We have a clue about how powerful political propaganda can be when we consider that, more than a year after the Iraq invasion, just before the 2004 presidential elections, a Harris Poll reported that 62 percent of all American voters, and 84 percent of those planning to vote for Bush II, still were of the opinion that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had ''strong links" to al Qaeda, and 41 percent of all voters, and 52 percent of Bush backers, believed that Saddam had "helped
plan and support the hijackers" who attacked the USA, on 9/11. What's more, as an amazing tribute to the force of political propaganda and the tactics of big lies, a whopping 85 percent of the American soldiers themselves still believed, in 2006, three years after the invasion, the falsehood that they were fighting in Iraq “to
retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks," while 77 percent thought that a major reason for the war was “to stop
Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."
Today, a solid majority of Americans think that the Iraq war was a mistake and many are lucid enough to know they have been misled. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Americans, an overwhelming majority, are now opposed to the war. But, it is too late. The damage has been done, and the United States is now solidly bogged down in Iraq. In fact, what is the Bush-Cheney administration's answer to popular rejection? Its response: "Stay the course," "Full speed ahead!" Indeed, notwithstanding the tremendous pro-war
propaganda originating from the partisan American media, 61
percent of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. What is even more damning, a vast majority of Iraqis are turning against the invaders and occupiers. Seventy-one percent of Iraqis see the U.S.-led coalition not as "liberators" but as "occupiers," and 78 percent consider the U.S. military presence in Iraq to have a destabilizing influence. And, not surprisingly, a solid majority of them support an immediate military pullout of foreign troops from their country.
In their grandiose plan, the neocon Bush team intends to have American troops occupy the country of Iraq illegally for as long as one can foresee. They built 14 permanent military bases there and they are constructing a military fortress disguised as an embassy to host the equivalent of a medium-size American town. That way, the United States is sure to be at war in the Middle East for decades to come.
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