A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq

Iran is DEFINITELY not Iraq.

It’s a totally different situation.

It’s not like anyone in the govt would falsify intelligence or lie to Trump to lead us to war. Right?

No chance.

Nobody on FR in the future will regret what’s we re doing in Iran.

Totally different.

Won’t get fooled again.

Phew, hold your nose....

If they can think of a way to ingrain FUD into Americans, they will.

Iran has supplied devices that killed our soldiers.
Iran has invaded our embassy in Iran and taken hostages.
Iran has threatened to assassinate our leaders.
Iran has/is bombing our allies.

Pew Research trying to make the case the war in Iran is the same as the war in Iraq showing graphs and charts of the response to the Iraq war to bolster their comparison to the war in Iran by using fear and false beliefs as it’s tactic.

Valid points but Iran should’ve been curb stomped back in the 80s. It’s a little harder to do now because our corrupt politicians dicked around too long.

If you can’t back what we’re doing with just the public knowledge of what Iran has done over the past 47 years and their current admission that they won’t give up enriching Uranium where there is no other purpose to do so except for building nuclear weapons, then you are an idiot.

Saddam was a check on Iran.

I’m old enough to remember the US embassy staff in Iran being taken hostage and decades of Iranian proxy attacks on US citizens and military. So, I’m quite happy the US is finally responding militarily, forcefully and smartly. Also happy about finally responding to the Venezuelan threat and Cuba. Long overdue.

Some Freepers are stuck in the past military actions in the Middle East. This is not that, and to say otherwise is to discount yourself as a serious thinker.

I can say this with absolute certainty: Trump IS NOT Bush. (Either Bush.)

Dingleberry, (Sorry, “Doodles”)

What’s your point?

Exactly one week after St. Paddy’s day in 2003, I was in Baghdad. One day after the ‘shock and awe’ (Shekinah?) bombings.

Old people, women, kids, walking up and bringing us flowers. For overthrowing Saddam. It was nice.

Stop! Hey! What’s that smell?
Here comes Pew straight outta he-ell.

— Bullflow Stinkfield

>> Valid points but Iran should’ve been curb stomped back in the 80s.

Incidentally, one prescient guy who said just that, back in 1980, was... DONALD J TRUMP.

The Iranian asset convicted of attempting to assassinate the US President on behalf of the government of Iran, is so last week.

Well, thanks. I didn’t get there until March ‘04 but I did 3.5 years, then returned in ‘14-’15 for the OIR surge.

In Shia areas in ‘04 it was just as you described. Crowds mobbing our convoy, ppl putting their hands in thru our (vinyl) zipped-down windows, shaking our hands in gratitude then kissing their palms and putting them over their hearts. The only time I’d ever seen anything like that was in the movie Kelly’s Heroes “de Gaulle!!, de Gaulle!!”

The war was trashed by the left as a cynical ploy to re-take Congress in the 06 vote which secured a D majority in Jan 07. It worked and precipitated Obama in 08, an early withdrawal in 09 and ISIS (ne AIQ) in 2010-. Congress had to cancel an aircraft carrier, F-22s and Viginia class subs to come up with funds for the OCO funding. Despicable Ds.

Again with THE LIE that Saddam had no WMDs.

Saddam did have WMDs. And the US found them. Bush lied, not about Saddam having WMDs but about not having found them.

The NY Slimes ran with the story in 2014 detailing the injuries to US servicemen who chanced across the caches of mustard agent and sarin. The Slimes later published the US intelligence report on the events, released under FOIA. It's even been noted on Wikipedia that "the total number of munitions discovered since 2003 had climbed to 4,990...."

The Daily Beast later reported that Bush administration insiders claimed that it was Carl Rove's idea to cover up having found the weapons for fear it would spark an Muhammadan terrorist scavenger hunt to find others the US might have overlooked.

If you want to argue that "4,990" isn't adequate to be real WMDs, now you're argument falls apart as just splitting hairs.

When I see articles at this time titled things like: A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq, I see them clearly as a conscious effort to erode political support for President Trump in a concerted effort by the Left (and some who claim to be on "the Right) to affect the Midterm preliminaries currently in progress and also to affect the general elections in November.

So.

The reason for this kind of article at the time of this attack on Iran is: To conveniently show the Citizen Rubes, just for our education and edification, that our country has a history of doing this (especially under a Republican President) that our own government (especially a Republican one) has no qualms at all about lying to its citizenry to dupe them into supporting an unprovoked and unjust war. Just sayin'.

It was shocking to me, I can tell you. This manipulation of my pliable gray matter by my own government was so well thought out, planned, subtle and patient that it was like putting a frog in a pot of water. The genius of my own government to do this kind of thing is astonishing. I was being manipulated and had no idea.

I had no idea I was being manipulated by the government to support the current military operations. They manipulated me so smoothly and effortlessly that I never gave it a thought.

How was I to know?

How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they took over our embassy in their country 47 years ago.
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran they drove a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, killing 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut, subsequently torturing and ultimately killing him in 1985?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 221 on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan and divert it to Tehran, killing two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they hijacked TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome and dumped the body of Navy Diver Robert Stethem onto the tarmac after shooting him in the head?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they murdered U.S. Marine Corps Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while on a UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they drove a truck of explosives into a bus near Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, killing one American and seven Israelis?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up a bus in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Jerusalem, killing an American and three other passengers and wounding more than 100?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up a Jerusalem bus, killing three Americans and wounding three other Americans. A total of 26 people die in the attack?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up the Dizengoff shopping center in Tel Aviv, wounding two Americans. Twenty people die and 75 others are injured in the attack?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they murdered an American-Israeli dual citizen in the community of Beit El in the West Bank. Another U.S. citizen and three Israelis are wounded?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they drove a truck with 5,000 pounds of explosives into the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in the Saudi Arabian town of Khobar. Nineteen Americans died and some 500 people were injured?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when three of their suicide bombers blow themselves up at the Ben Yehuda shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and wounding seven other American citizens killing 4 and wounding more than 200?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they simultaneously blew up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounding thousands?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, killing a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and two other Americans. A total of 15 people die in the attack?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when Iran denied having foreknowledge of al-Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center, the report indicates that Tehran facilitated the travel of some of the terrorists and that “there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and wound another individual in the West Bank community of Beit Sahur.
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they murdered five American students at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, including an American-Israeli dual citizen and an American-French dual citizen, killing a total of nine?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up a bus in Jerusalem killing one American citizen, along with 16 other people?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in a bombing in Gaza?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when, during Gulf War II and after, they killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan not only with the sophisticated IED ordnance they supplied, but with Iranian boots on the ground who may have even pulled the triggers?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American. A total of 24 people die in the attack?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed American citizen Michael Levin, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), during the Second Lebanon War. He is the only American to die in the conflict?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when twelve men affiliated with the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) disguised themselves as U.S. soldiers, entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in the Iraqi city of Karbala, and killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded 3 more?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed two Americans serving in the IDF during fighting between the terrorist group and Israel in Gaza as part of Operation Protective Edge?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they murdered in cold blood an American citizen and his wife, residents of the West Bank community of Neria, in their car in a drive-by shooting?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they fired rockets into the K1 military base in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk killing an American security contractor and wounding several U.S. service members?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they attacked the Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq with ballistic missiles causing traumatic brain injuries to more than 100 U.S. troops?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they murdered FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they planned to assassinate U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they fired a rocket at coalition forces in the Iraqi city of Erbil, wounding a U.S. service member and four U.S. civilian contractors?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they conducted at least three rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in 24 hours in Iraq and Syria, wounding two U.S. service members?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they launched a rocket attack that killed an American citizen in Iraqi Kurdistan?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they orchestrated the killing of an American citizen living in Baghdad who worked at an English language institute?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they killed an American contractor, wounded another, and also wounded five service members when it struck a coalition base near the Syrian city of Hasakah?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they heinously and brutally slaughtered, maimed, disfigured, tortured, and raped at least 48 Americans and kidnaped at least 12 Americans in a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they launched an attack against U.S. forces in Erbil wounding three American soldiers, including one critically injured with shrapnel to the head, which placed him in a coma?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they launched a drone that killed three U.S. soldiers at a U.S. military base in Jordan and wounded more than 40 other service members?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they executed German-Iranian national and U.S. permanent resident Jamshid Sharmahd on fraudulent terrorism charges?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when a report released by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies indicates that Iran and its proxies have conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East between October 17, 2023, and November 19, 2024, resulting in more than 180 wounded and three killed U.S. service members?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when they sent one of their operatives to work with two American accomplices to assassinate President Trump?
How was I to know that I was being manipulated to support an attack on Iran when a U.S. jury convicted two of their agents for plotting to assassinate Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad in New York in 2022?

Note that I didn't say "proxy", "Islamic jihad", "Hezbollah", or "Hamas". I said "Them". Meaning Iran. Because that is who they are. Anyone who doesn't know this has no business even participating in discourse on this.

The ayatollahs have to go!

Clever, very clever....

That’s absolutely true.