Could Twitter Have Stopped the Media's Rush To War In Iraq Ten Years Ago? 456
Hugh Pickens writes "On the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Eric Boehlert writes that if Twitter had been around during the winter of 2002-2003, it could have provided a forum for critics to badger Beltway media insiders who abdicated their role as journalists and fell in line behind the Bush White House's march to war. 'Twitter could have helped puncture the Beltway media bubble by providing news consumers with direct access to confront journalists during the run-up to the war,' writes Boehlert. 'And the pass-around nature of Twitter could have rescued forgotten or buried news stories and commentaries that ran against the let's-go-to-war narrative that engulfed so much of the mainstream press.' For example, imagine how Twitter could have been used in real time on February 5, 2003, when Secretary of State Colin Powell made his infamous attack-Iraq presentation to the United Nations. At the time, Beltway pundits positively swooned over Powell's air-tight case for war. 'But Twitter could have swarmed journalists with instant analysis about the obvious shortcoming. That kind of accurate, instant analysis of Powell's presentation was posted on blogs but ignored by a mainstream media enthralled by the White House's march to war.' Ten years ago, Twitter could have also performed the task of making sure news stories that raised doubts about the war didn't fall through the cracks, as invariably happened back then. With swarms of users touting the reports, it would have been much more difficult for reporters and pundits to dismiss important events and findings. 'Ignoring Twitter, and specifically ignoring what people are saying about your work on Twitter, isn't really an option the way turning a blind eye to anti-war bloggers may have been ten years ago,' concludes Boehlert. 'In other words, Twitter could have been the megaphone — the media equalizer — that war critics lacked ten years ago."
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
The ones that got us into war, Bush, Cheney, the army, and the media, saw nothing but profits.
If only we could charge them now for the deaths, the economic collapse, and the injured war vets.
Economic rebound son!
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
To be honest, some of the blame has to rest on Saddam Hussein – he was playing a double game. He wanted his people and neighbors that he did have weapons of mass destruction while doing the minimum to comply with the UN resolutions. I still remember the UN inspector Hans Blix talking about the cat and mouse game he was playing with Saddam – and that it would only take another 7 years to confirm that Iraq did not have any WMD.
As to the Twitter question – I find new media does a good job on the high level headlines stuff but less well with in-depth stuff. Considering that Hussein had deliberately engaged in disinformation for years, how is Twitter going to get around that? Maybe if a high level government official defected – but heck – even that could be part of a misinformation campaign.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When inspectors would show up unannounced, Iraq wouldn't let them inspect. They were allowed to inspect certain areas on certain days if Iraq approved it ahead of time. The inspection process was a joke, but Hans Blix defended it because he didn't want to see war again.
The irony is that if Hans was harsher and enforced real surprise inspections, perhaps we would have had real answers on WMD sooner and prevented war. By not really running proper inspections, Blix may have enabled the war to happen.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
When inspectors would show up unannounced, Iraq wouldn't let them inspect. They were allowed to inspect certain areas on certain days if Iraq approved it ahead of time. The inspection process was a joke, but Hans Blix defended it because he didn't want to see war again.
The irony is that if Hans was harsher and enforced real surprise inspections, perhaps we would have had real answers on WMD sooner and prevented war. By not really running proper inspections, Blix may have enabled the war to happen.
Except that according to the presentations [cnn.com] to the UN, he DID run no-notice inspections.
This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional, no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance.
The real problem is that the UN team were repeatedly fed 'dead-cert' tips from the CIA and MI6, and when they followed up on them they found chicken farms or sheds that had clearly been empty for years. They didn't want to admit that their intelligence was of practically no use (also consider the dossier released by MI6 that claimed Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger where they hadn't even checked whether the minister signing the documents was in office on the signing date). So instead, there was an intensive briefing campaign that suggested Blix was incompetent, or that he was deliberately ruining the inspections because he was a hippy pacifist. It was another aspect of the 'the French/'Old Europe' are surrender-monkeys' propaganda bullcrap.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember watching despots such as Mao and Pol Pot on the evening news. I don't believe the end justified the means but the Bush apologists do have a salient point, the world really is a better place without Saddam in it.
Re: (Score:3)
the world really is a better place without Saddam in it
Then Bush and Blair should just have said that at the time instead of lying.
There are a lot of unpleasant rulers and regimes in the world. If the UN wants to get rid of Robert Mugabe or the ruling house in Saudi Arabia, they should say so and get everyone to join in.
Re: (Score:3)
We did have answers. Blix said there were none. Turns out he was right. Of course, that didn't stand a chance against an administration that was fully prepared to fabricate scary reports if necessary to get the war going.
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Chemical weapons that had been provided by the US for use against Iran in the early 1980s. Those chemical weapons were long past their use-by date by the time of the second Iraq war, and in the end there was no genuine evidence that more were being produced inside Iraq.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Twitter only makes things worse. It surrounds you with a large bubble of people with similar views. How is that any different than how ANY of the last 6 presidential administrations have been run anyway, other than to give you more people with the same views as yours to pretend that you're in your own little information world bubble?
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Saddam is gone. I don't miss him.
Do you miss the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of other people who are also gone? Not to mention the arms, legs, eyes, health, etc. of thousands of other folks?
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, they are killing each other in rather large numbers.
Secondly, what Atilla's post [slashdot.org] was getting at is that yes, it was progress to get rid of Saddam. I don't understand how you can debate that point.
Bush and Cheney were morons, otherwise they would never have been so gung-ho over the Irak thing. Everyone who knew a bit of history knew that once Saddam was gone, Irak was going to go down in civil war. But arguably, the Americans have actually made a very good job of keeping the thing from melting down. And gave the country a chance that would not be there if Saddam or his crazy son were still in power. All of this has cost the US a lot of lives and money. For very little return.
This right here honestly. War costs lives. Freedom and even the attempt at freedom costs lives. That's simply the way it is. The people who bemoan what happened never seem to want to address the flip side of their argument. I'm not saying the US going there was awesome, but if we're going to say it was the great crime of the 21st century then we damned sure need to answer the question of would Iraq be better off now if the US hadn't gone there?
There's every reason to believe that Saddam would still be in power. There's every reason to believe that he still would have wiped out large numbers of his own people to stay that way and no reason to believe that eventually he wouldn't have taken another look at Kuwait or another neighbor.
Is Iraq better off now and more importantly likely to be better off in the future because of what happened over the last 10 years? Probably so.
Re: (Score:3)
This was not true prior to the US invasion. It is a consequence of the US invasion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Particularly if you opposed the regime, or otherwise met Hussain's standards for "objectionable." Still, not our business, and not the cause of the current violence. We are the cause of the current violence, because we removed the previously stable, secular government.
Just as our many internal problems -- our murdering, home-invading police, our judicially violated constitution, our torture of our prisoners, our insane and evil war against p
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Which defines it as an internal Iraqi problem, from an Iraqi source, towards Iraqi targets. This is what distinguishes a problem where we caused the deaths, and therefore bear responsibility for.
Just as problems in the USA today in no way justify the invasion of our country by another, the problems in Iraq did not justify our invading them, and by extension, they did not justify any of the consequences of that invasion.
We have a right, although not an obligation, as does any sovereign country, to take an interest when a country steps outside its boundaries and begins to fuck with others (as in 1990 and Kuwait.)
We even have a right to engage in modification of how we deal with them, from simple diplomatic speak to the harshest refusal to trade, when they have internal issues we frown upon. Because these actions are taken outside the sovereign nation. We can gang up with other nations and do so. Still ok.
However, we do not have a right to step inside a sovereign country and fuck with its internal affairs. The moment we take the position that we do, that right extends to everyone else, and the idea of "sovereign borders" immediately becomes "who has the biggest military and strongest castle" and we decided long, long ago that such an approach was insufficient deal with the varied approach to civilization taken by the many nations of the world. And today, with the heinous fuckery our government is engaged in, everyone from China to Luxembourg has reason to step in and do to our government exactly what we did to Iraqs: squash it because it's not living up to its own standards, much less anyone else's. If you think you want that, you are a fool.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they just live under a new dictatorship, a religious one, one that is completely unable to maintain civil order but has no problem whatsoever imposing a rule just as oppressive as the one Saddam did. As for WWII, there was a real threat to be countered there, one of hugely more power and intent than anything Saddam ever even dreamed of. The one time he actually tried something along those lines (Kuwait), he got stepped on like a bug and ran home to mommy, which was fine.
There's no question that when a country steps outside of its own borders and makes war on others without the specific pretext of stopping exactly that act, it must be stopped. Unfortunately, the country that fits that definition in the case of the 2nd Iraq war is not Iraq -- it is the USA. Even more unfortunately, there is no one big enough to stop us, or even slow us down, when we do evil things.
What countries do within their own borders must be the business of that country. If you think otherwise, you just completely justified an invasion of the USA by anyone who cares to do it for failure to abide by its own constitution. Our leadership is corrupt from top to bottom - executive, judiciary, legislature, political parties - and our actions reprehensible by our own standards. But I suspect you'd say that it's entirely our job to work out our own problems. What concerns me is that you would not say the same for the Iraqis.
Re: (Score:3)
Between seeing the satellite photos and hearing all the evidence in question I had no reason to think Iraq was complying with UN requirements.
You're right, he wasn't. Why was that, though? Hint - he wasn't worried about the US.
He was only a murderous tyrant who was oppressing his people.
True, but that was brought up in only the most incidental way during the ramp-up to the war. So what's your point with that statement?
I don't hear about Iraq much anymore.
That's your problem, not mine.
I know there were pockets of resistance and they continued to attack US troops as long as we were there. The good stories out weigh the bad however.
Considering that you really don't seem to be looking for information about Iraq, it seems that the stories you are aware of are the ones that are being spoonfed to you over the course of weeks. I suggest you do some research on the state of Iraq.
It is a shame we brought stability to a country in turmoil.
And... here we ju
Re:No (Score:4)
$3t is a lot of money to bring stability. We probably could have stabilized about 100 countries for that. Moreover Iraq ain't really all that stable now.
Saddam was annoying and somewhat dangerous. He was difficult for the USA to deal with. Replacing him might have been a good idea. A long term occupation of Iraq made replacing him militarily not worth it.
Re: (Score:3)
Can we have such return of democracy in the USA next then?
If no, then why? Surely, with such resounding success in Iraq, it would be a perfect solution to problems that USA is facing today!
Yeah, no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither could Iraq. The only difference was that there was a country so big and powerful that it made no difference. We imposed our will on them in the oldest, most vile manner possible: By murderous force, without any right, on a sovereign country.
By every measure, the 2nd Iraq war was unjustified, the consequences horrific, the perpetrators criminal, and by that, I don't mean the pawns, the soldiers, but those who steered this ship of terror, Bush and Cheney and every minion they had that participated in the faking of intelligence and the misdirecting of the public as to any involvement whatsoever with 9/11.
But overlaying all of this is the simple truth that collectively: we cannot trust our government, we cannot control our government, and we do not care enough to do anything about it.
This has been true for some time, from things we allow it to do to us, from the war on drugs to the fear-mongering used to crush our liberties subsequent to 9/11, to the completely unjustified actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 9/11 perpetrators were mostly Saudi with 2...3 from Egypt, Lebanon and the UAE. No one from Afghanistan, no one from Iraq. The justification that they went to school in Iraq kind of skips over the idea that more of them went to school in the UK and Saudi Arabia. The idea that OBL was hiding there so we had to destroy an entire country to get at him was both wrong, and not really justified by the fact that he was pleased, but surprised, to hear that we had been attacked. The fact that we shot him when we had overwhelming force on our side and didn't bring him to any witness stand is, at least, suspicious.
Do I claim to know what happened? No. But I will say this: if you step back from the official story, the first thing you note is that this puzzle fits together really, really badly if you use the lines drawn by the US government. It's likely, IMHO, to be close to the real truth -- the best and most enduring lies usually are -- but it clearly isn't the truth. We know of many problems: There were no aluminum rods being used for centrifuges. There were no WMDs. Neither country -- Iraq or Afghanistan -- had much, if anything, to do with our being attacked. Saddam had, in fact, given us access to every site of any consequence. Almost everything Bush and Cheney said was distorted or outright false. Both undertakings failed to even vaguely resemble the minimalist interventions we were sold.
The lesson is that the government has control of the picture they present, and that we will, no matter if the consequence is our liberties at home or the lives of others across the sea, accept that picture and back them in almost any action.
I prefer the explanation that begins with what the Gaussian lays at my feet: More than half the people are really, really stupid. All of the people are subject to heavy attempts at deception to get them to comply. Even very smart people will fall prey to this until they obtain data that comes from sources that are not mangling it to fit a false picture.
I don't think we can fix this. Under the present model, our congress and judiciary are wholly bought and paid for, entrenched in a way that the public really doesn't understand through political leadership that transcends elections and lobbyists that exert the will of a privileged few who are subject to zero oversight by the public.
As to Twitter, Twitter is a form of the voice of the public, but it's really no different in its reach than the voices of big forums (and search engines) ten years ago, and there were plenty of those, including this one. Twitter is different in that 140 characters isn't enough to make a case for anything; I refer you to this very post: You may completely disagree with me, and if you do, likely you'll couch that disagreement in the form of a claim that I haven't made my case, even though I took the time to cite quite a few facts which you can easily confirm supporting it. Imagine if I had tried to use twitter to make the same case -- would
Up-to-date BBC docu on so-called intel re WMD (Score:3)
Panorama has spoken to several intelligence officials as well as the US' main source, Curveball, who later admitted making up the mobile laboratory claims.
You will need a UK IP address to watch this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rh8hd/Panorama_The_Spies_Who_Fooled_the_World/ [bbc.co.uk]
Still no. (Score:3)
George Bush and his stooges very much indicated that the Iraq "problem" was part and parcel of our "war on terror." [archives.gov] There is no question whatsoever that he linked the one to the other, and expected us to accept that. To claim otherwise is both revisionist and deceptive.
Those are not WMD's in the
Re: (Score:3)
Osama was not the architect of 9/11. Our own government told you that it was Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Bin Ladin expressed surprise (and delight) when the 9/11 attacks happened. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in Pakistan. Afghanistan as a nation did not attack us. A small group of terrorists did, and they were taken care of pretty quickly. Those terrorists, in fact, were a
Re: (Score:3)
Public support, I think you probably mean. Agreed. However, I'm pretty sure our government's reactions were calculated quite carefully. They weren't stupid, or emotional. They were evil.
Of course. So clearly, that wasn't
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's why the war happened - because of the left's intellectual inbreeding and inability to make a coherent argument against it.
That is one of the most disgusting right wing arguments I have ever seen. When people moan here about Microsoft or whoever having paid shills, it makes me wonder why they get so upset about pieces of fucking software and yet can allow total bollocks like this to go unchallenged.
The war happened because (a) the US wanted to wave its dick after the humiliation of 9/11 (b) Saddam Hussein needed to be taught a lesson as he wasn't playing ball and (c) Bush and the oil companies (as well as the military-indust
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
A million or so people in the UK went on the streets to demonstrate against the war. Tony Blair was for it for reasons which still do not make sense. He forced his party to go along with it. The main opposition party was then led by someone who wanted Britain out of the EU and into Nafta (North American Free Trade). The facts were just a distraction, the UK went to war.
The story in Spain was somewhat similar, the Spanish PM got the chance to visit Bush at his ranch in Texas. Lots of lovely pictures so he could show his grandchildren that he was someone important. Who cared about the facts? Spain went to war.
Bush wanted to finish the job his father started and essentially asked the secret services to find a justification for war, just as Blair did. The US went to war.
Germany was fighting an election where the government stated unequivocally that they would not go to war. The opposition refused to commit themselves. The government surprised everyone by just shading the election, probably on this issue. Germany did not go to war. The then foreign minister even told Powell at the UN: "with all due respect, I think you are wrong on this".
Iran had every reason to hate the vile Saddam Hussein, but they knew exactly what Iraq had for weapons and they were horrified when their neighbours were invaded on such a faked pretext. A lot of the posturing Iran has gone in for since is an attempt to make it clear "you invade us and we will really hurt you". Iran has been screwed by the British and the US before.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Germany was fighting an election where the government stated unequivocally that they would not go to war. The opposition refused to commit themselves. The government surprised everyone by just shading the election, probably on this issue. Germany did not go to war. The then foreign minister even told Powell at the UN: "with all due respect, I think you are wrong on this".
Several months before the war started, European media outlets had already reported that the satellite photos, yellow cake documents, and suspicions about aluminum tubes and bioweapons stockades were indeed fabricated (not to mention Blair's plagerizing of an old, inaccurate document).
The American news media ignored each and every report. Their colleagues around the globe were treated like non-entities (and, closer to the action during the war, like hostiles).
Our post-90s megacorporate media are in the business of taking the great mass of mundane news about murders, fires, weather, etc. and using it as credibility so they can mix in misinformation on the big issues. Today's network news reporters are first and foremost attuned to their stock options and the interests of Wall St. finance.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How did Bush, Cheney and the like profit?
For better or worse, Bush and Cheney thought it was the right thing to do. It wasn't like they got rich doing so.
People like to conveniently forget, but right after 9/11 (two days later if I recall) the UN Security Council unanimously passed another measure threatening Iraq for lack of compliance, but Bush publicly spoke about not rushing to blame Iraq, and letting facts come out over time. If Bush wanted to capitalize on popularity, he could have gone into Iraq imme
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
How did Bush, Cheney and the like profit?
Yeah, it's not like either of them is an ex-CEO of a private company that made billions off of government contracts as a direct result of the war.
Re: (Score:3)
The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).
Of course, his national addresses are online [archives.gov].
1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.
Nope, this claim doesn't appear in the transcript. [archives.gov]Or in any of the other statements or speeches that I can find from this time period. He does make the references to 'freeing the Iraqi people' using various phrasings, but not nearly as much as he talks about WMD.
2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).
Nobody on the Security Council except the US and UK believed that individual members were allowed to take any action they wanted in response to any breaches of UN Security Council resolutions. And the ma
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger.
Millions of people are in danger in lots of other places, we only bother to make stern condemnations, if we bother to take note at all. Why is Iraq special? Clearly "millions of people in danger" is not why we do anything. Where are we on that with Rwanda? No, we don't really care about millions of people in other countries, it just how we pretty up an invasion to sell what we want to do for other reasons. It's like invoking "think of the children"...
2. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood.
Likewise, that's not a reason to go to war. That's an excuse one can use if one already wants to go to war. It is not compelling us to war.
3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention.
This is also the most complicated. Without getting into the philosophy of it too much, there really isn't any moral argument that we should prevent them from having WMD. The whole thing actually mirrors the 2nd amendment controversy within the US except at the nation state level and the US is not the world government.
Deciding that other countries may not have, nor may even research weapons technology of their own that we have massive stockpiles of is pretty indefensible.
While the US is entirely within its moral right to ensure its own security I don't thnk that extends to depriving everyone else of those same rights to 'enhance our enjoyment of our own right' stands up as reasonable.
I didn't like Saddam, I don't like Kim Jong-anything, and I KNOW that them having WMDs represents an increase in risk that WMDs will be used.
But that's a risk that seems one has to take. Like the right to bear arms means that people will have guns, some of them will be bad people, and that the risk that sometimes innocent people will be hurt by them is increased. So be it.
The world is not a safe place, and oppressing other people to make it "a little bit safer for me" is not an acceptable solution.
The US is not 'benevolent dictator for life' and elevating it to that position, and bestowing upon it powers that give it a perpetual power imbalance with it's peers will not be stable in the long run. It already exploits that position and I don't see why we want to perpetuate that.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
Correct, the answer is No.
Tomorrow's story headline: Could Slashdot have stopped the Iraq War?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
There were plenty of people pointing out the laughable lies in Powell's speech at the time, who were just dis missed as "conspiracy theorists." There were millions of people around the world protesting. Anyone in the corporate media who was against this war were fired or silenced.
Twitter would just be flooded with lies and disinformation that discerning truth would be nigh impossible.
Re:No (Score:4)
No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
I spent extraordinary amount of time on various sites..... not just /., /. is not a forum that can pin a discussion and keep at it for months. There were plenty of those at the time, I was absolutely overwhelmed by people who were pro-war, pro-invasion, pro-military action, completely out of their mind yelling that Saddam was the devil himself and he caused 9/11 and probably fucked their grandmother (and her cat) while gradpa wasn't watching.
Actually I think some were so weird, they nearly referred to the Southpark (the movie, uncut etc.), because it had Saddam and the Devil in it at the same time, that was pretty freaking weird.
Basically there was story after story after story and after story completely swamping, overwhelming every freaking site and forum about how absolutely necessary it is to attack Iraq.
I couldn't believe what was happening, it was like a fucking nightmare. The sort that reminds you of the original Elm street movie, where you are walking the stairs and are just getting sucked into the carpet, can't move, the house is collapsing around you. That's what was happening.
You absolutely could add Twitter and every bit of technology you wanted to this mix and it would only AMPLIFY the crazy.
And the crazy were talking about how Saddam attacked USA on 9/11! I mean they could add how Saddam attacked USA on 9/12 and burned the white house in 1812. It was un-fucking-believable. They were absolutely sure that Saddam had every weapon in his disposal, it doesn't matter if I was pointing out before the invasion that if Saddam HAD anything, USA would have NOT attacked him!
Already in the first days of the invasion I was writing that if I were him, I would have used every single bit of every type of WMD against every American (and some of his internal enemies) immediately, in the first minutes or hours of that attack.
No, the crazy became only more and more vocal and actually cheering and jubilant as the war progressed.
I think that the live TV coverage that everybody was involved in actually helped USA pro-invasion propaganda. Also I remember how surreal it was to watch a real war on TV, not in real life. In real life it's different, you are there and you only see a little bit of what surrounds YOU. But when you see it on TV from many crews and many angles, it's so strange, like a surreal movie, that's not really happening. Similar to the weird feeling I remember having when watching the actual attack on 9/11 in real time (I was in a TV channel station, it was on the same floor as my contract at the time and they were getting a live feed) and the twin towers collapsing. It was a weird moment to watch, unbelievable almost, the entire war was like that, only stretched into weeks of that live coverage.
You could turn on the TV and watch live war at any moment in time. No Twitter, no anything could stop that.
The people's common sense was completely turned off. Anybody suggesting that the war was the wrong thing to do was almost attacked (or attacked for real). The answer to the question mark in the story headline is no.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2727471.stm
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Your memory must be seriously execrable.
"According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Social media HAS changed public activism.
It has shown exactly where people's priorities lie. We are more informed and more apathetic than ever before.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
My impression at the time was that Bush and company was hellbent on railroading the country into war, and they knew how to get what they wanted, mostly by running roughshod over the concept of checks and balances. They didn't even really try very hard to convince people, it was just "he might have chemical weapons!" and "ooh, look at this render of a mobile chemical lab that he could have maybe built". It's a shame Breaking Bad had not aired yet at the time, people would have had a lot of fun with the RV comparisons. There was also the fact that we were still neck deep in Afghanistan at the time. The war with Afghanistan at least made sense, the country had been taken over by guys who were very happily sheltering the guys who had just perpetrated the biggest acts of terrorism in modern US history. They were also being huge jerks to their own people (destroying the countries heritage, oppressing women and minorities (ok, that is part of the heretic they kept), and running the place like their own private piggybank) and nobody else in the world liked them. We even had UN buy in and some (mostly token, with a couple of exceptions) NATO support. Saddam had been keeping a reasonably low profile for a long time too, it seemed really unprovoked for Bush to suddenly single him out and call for his head.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the correct answer to any headline that ends in a question mark.
My impression at the time was that Bush and company was hellbent on railroading the country into war, and they knew how to get what they wanted, mostly by running roughshod over the concept of checks and balances. They didn't even really try very hard to convince people, it was just "he might have chemical weapons!" and "ooh, look at this render of a mobile chemical lab that he could have maybe built". It's a shame Breaking Bad had not aired yet at the time, people would have had a lot of fun with the RV comparisons. There was also the fact that we were still neck deep in Afghanistan at the time. The war with Afghanistan at least made sense, the country had been taken over by guys who were very happily sheltering the guys who had just perpetrated the biggest acts of terrorism in modern US history. They were also being huge jerks to their own people (destroying the countries heritage, oppressing women and minorities (ok, that is part of the heretic they kept), and running the place like their own private piggybank) and nobody else in the world liked them. We even had UN buy in and some (mostly token, with a couple of exceptions) NATO support. Saddam had been keeping a reasonably low profile for a long time too, it seemed really unprovoked for Bush to suddenly single him out and call for his head.
The truly sad thing here is that for some time before 9/11, even before Bush took office, Saddam Hussein had been steadily pushing at his limitations, repeatedly violating the "no-fly" zones and doing other provocative things. I consider it very likely that given enough time, Saddam would have done something sufficiently egregious that the entire world would have said "enough", formed a "Coalition of the willing" that wasn't a mere joke and ended up more or less where we are today except that the USA would have had a decent excuse for invasion and not have lost one more reason to be considered one of the Good Guys.
9/11 wasn't even the remotest excuse. Saddam hated al-quaeda as much or more as we did, but almost from the day Bush moved into the White House, they'd been muttering about going back into Iraq. 9/11 was merely the trigger that set off the stampede. It was a long, long time before you could buck the White House without being accused of hating America and being on the side of the Terrorists.
Re: (Score:3)
They didn't run roughshod over checks and balances. He had more or less full congressional authorization. Congress in the 1990s had made regime change official US policy and in 2003 authorized the war.
Democrats did not want a foreign policy election. Had they thwarted Bush Democrats "undermining the US war on terror" would have been the election. They probably would have won, but in 2002 the American people were solidly behind Bush.
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Indeed, no.
The various western intelligence agencies made a bunch of allegations about WMD, the UN weapons inspectors tried to follow up on that intel to have hard factual evidence. As it turend out the western intelligence was somewhere between completely wrong and fabricated, which end of the spectrum is secondary, since it was not a secret that the weapons inspectors didn't find anything. It was in the news. At the time. Everyone knew. That was why the french, the turks the germans the canadians etc
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Completely agreed.
In reality, an anti-war protest in London in Feb 2003 saw a crowd of approximately 1 million people gather in Hyde Park, preceded and succeeded by several other London protests at around 500,000 people. And we still went to war.
That's real social pressure of a sort that is far more real and tangible (and persuasive to politicians) than chatter on an internet microblogging site. There was nothing but hostility to the war here, and we still went. If Tony Blair was willing to face down crowds
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love-o-jebus, The nations staged the largest protest in American History... Millions across the nation in every major city and many small towns publically assembled to scream and shout, "We see you, We know what you're doing, and this war is the thinnest of shams." I was in San Francisco, there was a veritable sea of pissed off humanity as far as the eye could see. The life support systems for rectums in D.C. weren't interested, and the wholly owed and operate media was too busy fellating Dick (how appropriate) Cheney and Rummy.
Twitter could have tweeted its brains out, I can't imagine it would have made a popcorn fart in a hurricane of difference.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
The anti-war protests may have been some of the largest in history, but they were still dwarfed by all those who approved of it. On average, the US supported the war. Furthermore, the people in power - politicians, journalists and other newsmakers branded everyone who disagreed with the impending war as traitors. Remember the phrase "It's not unpatriotic to disagree"? Yeah, it was coined by protesters who were tired of being essentially threatened with firing squads every time they spoke up.
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Forget questioning the war, this was back when a newscaster *not wearing a flag pin* on his lapel could get fired for it.
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I knew all this stuff at the time. From public radio and the web. The pro-war people I talked to didn't give a damn. Remember, the nation had 9/11 fever. It was unamerican not to give the president full support no matter how stupid his actions seemed. Twitter would have been full of that too.
It was a crazy time. Even renaming "french fries" into "freedom fries" was considered to be reasonable.
Very few asked about the game plan after Iraq was conquered. There was the distinct notion that the Allied forces would be welcomed with cheers.
This was the final insult to everbody who risked life and limb in that war. Not only was the whole war based on falsehoods and fabrication. It was not planned. At all.
There were no plans for after the war. There were no plans how to achieve the overall goal of
Wow, you know what (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitter, what can't it do? Surely somewhere in Twitter there is a time traveler that can go back and let 2003-era America know that they are about to make a huge mistake!
I mean, twitter is fucking awesome, right? It freed all those people in Africa, what's to stop it from just making a picture fucking perfect world out of this whole god forsaken planet?
Tell us, Hugh Pickens, what is next for our social media superhero?
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He's too busy with his hoverboard and flying pie tins.
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twitter is fucking awesome, right?
twitter brings twits together... to breed even twittier twittlets
No, but, well, maybe (Score:2)
Revisionist (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Revisionist (Score:4, Insightful)
The Iraq war was not an unpopular idea at the time. It became unpopular in hindsight.
There are a few million people who would disagree [wikipedia.org] with you.
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well yeah... but I suppose you're forgetting how popular is defined.
twitter wouldn't have done diddly dat for it. few million tweets wouldn't have done it.
BUT - if the people who knew the smoking gun was bullshit had made media appearances, on twitter or on tv - anyone who had the credibility anyways - then there might have been a difference. BUT TWITTER HAS SQUATDILIDOLI TO DO WITH THAT POSSIBILITY! there were thousands of blogs about opposing the war.
Re:Revisionist (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anyone remember what the approval rating of going to war was just before? ISTR it was just above 50% but it's been a long time.
Re:Revisionist (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. Twitter would have been full of war cheerleaders shouting down the handful of dissenters, just like every other popular online forum at the time.
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The Iraq war was an unpopular idea at the time. Some of the largest protests ever occured in opposition to the Iraq war. That the media at the time doesn't make this clear is testament to the power of the American propaganda system.
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Depends on how you want to split it and people were very split and very scared at the time. Back then you could ask the average person on the street if they favored going into Iraq and the frequent response would be something along the lines of: I want to support the troops. It wasn't overwhelming support, it was fear for our children and anger and sorrow for our dead.
It was also a very heady time. I remember walking into a bar prior to the run up and a KBR employee was handing out flutes of Dom and wearing
It would have just meant more cheerleaders (Score:3)
There were a lot of warning signs that the Western press' support for the Arab Spring may have been a bad idea too, but Twitter certainly didn't stop that.
Re:It would have just meant more cheerleaders (Score:5, Insightful)
Your criticizing 2(Egypt, Tunisia) successful peaceful changes of power to fledgling democracies on the grounds that there was another that wasn't peaceful and another that wasn't successful or peaceful?
Or are you angry at the results of democracy in Egypt?
Something more specific that I'm missing?
It's hard to compare that to Iraq where every major claim the Bush administration(and the media) were making turned out to be quite literally the opposite of reality.
You may not remember these claims that were common by war cheerleaders:
Claim: "It will pay for itself." Reality: The war cost 6 trillion dollars
Claim: "It will take less than a week." Reality: 9 years
Claim: "Actively pursuing chemical weapons." Reality: not even a hint of evidence to that effect
Claim: "Collaborating with al qaeda." Reality: Hussein was actively suppressing islamist movements in Iraq.
Claim: "Greeted as liberators." Reality: A few staged photo shoots to that effect.
I mean, I can't think of a single true thing that was said by a pro-war speaker before the war, with the exception of one thing that stuck with me that bush said the night of the Invasion, slightly paraphrasing from imperfect memory: "This won't be like the wars Americans are used to. American soldiers will die." Fucking dead on for once.
Maybe? (Score:3)
No, the powers that be didn't care (Score:3)
The Bush Administration had decided even before getting their "evidence" that Iraq delenda est.
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I keep saying this, but it was officially recorded in the Republican platform in 2000 that invading Iraq was something they wanted. If anything 9-11 delayed their plans. Only people who weren't paying attention didn't know it was going to happen.
Then again, it was harder to pay attention when the party platforms weren't just something you could grab off the Internet.
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You are correct, sir. There was also no shortage of public opposition because the Bush administration was clearly full of shit. However, post 9/11, everyone in Washington was too afraid of the sky falling to say anything. There was also substantial neo-con support for the war. Even without Twitter, there was substantial activity on forums, chat boards, IM, email, etc both for and against the war. It changed nothing. To stop anything in DC, you need massive unanimous public support as was the case with
Please don't (Score:2)
Stop worshipping Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a blog post 140 characters at a time. Why 140 characters? Because Twitter is a relic dating back to a time when phones couldn't send messages any longer than that (thank you SMS, you reinvented the modern haiku). It's as unimportant now as it was when it was founded. The rise of Twitter mirrors the spread of the dread scourge of centralization that has taken hold as Software as a Service started to flourish: perhaps this newspost is what it will take for you to stop and re-examine how concentrated the providers of the Internet services you use every day have become.
No, because the "ignorance" wasn't accidental (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, many of the claims were debunked by the UN and others prior to Powell's speech (some in the same UN session, some earlier, some both), and had been covered extensively in the news pages of the major media. The "mainstream media" didn't ignore it, though the pro-war commentary in the major media did; the major media just separated the coverage of the "air-tight" case from the coverage of all the holes that had been drilled in it before it was even presented, which was conscious misrepresentation, not accidental ignorance that faster delivery could have addressed.
So, its unlikely Twitter would have changed things in a different way than the blogs did: the people that were paying attention to the sources which debunked Powell would, perhaps, have seen the debunking in a different format, but the people that didn't see it still wouldn't have seen it.
It wasn't "ignorance", nor was it lies (Score:3)
The motto of CIA's National Clandestine Service is the Latin "Veritatem Cognoscere": Know the truth. It's no wonder that so many believe the function of intelligence services is to discover the "truth".
Mark Lowenthal, former CIA Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, spent some time in his book "Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy", now the gold standard for undergraduate and graduate intelligence texts, explaining that intelligence is not about truth at all, but rather abo
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell me, how has Twitter stopped the numerous stupid political decisions since 2006?
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It's done the next best thing; it's let us know whenever the politicians take a dump.
No. Journalism is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalism died at least 5 years before the Iraq war. "News" media outlets are corporate/political megaphones, they are NOT the "4th estate" that keeps the checks and balances we hoped.
Look how the media was duped to demonize the United Nations during the entire Bush Presidency, even before the Iraq war. Long before we went to war, the UN's policies and internal politics were marginalized and they were made to look like a bunch of bumbling fools so when the Bush Admin got around to saying that Hans Blix didn't know what he was talking about, we idiotically believed it.
And "news" has gotten worse as time goes on. If you watch *any* of the corporate run media outlets, you're horribly mis-informed. Twitter isn't going to change that.
Hell no (Score:3)
it would probably be even worse. BS propaganda stories fly even FASTER since there isn't a mainstream media response to them. Do any of you get those bogus "conservative schools some maxism liberal" emails from friends? Most of them don't take more than a couple google searches to discredit timelines and quotes, but that doesn't stop them from spreading.
People are NOT more informed in the age of social media just as the flood of cable news outlets didn't lead to more high quality news coverage.
Who says Twitter users would have known better? (Score:3)
IIRC, polls showed around 90% of American supported the war on the eve of invasion. I recall an environment where objecting was widely seen as unpatriotic and cowardly -- the jingoism started after 9/11 and I never saw anything like it in our country; it was shocking and frightening. Twitter may have fanned the flames even higher.
Of course, I'm sure a poll today would show that only 10% remember being part of that 90%, and the rest will assure you that they would have protested loudly.
Or outlet for the misinformed? (Score:3)
Or would it have had the opposite affect, with posts/reposts of the same copy and post mindlessness that engulfs every social site? I would like to think the speculations of "bringing out the truth" were the case, but I'm pessimistic.
When a ? is on a headline, the answer is NO (Score:2)
Hindsight is 20-20... (Score:2)
And the assertions about "an absent media" don't match my recollections from that time (and I was paying very close attention to the run-up.) There certainly should have been more discussion of what happens after Saddam falls, but the current trope of a delinquent media is as much about current political posturing as it is about an evaluation of what was known -at that time-.
Public Radio ran a piece today pointing out that apparently part of Saddam's focus was not on preventing/reacting to a US invasion,
Re:Hindsight is 20-20... (Score:5, Interesting)
Horseshit, we KNEW he didn't have WMD because all of these issues were known at the time. It wasn't a revelation that Saddam's foreign policy involved faking having WMDs to scare off Iran. We had inspectors on the ground and everywhere they looked they found jack squat. About the only things we couldn't account for were chemical and biological weapons that had expired YEARS before the invasion.
We also had publicly available empirical evidence that what was being fed to the public was fake information. The notion that there was any *real* doubt is HORSESHIT. Oh, there was plenty of artificially-produced doubt. The only people who didn't know this was a bullshit invasion were those who didn't follow foreign affairs closely.
Joe Wilson, Italian intelligence, yellow cake, the Downing Street Memos, aluminum tubes, Hans Blick [sic], Judith Miller, etc. The history rewrite has always been the attempt to pretend that there was ambiguity.
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And you visited these weapon sites in Iraq? You personally reviewed the evidence, including classified data and the associated assessments, not just from the US but also from the UK, France, etc? And your qualifications for evaluating WMD evidence are? Can you demonstrate your -contemporaneous- evaluation of this as "bullshit"?
At the time, there were clearly documented disagreements about the credibility of competing pieces of evidence; I remember the debates. I remember saying at the time that I though
Re: (Score:3)
Great counterpoint! I didn't personally see any Iraqi WMD sites so I should shut the fuck up?
I did however see Hans visiting bombed out storage facilities filled with some of the EMPTY chemical weapon shells that were "missing" that had been sitting there in bombed out facilites untouched since 1991.
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not all Bush's fault (Score:5, Informative)
though its fun and all to blame Bush for Iraq, all you have to do is look back a year or so before he got into office and see that Clinton, Albright, Kerry, Berger, Pelosi and more were pounding those drums as well...
"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California), Statement on US Led Military Strike Against Iraq, December 16, 1998
"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now -- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff. February 17, 1998
"The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people." President Clinton, Oval Office Address to the American People, December 16, 1998
"Imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened, believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And some day, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University, February 18, 1998
"No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators." Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's Secretary of State, Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University, February 18, 1998
Better than the marches? (Score:2)
I recall large congregations of antiwar marchers in several countries, almost entirely ignored by mainstream media at the time.
Why would Twitter have any more potent effect, if the mainstream media demonstrated their willingness to bend/ignore reality?
Your vote is supposed to be the powerful message, and the political leaders bear greater responsibility in the tragedy. Yet America re-elected GWB after the war began, and nearly elected his cabal again recently. Politicians do what you let them. It is not the
A Million Protesters in London - No Chance (Score:5, Interesting)
Over a million people took to the streets of London to protest against the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Britain still got involved.
I was one of the idiots that believed that there were WMD and that the politicians knew more than we did (national security and all that). But I was young and naive. I was also stupid enough to believe that we were going there as Liberators, not Occupiers, and then I was shocked to see the way we (the Coalition) treated the Iraqis.
I am also disgusted at the mess we've left the country in. There is rampant sectarian violence, suicide bombings and Islamofascism. It makes the Northern Ireland Troubles look like a village fete.
Re: (Score:2)
The largest protests in the history of the planet occurred during the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
No (Score:2)
Applying 10 years hindsight on how people should have been enlightened enough to use Twitter to stop the US going to war is wrong. Remember at the time most of the US was screaming for payback and Iraq was the obvious scapegoat for the 9/11 attacks.
Chances are Twitter would have only solidified public opinion to go to war quicker as any anti-war sentiment at the time would have been slammed out of existence as being unpatriotic.
Also its not like there were no social networking outlets available for public
But we DO have twitter now (Score:2)
And the media continues to spread disinformation to advance its own pet causes. The United States has continued nation building, and has even started NEW wars (and proxy wars) since twitter came of age. It wasn't twitter that had to go to the floor of the house and demand that the President of the USA declare he doesn't have the right to kill us in our sleep! I agree it's an interesting tool for the spreading of links and content, and with more information it seems that people /should/ be more informed,
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and follow me at @ddombrowsky [twitter.com] :)
Yes (Score:2)
You know what would have been nice though? If twitter had been around for a couple of years before that, and it had today's popularity back in 2003. I saw somewhere earlier in this thread that claimed 90% of America was in support of the war at the time. That seems a bit high, but regardless of what that number is,
Is There an Example? (Score:3)
Is there an example of any U.S. government propaganda coming out, and Twitter ju-jitsuing it so that the media focus then become entirely the opposite? At any time? Because this is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, whereas I'm seeing zero evidence.
Media and Government would have ignored Twitter. (Score:4, Insightful)
I marched in Orange County, CA just before the Iraq War started. There were at least 100,000 people on Jamboree Blvd. I was there. I saw them. Now, Orange County is one of the most conservative regions of California. It produced Richard Nixon, and usually has Republican representatives. So the fact so many citizens would leave work to march against a coming war was incredible to me.
That night I watched the news. Nothing. Not a single thing. Probably the biggest civil political protest in Orange County history and it wasn't on the news (at least that I saw). It should have been ALL OVER the news.
That's when I knew this "liberal media" was not true. It's really "corporatist media" and because the media in general decided for whatever reason to support the war they ignored the fact that an unprecedented number of regular citizens were against it. I learned a lot about how the world works that day. I really don't think Twitter would have made a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. How is some nobody's blog-bullshit ending up on the front page of Slashdot. News for nerds? There's not a single XKCD "What if?" question less deserving of Slashdot than this pointless nonsense.
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Perhaps Pearl Harbor wouldn't have led to US involvement in WWII if FDR had to make his announcement via Twitter, though. "Yesterday, a date which will live in infamy, the USA was attacked by Japan. Now we're at war. Uh, they suck. Kill 'em all. #imperialism"
Re: (Score:2)
The US media is about making money. They wouldn't have pushed the antiwar stance even with twitter, since many of the twits would have been pro war.
Re:This just in: (Score:4, Informative)
Pearl Harbor *had* radar on December 7, 1941. Unfortunately, inexperience in its use and poor communication protocols led the operators to mistake the first incoming Japanese attack wave for a flight of B-17s that was due to land at Hickam Field at about that time (the bombers actually showed up in the middle of the attack and had to land while under fire).