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'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

washingtonpost.com

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Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#21

Post by datameta »

ScaryBashGhost wrote: post #9
MilnerRoute wrote: post #7

A statistic from the article: "The Watson Institute at Brown University calculates that 184,382 to 207,156 Iraqi civilians were directly killed in war-related violence between the start of the American invasion in March 2003 through October 2019. But the researchers suggest the real figure may well be several times higher."

These numbers are really important, especially on a day like today. It's strange how much of a spectacle [1] 9/11 was, almost made for TV. Our 3000 victims of terror are thus acknowledged, depicted, and disseminated throughout the world. As a result, they're remembered in some sense too. But the hundreds of thousands more whom we maim, torture, and kill across the globe are given no such status -- they're barely even…

Very topical satire from The Onion: https://youtu.be/vb5rHthCXoA

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#22

Post by tw04 »

bawolff wrote: post #14
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may well have believed the whispers in his ear from the war hawks. There was a systematic process of presenting him with distorted information.

Even if that's true, isn't that an even more damning statement about him as a president? That he wasn't even in control? The way canadian and American intelligence came to different conclusions about the same data is suggestive though.

>Even if that's true, isn't that an even more damning statement about him as a president? That he wasn't even in control?

That just kind of fits the narrative pre-9/11. I think a lot of people forget what a lame duck President he was considered prior to and even just after 9/11. There’s 0 chance he would have won a second term if there were an election on 9/10/01 - I think it’s what gave a lot of the conspiracy theories legs.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#23

Post by dragonwriter »

Apocryphon wrote: post #11

The Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies have done immeasurable harm to the U.S. and the world. Even a lot of the domestic political polarization and social crackup we see in America today can be traced back to the divisions that be Iraq War created.

> The Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies have done immeasurable harm to the U.S. and the world.

True.

> Even a lot of the domestic political polarization and social crackup we see in America today can be traced back to the divisions that be Iraq War created.

Less true,IMO. There's a line through divisions over post-9/11 policy, but it doesn't really start there and there's not much specially about it; its pretty consistent with the trend of crystallization of the polar positions after the end of the long realignment period of the overlapping New Deal and Civil Rights partisan realignements in the early-mid-1990s.

If you look right around the gearing up for the Iraq War it may look like a big acceleration of divisions, but that's mostly unleashing what was deferred in the rally-around-the-flag effect in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#24

Post by dragonwriter »

sgt wrote: post #10
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may well have believed the whispers in his ear from the war hawks. There was a systematic process of presenting him with distorted information.

Agreed. I believe (still) that GWB jr is and was a good person at heart.

> Agreed. I believe (still) that GWB jr is and was a good person at heart.

Who is GWB jr?

George Walker Bush, the 43rd President, is not a junior, and has no son of the same name.

His father, the 41st President, was George Herbert Walker Bush.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#25

Post by 8bitsrule »

throw0101a wrote: post #5

A news story from September 2002: > CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. * https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plans-for-iraq-attack-began-on-...

Ironic, considering that the day before, on Sep 10, Rumsfeld told a group at the Pentagon how wasteful it was. "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions."

[https://web.archive.org/web/20120103220058/https://www.defen...]

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#26

Post by Apocryphon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #23
Apocryphon wrote: post #11

The Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies have done immeasurable harm to the U.S. and the world. Even a lot of the domestic political polarization and social crackup we see in America today can be traced back to the divisions that be Iraq War created.

> The Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies have done immeasurable harm to the U.S. and the world. True. > Even a lot of the domestic political polarization and social crackup we see in America today can be traced back to the divisions that be Iraq War created. Less true,IMO. There's a line through divisions over post-9/11 policy, but it doesn't really start there and there's not much specially about it; its prett…

It didn't start there, but I think it was the gateway into the modern (social) media bubble misinformation overload era. It was when Fox News and to a lesser degree MSNBC asserted themselves as the purveyors of journalism for one's ideology of choice, and when political discourse on the internet started to really sour.

By the time the post-war occupation had started to slog into a quagmire (the run-up to the 2004 presidential election), we had basically witnessed the dawn of our modern age.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#27

Post by dragonwriter »

Apocryphon wrote: post #26
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies have done immeasurable harm to the U.S. and the world. True. > Even a lot of the domestic political polarization and social crackup we see in America today can be traced back to the divisions that be Iraq War created. Less true,IMO. There's a line through divisions over post-9/11 policy, but it doesn't really start there and there's not much specially about it; its prett…

It didn't start there, but I think it was the gateway into the modern (social) media bubble misinformation overload era. It was when Fox News and to a lesser degree MSNBC asserted themselves as the purveyors of journalism for one's ideology of choice, and when political discourse on the internet started to really sour. By the time the post-war occupation had started to slog into a quagmire (the run-up to the 2004 pre…

> was when Fox News and to a lesser degree MSNBC asserted themselves as the purveyors of journalism for one's ideology of choice

No, it wasn't; Fox had done that before, and and MSNBC, to the extent it eventually did, didn't until much later (9/11 occurred during, and didn't end, the period where MSNBC and CNN were kinda trying to compete with Fox in the same ideological targeting even though CNN was consistently painted as the Left network by the Right, and MSNBC didn't acquire a fairly consistent “left”, or at least Democratic, editorial position until into Bush’s second term, as a gradual evolution from a mix of different editorial positions.

> and when political discourse on the internet started to really sour.

As someone who was online pretty continuously since when “political discourse on the internet” met Usenet, the idea that it started to sour only after 9/11 is silly. More people started interacting online around that time, but that was more driven by easy blogging platforms becoming available and internet access becoming more ubiquitous than 9/11 or any connected political actions.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#29

Post by Apocryphon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #27
Apocryphon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't start there, but I think it was the gateway into the modern (social) media bubble misinformation overload era. It was when Fox News and to a lesser degree MSNBC asserted themselves as the purveyors of journalism for one's ideology of choice, and when political discourse on the internet started to really sour. By the time the post-war occupation had started to slog into a quagmire (the run-up to the 2004 pre…

> was when Fox News and to a lesser degree MSNBC asserted themselves as the purveyors of journalism for one's ideology of choice No, it wasn't; Fox had done that before, and and MSNBC, to the extent it eventually did, didn't until much later (9/11 occurred during, and didn't end, the period where MSNBC and CNN were kinda trying to compete with Fox in the same ideological targeting even though CNN was consistently pai…

Perhaps it's my own observer bias of growing up in that era, with San Francisco's KGO 810 and Air America on one dial, and Michael Savage on KNEW 910 on another, and flipping through Free Republic/Pajamas Media and Democratic Underground/DailyKos online, but I think I might have preprogrammed myself to think of the U.S. as an irreconcilable mess of feuding echo chambers.

Re: 'The world 9/11 created: What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?'

#30

Post by sgt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #24
sgt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I believe (still) that GWB jr is and was a good person at heart.

> Agreed. I believe (still) that GWB jr is and was a good person at heart. Who is GWB jr? George Walker Bush, the 43rd President, is not a junior, and has no son of the same name. His father, the 41st President, was George Herbert Walker Bush.

GWB Jr is George Walker Bush. I have heard him referred to as Jr many times. It seems that is indeed incorrect... thanks!
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