The
Chicago anti-war rally th...,
2003-02-14 00:00:00
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Turkey wants NATO protection
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2003-02-14 00:00:00
I signed the petition,
with kudos to the European public, though I haven't seen the substance of
European public polls to compare
relative logical consistency or whether or not they actually know what they're talking about when giving
their opinions. Americans, at least, have attained
a level of irrationality that is only exceeded by how uninformed we are (it doesn't help that the
government is repeatedly lying to us).
So check the polls again. In the most
recent CNN poll 56% believe Bush has made a "convincing case" while 63% support the war
(so some 10% are simply warmongering apes - not surprising), and
36% of us believe Iraq poses an immediate threat (which is an astronomical number considering how little
a threat Iraq actually poses, and calls into question the need for war for the other 30%).
In the ABC poll previous to Powell's
UN fiasco 49% believed the US had "provided strong evidence" that Iraq provided direct support
to Al Qaeda - this was before they'd offered any evidence at all, and what was offered was spurious
and barely qualifies as circumstancial, even assuming anything said was true - yet
in a FOX poll from late January 81% believe Saddam has ties to Al Qaeda, and an ABC poll from 1/28/03
gives 68% that think he's provided direct support.
42% wierdly believe that if the US takes military action against Iraq it will lead to the reinstatement
of the draft, and then there's the 89%
that think the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis.
The hook, line and sinker for me a few months ago was
demonstrated well enough by RetroPoll, which
actually asks people questions based on something more than blind faith or spurious opinion,
and if we knew squat we probably
wouldn't be in favor of war. I find it bizarre that polls never ask people simple current
events trivia before asking them for their opinions - I suppose
giving evidence that we're really just a bunch of ignorant hicks wouldn't make a friendly environment for advertisers.
And in defense of France
(not that I've ever been a Francophile, hence this list's brevity, nor do I understand what is so dubious about
peace for oil - that's the way market advocates
argue markets are supposed to work, I thought),
which has taken
numerous attacks
in the US media,
nevermind government,
they a) supported our revolution against the tyrannical stamp taxing British,
b) heavily influenced early 20th century American art - and it should be added, much for the better,
and c) fought valiantly in World War I, the loss of life (1/10th of the French population)
during which explains in part their "rolling over" (albiet I wouldn't call the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of French soldiers during the German invasion exactly
"accomadating", but whatever)
during World War II. Indeed, buy the
cheese, you need to stock up for when we're inevitably attacked by terrorists again after a
unilateral invasion by the
"willing".
