I don't know how old you were at the time of 9/11 - but there were loud, public voices in the Intelligence Community telling everyone that the WMD situation was fabricated. To the point the only person claiming there were WMDs was Cheney and his inner circle, which is why both the Democrats and our international partners had to be brow beaten into supporting the invasion of Iraq.

To claim these two situations are the same is a very, very large stretch.

> I don't know how old you were at the time of 9/11 - but there were loud, public voices in the Intelligence Community telling everyone that the WMD situation was fabricated.

Sorry, I didn't hear those voices from US government sources, and not really from major US media outlets. I'm sure they did exist, but if a single mouse speaks up while the lions roar you'll need a good microphone to pick that up.

That time, they correctly figured they didn't even need a new Nayirah to testify, they just made it up and most of the media went into war mode: it doesn't matter if it's true, now is not the time to ask questions, support the troops and embed your journalists. Very few keep their professional distance when the bombs are falling, too luring the heroes' song.

Sorry if it's too harsh but "trust us, this time it's different" doesn't cut it for me, Bush summed up my feelings on that issue quite well: "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'"

That's a wild reframing of the run up to Iraq. Dick Cheney forced Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton to vote for the war? Democrats had a narrow majority in the Senate, and a majority of them voted for the war. They ran the intelligence committee, so they had plenty of access to the information at the time, and i give them enough credit to have made their choices independent of Dick Cheney's wishes.

You are either with us or against us was directed internally too.

>To the point the only person claiming there were WMDs was Cheney and his inner circle, which is why both the Democrats and our international partners had to be brow beaten into supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Just "Cheney" and NYT, and CNN, and the entire establishment, sans some voices. Besides the trillion dollar war efforts went on anyway (also against Afghanistan, a below third world country that has almost nothing to do with the, probably Saudi-funded attack).

>To claim these two situations are the same is a very, very large stretch.

Sure, they're not the same, today things are far worse.

Due to the declining status of the US globally, the fabrications, psy-ops, and "trust us" propaganda has sky-rocketed.

Watching the mainstream news and the silent compliance of all sides on the bogus narratives is like participating in an alternate reality universe (and that's before we even get to the fake news)...

>Just "Cheney" and NYT, and CNN, and the entire establishment, sans some voices. Besides the trillion dollar war efforts went on anyway (also against Afghanistan, a below third world country that has almost nothing to do with the, probably Saudi-funded attack).

That's just a blatant, and easily disproved re-write of history. You can rag on CNN all you want for trying to give both sides of the story an opportunity to present their case, but they absolutely voiced concerns about whether or not there were actually WMDs.

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/12/23/sproject.irq.w...

Right...

I see your article, and I raise you an "Experts: Iraq has tons of chemical weapons."

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/02/iraq.weapons/index...

American establishment media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, were strongly pro-war. After the invasion, the New York Times even issued a half-hearted apology for their terrible coverage:

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-th...

I see the IAEA expressing concerns, I don’t see CNN or anyone in the USIC doing so.

If they were loud and many, perhaps you can provide a link to a USIC member voicing concerns. Even those who were anonymously quoted about the aluminum tubes debate weren’t quoted as saying there were no WMDs.

This form of argument, “Situation A has substantial differences from Situation B therefore no analogy can be made” strikes me as meritless.

It is only helpful to point out differences if those differences clearly invalidate the analogy. The mere presence of difference is not enough.

The former chief weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, an American, voiced skepticism, but he was treated like a crazy person by the media.

Correct about the WMD:

- Million protesters in London, UK

- 100k protesters in Amsterdam, NL ( me included )

- France wouldn't have any of it

- At the start of the campaign only the UK and NL were in the 'coalition'

We knew the WMD was bullshit : Blix said so, Ritter? said so.