Why Fiction Beats Truth

Most people believe that they, and they alone are the guardians of universal truth. Ries and Trout really hit the nail on the head when they discuss the folly of trying to change a mind.

“You want to change something in a computer? Just type over or delete the existing material. You want to change something in a mind? Forget it.” ―Ries and Trout, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

“The mind, as a defense against the volume of today’s communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.” ―Ries and Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War

"As Secretary of State Powell summarized in his February 5, 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, "the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."[34] On February 11, 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq has moved to the top of my list. As we previously briefed this Committee, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security, a threat that will certainly increase in the event of future military action against Iraq. Baghdad has the capability and, we presume, the will to use biological, chemical, or radiological weapons against US domestic targets in the event of a US invasion."[35][36] On April 10, 2003, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer reiterated that, "But make no mistake—as I said earlier—we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."[37] Despite the Bush Administration's consistent assertion that Iraqi weapons programs justified an invasion, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz later cast doubt on the Administration's conviction behind this rationale by saying in a May 2003 interview: "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue—weapons of mass destruction—because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."[38]"

"After the invasion, despite an exhaustive search led by the Iraq Survey Group involving a more than 1,400 member team, no evidence of Iraqi weapons programs was found. On the contrary, the investigation concluded that Iraq had destroyed all major stockpiles of weapons of mass destructions and ceased production in 1991 when sanctions were imposed.[39][40][41] The failure to find evidence of Iraqi weapons programs following the invasion led to considerable controversy in the United States and worldwide, including claims by critics of the war that the Bush and Blair Administrations deliberately manipulated and misused intelligence to push for an invasion. "

I wonder what kind of mischief these fellows are up to these days, or have they all retired?

- a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

- an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.

The former refers to things like the sometimes clever pictures you see on social media, the latter refers to things like what you read in the newspaper (often referred to as facts), but both kinds have widely varying levels of truth.