive kick in the gut...I honestly didn't think he would lie. Not when it comes to starting war.

This was why I actively searched for a liberal forum and that's how I found DU. Shortly after, I started researching the Democrats who had already announced their candidacy and this was one of the reasons why I fell in political love with Howard Dean and his grassroots movement. Times were dark leading up to the Iraqi war and once a month I could go to my local Dean For America meet-up and not feel so alone.

[La Coliniere]

46. Been there, done that

I'll never forget the day I accused all members of congress who voted to give the chimp the power to start this effing war of being criminals according to the law of the land, our constitution. I was called a lunatic, nuts, a traitor by some. Yes I read Ritter, Blix et.al. It was a difficult time for me. Recently, one of those who shunned me gave me a great big fern plant for my office. Out of the clear blue sky. Geee, I wonder why?

[TNOE]

47. I never believed them for a second

it was obvious after 9/11 that they were on a major power trip and in a "take all" mode and dared anyone to go against them. But I credit alot of my knowledge about the situation to DU, but I think even without actual "knowledge", I wasn't going to buy what they were selling.

[lumpy]

48. We are overrun by a nation of sheep

and the US Congress is filled with political sheep who have nothing else on their minds except the next election and the electable image. Congress has to share a huge part of the blame for allowing the Iraq farce to take place. The fact that a lowlife ignoramous such as GWB was elected twice to head this country tells it like it is. I have more respect for the naked natives in the depths of the Amazon jungles. We are a nation of boobs, butts and bling'.

[atommom]

49. Same here. It was such an obvious pack of lies, and so frustrating

to see the public falling for it.

[merbex]

52. I screamed at my husband in front of my 11 year old nephew

that there were no WMD that we had been watching SH like a hawk

My husband and I were screaming at each other then my husband left the room. My nephew said "do you do that all the time?'

"No, only about this insane war"

Since then I've heard both my husband tell me I was right and he was wrong AND my nephew thinks I'm a flipping genuis

It's great

[chaska]

53. same here. I knew it was all lies because I had read CIA accounts that..

contradicted white house lies.

In addition to the usual stuff, I went to Washington twice for protests of well over 100,000 that didn't make the news.

[Individualist]

54. Honestly, I didn't believe a word of the propoganda

I spoke out against it to anyone who would listen.

[stlsaxman]

55. I try to avail myself to all the facts...

so I never bought their story for a SECOND.

[ellisonz]

56. I knew it was coming after 9/11...

I just sat down with the ole maps and figured out the geopolitics that would follow. I've been pretty much dead on in regards to terror, oil and invasions/interventions. What confirmned for me beyond doubt that the Iraq WMD argument was crap was Anthony Zinni coming out against it.

[mrcheerful]

57. I knew it was coming from election night 2000

Doesn't anyone remember the gulf war and pat robertson ( I refuse to cap his name )telling americans that Saddam was sending scud missiles over to america? Am I the only one that remembers how americans were so scared of the evil Saddam and his scuds after daddy Bush told america that we had to protect the freedom loving Kuwaiti's? you know, the oil rich country that voted against every UN resolution that america supported? Yeah right, It was just more Reagan and Bush bull shit.

[stevietheman]

58. Gloating is fun, yes, but many of us who now oppose Bush were bamboozled.

I'm one of them. You can shit on me (and others in this position) all you like, but it will serve our interests much better to embrace everyone who has awaken, even if they are just beginning to awaken today.

I'm calling on DUers to be, well, adults.

[eridani]

66. If only our elected representative would follow your example

Gephart did, but there are too many others who need to.

[eridani]

67. What really pissed me off back then--

--was all those jackasses who became newly converted Saddam-haters, slobbering on demand when the neocons rang the bell. And all of us who saw through the bullshit were instantly Saddam lovers.

That must have been why I wrote to all my congresscritters in the 80s demanding that military aid and loan credits to Iraq be blocked on humanitarian grounds. It worked, too. Congress passed resolutions and laws blocking this aid, but Reagan and Bush the First vetoed them. I am still filled with utter rage at being called "Saddam lover" by stupid pig-ignorant sociopathic testosterone-poisoned couch potatoes who couldn't be bothered at the time to put down their remotes long enough to do the same.

Some of the name callers, it's true, were working out the finer points of not peeing in their pants during the 80s. Not being old enough for citizenship responsibilities is a valid partial excuse.

[leftofthedial]

59. I never believed on e syllable of it

it was all lies

[Cults4Bush]

60. Not similar at all... Exactly, like what you described.

Im waiting to see if these indictments happen and then I plan on tip toeing around the family via phone to see if there has been a shift.

[cynatnite]

61. My uncle tried 'The Just War Theory' to convince me...

I could either believe what bush and regime were saying or the UN inspectors who actually were in Iraq. Since I never trusted bush and regime it was easier to believe Blix.

When Colin Powell did his thing at the UN I wondered if it could be true. He was always credible in my eyes before that, but then my doubts came back when they wouldn't allow the inspectors to finish the job.

When confronted with my uncle's use of Aquinas' Just War Theory, I had doubts again. I knew little of this theory, but when I looked it up, it was something that could be manipulated to fit many arguments at the time.

My gut told me they were wrong and this was one of the few times it was actually right.

[Straight Shooter]

62. I was recuperating from surgery when I first heard the drumbeats of war

Normally I don't listen to the radio in the morning when I awaken, but there I was, listening to NPR and they spoke about action against Iraq. I can remember my words exactly: "What the fuck has Iraq done?"

Then in the days and weeks that followed, I watched with horrifying awareness that Americans were actually swallowing this sh*t that was being shoveled on them by the most lying, conniving group of people ever to overtake our government.

To this day, I still wonder what in hell is wrong with those people who believed bush and the neocons.

[Hamlette]

63. I thought it bunk from the beginning and I still get a pain in my gut

when I think about how it happened. I remember going to my mom's house right before we invaded, when I knew it would happen, we almost cried. All we could say is: "I don't believe for one second he's right but I hope he is. I hope they know something we don't know."

How in the hell could Clinton have bought into this trash?

Luckily for me everyone in my circle, family and friends, and even my republican boss at work thought the war was a mistake.

[fleabert]

69. yep. I said it was all a lie from the beginning.

i just knew that he had planned to go to war with Iraq from the beginning, and was using 9/11 to bolster that plan. No one believed me.

[XemaSab]

70. I knew it was complete s*** from the beginning

and to all the suckers, there are no finer words in the English language than "I told you so."

[Lilith Velkor]

71. I lost my job and got arrested

I haunted the congressional offices and pestered their flunkies (got a hug from Dennis Kucinich, tho.) I flyered the Pentagon until they detained me, the MPs were very polite and let me go after an hour.

My depression has gotten so severe I no longer function in society. On the bright side, at least I'm not paying any taxes.

[donheld]

72. I couldn't believe any of that. What I saw clearly was

Bush had a hard-on for war with Saddam no matter what it took. It was quite clear that he was determined to have his war even if he had to lie cheat and steal to get it.

[tinrobot]

73. I saw no threat

Iraq was a broken country. There was no way they could hurt us, plus we had a job to finish in Afghanistan.

[RepublicanElephant]

74. i never trusted much of anything dubya says since i lived in texas...

...and saw the crap he and rove pulled on ann richards.

when i first heard he was running for prez, i laughed out loud in total disbelief.

a bunch of us texans tried to warn the rest of america, but... oh well.