WHAT A MEMORY!!!

[MojoXN]

I remember that circa late 2002 I had a dental appointment, in ay October or November; that Readers' Digest had "facts and figures" about Iraqi WMD's:

500,000 gallons of Sarin 100,000 gallon of VX, so on so forth. IMMENSE quantites, of all kinds of nasties, we all remember I'm sure.

And, here's the crux of the post: I remember thinking, "How insanely deadly. We have to DO something about this!"

Now, not to self-aggrandize or anything, but I know a LOT about the lethality of various compounds. And, as I was thinking about the chronology of the war and the propaganda that was "catapulted", I remembered this little incident.

I digress. The sheer lethality of the alleged weapons blinded me to the lie. And I find myself wondering, "Now how the hell did they manage to put THAT one over on me?" My critical thinking ability was obliterated by the possibility of unimaginable horror. Anyone else have a similar experience or recollection? Because I'll tell you what, whatever mechanism that THAT reaction operates on is a potent one indeed!

MojoXN

[Dude_CalmDown]

1. Nope.

Luckily I knew enough about these assholes before they stole the office to know that everything they would ever say would be full of shit. So far they haven't proved me wrong once. Glad you're no longer blinded.

:toast:

[Tower]

2. It wasn't anything skillful.

You apparently assumed that your own government would not stoop so low as to flat-out lie to your face and fabricate threats in order to sell a war. You apparently assumed they were either too principled or too smart to do something so intensely stupid. You were wrong, but hey- that says more about them than it says about you.

[aquart]

3. Nah.

I knew none of their near neighbors showed any signs of worry, so why should I? The guys next door had a whole lot more reason to be scared, and to be vigilant.

And it was SUDDENLY being talked about. It came out of nowhere. What? He acquired that stuff in a day? No way.

[cynatnite]

It was scary as hell...

I remember how they outlined all the deadly stuff Saddam supposedly had. It was the very notion of hitting them first that gave me such a sick feeling in my gut. I went from misgivings to believing it and back. When the inspectors were pulled out, my gut said there was no WMD. I hoped there was because of the lives that would be lost in this folly. I didn't want the lives lost to be in vain. To this day, I can't get past that.

The way it sounded Saddam could have hit the US and we were just coming off of 9/11. It really felt that way and when I look at 9/11 I remember how afraid I was. My hubby was in New York City and I couldn't reach him. He was nowhere near the towers or anything, but just knowing he was in the city and I couldn't talk to him so I could know he was safe on such a gut-wrenching day isn't one I care to go through again.

These bastards tapped into one of my worst fears...losing my husband. It was hard to shake for a while.

[leftchick]

6. are you serious?

I have to say I am truly amazed. I never believed those mother fuckers for one second of my life. Obviously none of saddam's neighbors did either.

[cynatnite]

12. It was a roller coaster...

I was going back and forth when they spoke of all the horrible things Saddam supposedly had and coming off of 9/11 the fear didn't completely go away.

It really didn't go away until the invasion because I knew how wrong it was and for risking our military I got angry.

I haven't let those bastards at the WH take over my fear since. They do frighten me at times, but they sure as hell don't control it anymore.

[No Exit]

4. I was NEVER worried about the possibility that Iraq would use

"weapons of mass destruction" on us.

I always kept in mind that WE have a huge, awesome, arsenal of OUR OWN "weapons of mass destruction". I felt that Iraq must know that if it ever dared to attack us, we might well retaliate with a nuclear strike.

I knew from the beginning that the Iraq war was totally wrong. I knew from the beginning that Iraq had nothing to do with Bin Laden--why, Iraq was a SECULAR government, not a rabid religious bunch like the Bin Laden types!

Okay, I knew all that, but now I must point out that up to 2003 I was stupid enough to vote for republicans. So whatever insights I might have had about Iraq are unfortunately eclipsed by my utter STUPIDITY in following the republican party for all my adult years leading up to that.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. The problem may be trying to isolate the rhetorical mechanism

The war was sold by whipping people up into a frenzy - the mechanism was affective first and foremost (as it usually is with such things). The "rational" presentation of evidence - in this case, the sheer quantities of lethal compounds - is processed not as "information" but as a zone of intensity. This is, in fact, the so-called "genius" of the Rove political machine (which everyone knows sold us the war): it knows how to modulate and circulate intensities: none of this has anything to do with so-called "framing" or other semantic-based analyses. It's not a matter of "framing" issues or "articulating" diverse issues. Rather, it's a matter of diagnosing intensities and circulating affects that ramp up or slow down intensities. Moreover, the response to this is not a "return to reason," or reinstalling "truth," but the circulation of other intensities. That's what we saw today. Reid correctly identified a zone of intensity and circulated an appropriate affect that would capture, replicate, and ramp up that intensity.

To isolate the specific numbers may cause you to miss this rhetorical dimension. The numbers constituted or pointed to a zone of intensity, but this zone is always surrounded by and interacting with other intensities, within a swirling field of affective investments. You can diagnose a particularly strong zone within this field, but it's strength is always in part determined by its interaction with other forces. Put more plainly, what sticks in your memory is the high intensity moment of those numbers (this is the nature of memory, which appears to have little to do with "meaning," "framing," or other semantic maneuvers and everything to do with the force of affective experience), but its high intensity was only relative to the whole field of affects: all that was going on and being circulated.

[Old and In the Way]

7. It's counter-intuitive but......

if Saddam did possess those stockpiles, do you think this administration would have committed a 100,000 troops to invade? The fact that they did invade was proof positive that no large scale WMD existed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. You know a lot about the lethality of this stuff? Have you seen this, then

In the summer of 2004, a clam-dredging operation off New Jersey pulled up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged World War I-era explosive was filled with a black tarlike substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base, Del., were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured - one hospitalized with large pus-filled blisters on an arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago finally ended up on shore in the United States.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1030-09.htm

[babylonsister]

10. OMG, I'm appalled! Bookmarked, ney, emailed to self!

GPV, this little bit, personalized, brought this home to me. Thanks.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. You are welcome. Common Dreams is my fave news source on the net and

not just because it's run by other Mainahs.

But yeah, that article had me very worried. Not only do I have to worry about the heavy metals in my tuna, but I might get other lovely stuff mixed in with it as well.

[MojoXN]

14. As a matter of fact...

I had NOT seen that, and it interests me to no end! Thanks! Mustard gas is terrible stuff in its gaseous form. I would have figured that after nearly a century of exposure to halides of various sorts that it would have been inert by now. Apparently, I would have been wrong. I'm not surprised that the shells degraded under those conditions, though. Ah, the hubris of the US, it knows no end!

MojoXN

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Oh, it's not just about the mustard gas (which is awful.. I believe my

great grandfather was exposed to it in WWI... will have to check with my dad on that)

But there is more and worse stuff in that article, so read on. Then we'll need to pull together with the rest of DU as to why we aren't searching for THOSE WMDs.

[Horse with no Name]

9. On the day that Colin Powell addressed the UN--February 5, 2003--

I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office watching TV.
My first grandchild was born later that day.
I remember thinking (and I wasn't political AT ALL...meaning I had no idea about the lies) how important this was.
I BELIEVED Powell when he said our country was in danger.
However...I also remember that many of the people in the waiting room wanted to watch Maury and they turned the channel.
I was like..."I can't believe you all don't understand the importance of this speech...this is about OUR country"....however, channel was switched to Maury and my granddaughter was born by emergency cesarean that day.
It didn't really dawn on me just HOW important that speech was, but gave me a terrific insight of what really is important to many of the sheeple.
Paternity tests on Maury.

[Hubert Flottz]

13. I was more worried about Blane Island going up or the MIC ...

unit at Institute.

I thought they were lying from day one. All the UN weapons experts did too and they were right.

[newscott]

15. Condi almost got me with the mushroom cloud

but I shook it off.

[sakabatou]

17. No, I wasn't into politics until recently, so no.

[paparush]

18. Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud

Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
         Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
         Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
         Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
         Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
              Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
              Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 
                      Mushroom Cloud 
                      Mushroom Cloud 
                      Mushroom Cloud 
                      Mushroom Cloud 
                      Mushroom Cloud 
Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud Mushroom Cloud 

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. A country cut into thirds? By the worlds most powerful military?

For ten years?

[WilliamPitt]

20. Wanna know the funny part?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/disarm.html

It's still all on the WH website.

By the way, it's 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons which is one million pounds of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium from Niger for the robust nuclear weapons program.

January 2003 State of the Union address.

It's still on their website.

[ROH]

21. Amazing list!

Did anything at all (even a very small percentage) on that list turn out to be true?

[paparush]

22. I think they found...

A stale box of Twinkies and half a can of areosol deodorant. If used in a hostile manner, these could be the ingredients of a devestating WMD.

[MojoXN]

24. Un-fucking-believeable...

Wow. Yep, those were the Readers' Digest figures alright... with all kinds of hand drawn pictures of missiles and gas masks and such. I can't BELIEVE that they STILL have those lies on the WH website. I think I'm going to print this out and hand it to the next Shrubyite I run across. Thanks WilliamPitt!

MojoXN

[txindy]

23. Not for me. My reaction was one of pure disbelief.

In fact, I told everyone I knew that when it was shown that the Iraqis did not have WMDs that Junior's flunkies better get busy planting them - or all h*ll would break loose when their lies were discovered.

It's taken long enough, but I do believe the breaking and loosening have begun. ;)