> I was too young to notice all the details in people's behaviour in the post-2001 political climate (and I've never been to the US). Anyone with some interesting perspectives who remembers?
The public in almost every country with the exception of the US and perhaps the UK were against the invasion of Iraq. On message boards people were debating the merits of going to war. Virtually every person in favor of the war argued in the same way. Saddam is not cooperating with weapon inspects so what should we do? We must do SOMETHING before ITS TOO LATE. Six months prior they likely had no idea Iraq even existed, but now they were really worried for their own security cause Saddam might do something evil. It most definitely was brainwashing on a massive scale.
Journalists and experts knew the reasons for the war were bullshit but they couldn't state it clearly. Some UN expert who I forgot the name of said something like "I recommend we let the weapon inspectors proceed with their work". Everyone on tv phrased themselves cautiously "it's unlikely", "we don't know", "it would be unwise"... That stuff doesn't get through when the other side claims a madman has nuclear weapons he is about to detonate so we must act NOW!!! Bush and his cronies enacted one of the worst mass murders of the 21st century (so far) and it's a shame they will never be brought to justice.
We should have learned something from this but we didn't. In fact, the bandwagoning on most political issues seem to have gotten worse. Criticizing government invasion of privacy? What are you? A pedophile lover? Objecting to ISPs banning Russian media outlets? You Putin puppet! Against vaccine passports? Anti-vaxer!