Political support for America’s aspirations in Iraq in general, and for the presidential author of that strategy in particular, has slipped from percentages marked in the high 70’s in 2003 to the mid-30’s or so in 2006-2007. Those of us “left behind” have often been derided by those to whom the muddled middle shifted as Myrmidons, dead enders and Dear Leader bots.
Certainly things have not everywhere gone as we might have hoped, but many of us believed, and continue to believe, that what we were attempting was both radical and critical – that unprecedented attempts would come with unique challenges, that a worthwhile act ought not be overthrown on a whimsy, far less for partisan advantage. Whenever we have been tempted to stop and question ourselves, we are gratefully provided with statistics like these:
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.
And that’s not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.
The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination – and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.
Given the near certainty that there is significant – and perhaps comprehensive – overlap between the truthers and anti’s on the one hand, and the unswervables on the other, we are happy to remain in that comfortable minority who continue to apply Occam’s razor while adhering to notions of optimism, principle, liberty and liberalism, classically defined. We remain committed both to reason and the values this nation was founded upon, in other words, rather than their pale and accomodationist alternatives. We dare to hope.
The rest of you are free tighten down your tinfoil. They use radio waves, you know.
To find out what you’re thinking.
(H/T to Dan Collins)
Update: It’s true that there was a general alarm that something big was going to happen in the Summer of 2001, but that’s not the question that the Scripps News poll asked:
How about that some people in the federal government had specific warnings of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings. Is this very likely, somewhat likely or unlikely?
Very Likely………………….. 32
Somewhat Likely………………. 30
Unlikely…………………….. 30
Don’t Know/Other………………. 8
You don’t get to denounce conspiracy theories in general and then say, well: Bush knew!!1! and maintain any kind of credibility. If that matters at all.
“A comfortable minority,” huh?
Well, I suppose that’s the positive spin on things.. Another way to look at it is that 60% of the country have lost their minds and are taking us with them. I think it’s time to get serious about shooting lessons.
This is what you get when you feed people the “the Daily Show” as their primary source of information. While it is often funny, some people just can’t cypher out the “comedy” from the “truth”. Too many of those cute one-liners go into people’s memories as the truth, when they are meant to to be comedy.
They end up living in a world that only Ron Paul and Chuck Baris would love.
The richer truth is that the MSM will do nothing to aid in dispelling any of these theories. When Popular Mechanics is the best voice of reason, you know our airwaves are going disused.
Where does this stupidity come from? Is it public education, lack of science classes and too many social interaction classes?
Babs, I think you hit the nail right no the head about some of the roots of the insanity.
Neo, I was disgusted last week to hear that John Stewart from the Daily SHow was considered an icon and that his show was one of the only shows you can get the TRUTH…. oh brother…. granted it was all the Hollywood types spouting off.
Fbl, I have often thought the rest of the country was insane… you summed it up well.
And Lex… you said
Certainly things have not everywhere gone as we might have hoped, but many of us believed, and continue to believe, that what we were attempting was both radical and critical – that unprecedented attempts would come with unique challenges, that a worthwhile act ought not be overthrown on a whimsy, far less for partisan advantage.
Yes… that is what I have been trying to say to some.. for quite some time!!
Years ago, when asked why 95% of Science Fiction was crap, Issac Azimov replied, “Why not? 95% of everything is crap”. I guess the same goes for people.
Lex, I couldn’t agree with you more! I am PROUD to say that we stand fast with our leadership in Washington DC. Our entire family does!
I would also like to post part of a letter I received just today, from my cousin, Major John Voss, USMC, (ret.) now living in Escondido. John is now serving his Master, working with the Navigators in and around Camp Pendleton.
Just like you, he was also evacuated during the recent SoCal firestorms. As a matter of fact, it was on his 38th anniversary that they were forced from their home.
He forwarded a letter from a Lt. Col. Daniel Williams, USMC, “so that we can know that there is COMPASSION in the grateful hearts of the Iraqi people!!!” Col. Williams went on to say, “There is an unusual outpouring of gratitude and compassion here in Iraq, in one of the camps my unit works with. The Iraqi leadership at Camp Besmaya, east of Baghdad, called an emergency meeting with us and their commander, Col. Abbas, in his best broken English, shared the following message with the Iraqi and Coalition soldiers who were present…”
The senior US military official, Col. Maxfield, USMC, reported this:
“Late last night after the training day wound down, Col. Abbas, the Besmaya Installation Iraqi Commander asked all US personnel to come to his briefing room for a matter of ‘most’ importance. We went over to his briefing room and after calling the room to attention, Col. Abbas brought his staff in and addressed us.”
He read a document and spoke emotionally from his heart. He spent a great deal of time speaking in broken English, thanking all of his “American Brothers” and trying to illustrate the things that the US has brought to his country that are good, from the fall of “that murderer Saddam” to the liberation of “all the peoples…” of his country. (Not just some of them.)
He was clearly moved and each of his staff was trying as best they could to convey their genuine concern for the military “peoples that are in San Diego that have brought them freedom.” They then presented an envelope that was signed and sealed by Col. Abbas for the RELIEF EFFORT for the victims. “I’m honored to partici9pate by sending you a simple fund (1,000$) to the American people in San Diego City, to lowering their suffering from the wild fire.”
“That’s for the feeling of being brothers and friends and for the great connections together”, Col. Abbas added.
Col. Darel Maxfield, USMC, said in his letter that, “in the months I’ve been here, I have never been so moved. The emotion was genuine and the sotry of the moment was priceless. Please help us tell the story.”
As I said, my cousin sent me a report of this wonderful act and I wanted to comply with the Colonel’s request to spread the story, despite the length of the post.
Let’s see if this report bounces off their tinfoil hats… or, would it be possible for it to sink in?!
I think the arguement that there is some sort of more enlightened minority is just wrong.
Now, do the American people take the time to really understand issues-not at all. However whe n you cut through the fluff, the gut instinct of the majority is correct when it comes to Iraq. Namely that however nobly minded-the adventure was a mistake and sidetracked the US from its long term foreign policy objectives.
If anything, that’s the same kind of elitist thinking that one decries on the other side every day. If such an analysis is true, its damning indictment of both sides of the aisle.
There is , of course, another way to look at it.
The first question is worded in such a way as to produce a larger number.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.
That doesn’t necessarily point to a conspiracy. It could include those intelligence guys who thought that something was up, or who were denied permission to follow up on Mohammed Atta, etc. Whoever conducted the survey had an anti-Bush point to make, and did it.
Hope indeed…
and pray…
Skippy, I would be happy to read the article if I could access more than just the first two paragraphs. But pay to do so? Nah … not even to find out ‘the truth’ about the neocons. [ICSFTH]
Pixelkiller: That’s actually Sturgeon’s Law, not Asimov’s. Linky:
http://www.google.com/search?q=sturgeon%27s+law&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Math Mage – Sorry. While certainly plausible, your “Sturgeon’s Law” still sounds a little “fishy” to me.
All for now….Carry on.
.
Fliterman–That’s a low pun.
Don’t let theodore hit you on the way out…
“Certainly things have not everywhere gone as we might have hoped, but many of us believed, and continue to believe, that what we were attempting was both radical and critical -”
What?….you actually supported the whole “bring western-style democracy to Iraq and the middle-east” fantasy?
I suppose that even smart people can have lapse in judgment.
Babs,
I think it’s a conspriracy- all that fluoride in the water and all those cell phone waves..yep, that too!
We both know what it really is- ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills backed up by piss-poor education, buttressed by a pervading belief in non-judgmentalism. Basically, like that General said, “being stuck on stupid”!
Gee Skippy. Moi too? I must be an elitist….or is it because I score high on standardized tests or is it because I’m blinded by political allegiance? LOL.
Some of us here have visited a bar-room or two in their lives (Skippy & B2 more)..Have you ever heard some of the most convoluted opinions come out of some folks loosened by alcohol? Oftentimes unsolicited and without guile, perfectly convinced. Yep. It’s scary times, sorta like the “dark ages with electricity”.
I take Lex’s post as a positive stroke for pointing out the differences. Thanks Lex.
b2
I don’t find these statistics particularly surprising. I don’t know who said it, but picture in your mind the intelligence of the average American. Got it? Now, remember that half the population is stupider than that guy. Or gal.
ManlyDad said what I was thinking. It’s how the question is phrased. I think the gov’t had warnings about 9/11. That doesn’t mean I think it was any sort of conspiracy. The idea that anyone in the U.S. military or law enforcement would have stood by, or acted in concert with the Islamic terrorists that carried out 9/11, is ludicrous. There is not a 9/11 conspiracy theory that even begins to stand up to scrutiny.
Unfortunately, it’s simpler and more tragic than that. As long as we were only playing a defensive game, it was theirs to win. Our defense had to be perfect. They only had to score when they could.
Sorry, Skippy-san, but a “majority” weren’t on the side of the Patriots in the Revolution.
Namely that however nobly minded-the adventure was a mistake…
As may be, but it does not follow that a potentially satisfactory result should be tossed aside out of pique and/or partisanship.
Math_Mage:
I will stand corrected. It’s been too many years since I was a avid reader of Analog and looked foreward each month to John Campbell’s editorials. When he passed on I let my subscription lapse. (God! When was that? I have boxes of old issues still in my cellar). Anyway, Issac Asimov had a monthly science fact column which I also devoured. I was sure Issac said what I said he said at some book signing thingy way back then in response to some buttoned-down interviewer. What-the-hell.
So, Math_Mage, being from the age of “Gears & Levers” and unused to digital search engines, once again my memory is shown to be prone to errors. Sorry.
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.” -A. Lincoln
Flatlander … what a splendid quote from Lincoln! I’ve never heard it before, but it sums up so much of a Life philosophy that really works. And it has the Lincoln trademark … simple words, going straight to the bullseye. I certainly hope he really, actually said it.
Thanks for telling us.
Marianne Matthews
I have a knack for finding or attracting these kinds of conspiracy theorists. Years ago, standing in line at a very upscale store (one that I frequented just that one time, so shocking were the prices and so tiny my purchase for the money spent) I ended up behind 2 rather well dressed, clearly well-heeled women. They were chattering on to each other about all the “things” they were worried about. I decided to tune in, as I really had nothing better to do while waiting. In the end, I had to ask a question about something they said about the government spraying lethal chemicals over Long Island in an attempt to eradicate an unsavory element (that element remained undefined). I wish I was kidding, but I’m not. These 2 wealthy, older women were convinced the government was spraying chemicals over Long Island – among other amusing tidbits.
Things haven’t changed much, have they.
Skippy,
What longterm objectives have been sidetracked? Isn’t the primary purpose of the Federal government to protect it’s citizens from enemies, both foreign and domestic? And, as Daveg said, even if it was a mistake, we shouldn’t throw out a potential positive outcome for partisan advantage. Has “the other side” become so cynical that it would sacrifice Iraqi children for political points?
Jim C
Elvis warned the federal government about 911. He also shot JFK.
Liz,
You sure it wasn’t Chuck Barris?
You know Kris, I have to tell you that in about 1994 the gov’t did spray the populace in SoCal with malathion. This was an effort to get rid of the mediteranian fruit fly. We all got sprayed. The situation became so extreme that certain people were threatening to shoot the copters out of the sky.
Babs, Santa Clara County received aerial applications of malathion around 1991. It was mildly creepy watching several DC-3’s fitted with spray rigs flying north to south overhead in line abreast formation.
The spray was a sugar solution laced with malathion, and I guess it, and other measures, kept the Mediterranean fruit fly from spreading.
Some state official answered some complaints about the program by drinking a glass of the spray on TV. He didn’t immediately expire (nor subsequently either, as far as I know).
A number of health studies conducted by the CDC, and other entities, here and in Florida after a similar spray campaign pretty much all returned a verdict of no measurable effect on people or their pets or livestock.
Hard on the fruit flies, but I know that local fruit growers thought of them as unsavoury elements.
steveH – They actually did it 10 years before that too, in 1980/1. I remember going up in the hills and watching the helecopters go back and forth all over the sections they were covering. Caused quite a stir in the pre-gigabyte Silicon valley days. They didn’t use DC3’s to my knowledge, I remember hueys… distinct whump sound that they made, foreign to the area as it was, as we were all used to the P-3 Orion’s turbo-props. I don’t remember the guy chugging the stuff, but I do remember it getting all over everyones cars. Funny, right after that, the PC revolution really exploded. What “really” was that stuff anyway???
However when you cut through the fluff, the gut instinct of the majority is correct when it comes to Iraq. Namely that however nobly minded-the adventure was a mistake and sidetracked the US from its long term foreign policy objectives.
Let’s see …
… pre-empting Iraq from becoming the high-tech Afghanistan with respect to terrorist logistics …
… sending several thousand jihadis to meet their 72 Virginians, instead of leaving them free to come to Virginia and do that voodoo that they do so well …
… showing the world that the disciples of bin Laden can be defeated, while simultaneously proving that the yearning for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness transcends culture and religion …
… exposing the UN as a Petri dish for immoral, corrupt, liars-in-formal-wear …
… facilitating an opportunity to live free and pursue happiness — historically, a powerful national vaccine against totalitarian infection — for 25 million people …
… and doing all this in a highly-interconnected global civilization, where the dysfunction of any nation can too quickly threaten others … in an age where fanatics and thugs no longer need the discipline and time to build arms and raise armies in order to threaten the world …
… If those aren’t legitimate foreign-policy objectives, they should be!
The real peace song is not Kumbiyah …
… it is Yippie-Ky-Ay-A.
Enough repeat performances huh Skippy?
I went to university with a guy who is now the founder and owner of a successful data warehousing business. He also believes crop circles are made by aliens. I also went to university with numerous people who were dedicated JFK conspiracy believers. I don’t know whether there are enough sensible, rational people in the US to maintain ethical and coherent government in a democracy. Because many parents in the US now encourage their children to despise “Truth, Justice and the American Way”, what happens when they get to be the great majority of voters?
re- “..what happens when they get to be the great majority of voters?”
We’all wonder about that quite a bit here at ChezLex “King”….
b2