And to think - the Bush administration wasn’t even smart enough to *plant *imcriminating evidence of WMD.
Stupid, and incompetent to boot.
For the hopelessly wonkageek amongst us (you know who you are…)
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=684
Harris Interactive site has the survey with the questions as asked. Hey, nothing wonky, just wanted to check it wasn’t a fraud…
Oddly, most of the survey results reflect opinions I would regard as pretty reasonable, overall. The two figures stick out like a sore thumb, about Al Q links and WMD.
Is it possible that people just simply don’t want to make the final admission? Having accepted that it was a bad idea worse in execution, they can’t bring themselves to a more final humiliation, that is, the premise was false to begin with?
Which it was.
Technically, Iraq did have chemical weapons. However, those were a couple of dilapidated warheads from before the first Gulf War. I don’t think they would have been a threat to anyone not standing directly underneath them as they landed.
By those standards, I have plans for an orbiting death ray. Sure, they were sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin after six too many Gin and Tonics, but they’re PLANS for and ORBITING DEATH RAY.
I wonder how Harris phrased the question.
From elucidator’s link:
"Do you believe that the following statements are true or not true?
- Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded."
Meh. Those plans have been around since the 1920s.
Ah, there’s the problem. CD is the bad feeling people get from new info that contradicts existing beliefs. If you eliminate that bad feeling, that’s only going to make people more resistant to facts!
Cite that 1920s style “Death Rays” were orbiting?
So 45% of those that said “not true” to the question are willfully ignorant? Only 36% knew they did last year. I’m with John on this one. Go 'Merika!!!
The best definition of CD I’ve yet come across is an old joke.
A shrink is treating a man who believes that he is dead.
“You sure that you’re dead?”
“Yes, I’m dead, no doubt about it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes!”
“Do dead men bleed?”
The patient thought for a moment, and then said “No, dead men don’t bleed.”
The shrink seized the patient’s finger and thrust a pin into the finger and squeezed out a drop of blood.
“Well”, he said triumphantly “what does that prove?”
The patient stared with wonder and amazement. “Dead men do bleed!”
I think you’re reading the poll results, and John Mace’s post, wrongly. Try again. Table 4a in the linked report.
Enjoy,
Steven
He gets it, he just thinks he’s being clever. Read AFAIKnow’s post #9 of this thread for absolute confirmation of 'Lucy’s thread title.
4b is 2006 results.
I’m wondering though, do you not think there is a lot of truth behind the Goebbels quote? Western governments, mine, yours and a lot of others have done basically done what is described in the quote at times.
This poll is a good example of it to a degree. Even from my position outside the US I was inundated with US officials/spokespeople from every level playing the WMD card. Pearle and Co. were on UK and even Irish*(for fuck sake) TV & Radio all most every day. I didn’t see a lot of them coming back to say they were wrong.
Just because a Nazi cunt said it doesn’t by default make it dismissible.
*One talktime Radio show in Dublin had Pearle V Robert Fisk for half hour slots several times during the run up and start of the war. He was also a regular on the flagship BBC in-depth news show Newsnight
Oh, shut up.
Drivetime not talktime.
I have to say, the ex-Iraqi official who appeared on the Daily Show and stated flat-out that he, personally, saw WMDs in Iraq pre-invasion gave me pause. Was that ever particularly debunked?
Yes, but 4A must have been the one you were referring to because 4B has no data about “last year”. Now that I go back and try to re-parse your original statement, I can’t follow it at all. I’m thinking of calling this one a misque and moving on.
Enjoy,
Steven
I reckon you have to have a bigger noise machine and echo chamber than the right wing has, and you have to be willing to smear them as hard as they smear us.
Well, to be somewhat fair, the question is worded in a bad way.
"Do you believe that the following statements are true or not true?
- Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded."
This is in a country in which quite a number of people are taught to believe in things contrary to the facts. They may know intellectually that we don’t have evidence of any WMD’s and that there is absolutely NO evidence of ties to Al Qaeda, but the question doesn’t ask “Does all evidence point to these things being false?”
It asks what the person believes. They could believe that Saddam had WMD’s but hid them or disposed of them in time. Or that there are secret ties to al Qaeda that are hidden from even our goverment.
This is the country that is increasingly buying ID, creationism, UFOlogy, thinks the moon landing is a hoax and thinks stem cell research is going to lead to some Sci-Fi scenario where people clone themselves to harvest organs.
Of course their beliefs don’t jive with reality. It isn’t that America is Stuid, we are just delusional. Willfully so.
err, that should be stupid, not stuid. (acting like an iron am I?)