During the Iraq war I let people gaslight me into thinking I didn't know enough about "foreign policy" and "global politics" to say the war was a bad idea.
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During the Iraq war I let people gaslight me into thinking I didn't know enough about "foreign policy" and "global politics" to say the war was a bad idea.
I would hesitate because, I'm not an expert on those things.
But I was right then and I'm right now.
You don't need to be an expert, it's not "so complex and best left to high level people." You know enough to see this makes no sense.
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During the Iraq war I let people gaslight me into thinking I didn't know enough about "foreign policy" and "global politics" to say the war was a bad idea.
I would hesitate because, I'm not an expert on those things.
But I was right then and I'm right now.
You don't need to be an expert, it's not "so complex and best left to high level people." You know enough to see this makes no sense.
@futurebird What turned *me* against the Iraq war was that I'd read Shirer's history of the Third Reich at an early age, and the Bush admin press releases were following Goebbel's propaganda playbook beat by beat. If it looks identical to manufactured justification for an illegal war, then that's probably what it is …
(Every time Powell stood up to show "evidence" of Iraqi chemical weapons and was challenged, he changed the subject. No corroboration, just more and wilder acusations.)
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@futurebird What turned *me* against the Iraq war was that I'd read Shirer's history of the Third Reich at an early age, and the Bush admin press releases were following Goebbel's propaganda playbook beat by beat. If it looks identical to manufactured justification for an illegal war, then that's probably what it is …
(Every time Powell stood up to show "evidence" of Iraqi chemical weapons and was challenged, he changed the subject. No corroboration, just more and wilder acusations.)
The big tell for us was that the war urgently needed to happen but Bush couldn't show us proof *why* because it was too classified. Dude you're the president, if you can't declassify then it doesn't exist.
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The big tell for us was that the war urgently needed to happen but Bush couldn't show us proof *why* because it was too classified. Dude you're the president, if you can't declassify then it doesn't exist.
@Phosphenes @futurebird Yup! They periodically tried to claim revealing the truth would endanger sources (spies), but if all they wanted was evidence to justify a war, why not simply extract your agents? They've already given you what you wanted!
Conclusion: there were no spies, there was no evidence.
Mitigating factor: we now know Saddam was bluffing about having WMDs—at Iran! Who he'd just fought an 8 year long bloodbath with: he wanted to deter them from coming back for more.
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During the Iraq war I let people gaslight me into thinking I didn't know enough about "foreign policy" and "global politics" to say the war was a bad idea.
I would hesitate because, I'm not an expert on those things.
But I was right then and I'm right now.
You don't need to be an expert, it's not "so complex and best left to high level people." You know enough to see this makes no sense.
Germany standing up to the USA in this was probably one of our proudest moments in modern history.
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