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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

> He was a big supporter of the Iraq war, even making a song "Let's Roll".

“Let's roll” was released in 2002, and was very explicitly about the passengers of United 93 and the story constructed from the available information from that flight of the passengers fighting back against the hijackers after becoming aware of the earlier attacks. Neither the timing nor the lyrics nor anything else about it supports the idea that it is about the 2003 Iraq War.

As I recall, that song came out in the days following 9/11, and was based on the account of Todd Beamer and others who fought back on United 93. It was not about support for the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think Neil Young ever came out in support of the wars. He spoke out plenty against the Iraq war, including the song "Living With War".

"Let's Roll" was adopted as a Bush slogan at the time. The lyrics also talk about going where evil hides and rooting them out.

He clearly supported the administration. I replied to another comment in this thread with sourced quotes.

The vast majority of Americans were of the same mind as Neil, and they all eventually turned against the administration when it was clear what was going on.

People are too quick to flag comments.

Please tell me that you don't consider the later appropriation of "Let's Roll" to somehow mean that people like Neil Young had committed the original sin of supporting the wars. By that logic, is Todd Beamer guilty of the same?

It's startling the ease and quickness with which some people will see a way ascribe some perceived right-wing guilt to someone like Neil Young. I'm not a fan of Young, and my politics are very different than his, but I certainly won't lay blame at his feet for being too right-wing or supporting wars, as this was never the case.

Read my other comment in this thread, there's a quote from him directly supporting war.

This is so far off base it strains credulity. Charitibly I'll ask for citations. Young's 2006 album "Living With War" was specifically critical of the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

"Let's Roll" was a Bush slogan when Neil released that song.

If you read my comment carefully, I said he "eventually came around", i.e. the 2006 album.

I specifically remember him being on TV supporting war in the middle east. I found some quotes to corroborate my memory:

"Many artists also seemed to take unpredictable positions as spokespeople. Neil Young shocked his audience at the 2001 People for the American Way gala, at which he received a Spirit of Liberty Lifetime Achievement Award, when he endorsed administration policy by saying that “we’re going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time.” [1]

"We're going to do the job, and then we're going to get back to being who we are." [2]

But somehow my comment gets flagged, because everyone can't believe that their hero made a mistake, which over 90% of the US population made by the way.

[1] http://www.posgrado.unam.mx/musica/pdfLR/sesion9/GarofaloUSP...

[2] https://freerepublic.com/focus/fr/589986/posts

But neither of those quotes are about actually going to war. If we read both of your cited sources, there's nothing in context before, during or after each quote that says war is what he was referencing. Rather, he was speaking each time about giving up our freedoms for a bit and then getting back to where we were; think additional security screening at airports, not being allowed to bring water bottles on a plane, beefed up security presences elsewhere, etc.. He's very specifically talking about civil liberties, not war.

Do you have an actual quote where he talks about war itself?

Edit: So, both of your links reference the exact same event that Neil Young spoke at, the People for the American Way gala in 2001. The timing of this event is key. The second article you cited was published on 12/13/2001, and says Neil Young claimed that "Bush's anti-terrorism measures were necessary". The PATRIOT Act had just gone into effect on 10/26/2001[1], but we didn't go to Iraq until 2003.

It's terribly obvious that Young discussing Americans giving up certain freedoms temporarily is in regards to a law that was just passed that stripped away certain levels of freedom. I'm not sure how sending troops to Iraq two years later would have stripped away freedoms from citizens domestically. I'm also not sure how Neil Young - a famously anti-war individual - would be speaking out in support of a war that wouldn't happen for another two years without ever actually saying anything about fighting, military, "war", etc.

Edit 2: Even USA Today confirmed this way back when[2]...

>Not long after recording the song "Let's Roll," a tribute to passengers who apparently fought back against hijackers on doomed United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, Young came out publicly in support of the U.S. Patriot Act.

>The legislation, which gave law enforcement authorities broad new powers aimed at bolstering the administration's war on terror, was harshly criticized by some as threatening Americans' civil liberties.

>But at a December 2001 ceremony accepting an award from the free-speech advocacy group People For the American Way, Young said he believed the measure was necessary, though he urged the audience to ensure that its more controversial provisions were only temporary.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

[2]https://www.today.com/popculture/young-sings-impeaching-bush...

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