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Comment by atlantas | Hacker News Reader

Didn't the majority support the war in Iraq initially? Propaganda works. Consent was successfully manufactured.

That's not the fault of civilians. That goes even more so for those under authoritarian regimes. That's Russia. The people are under the thumb of a dictator and bathed in propaganda 24/7. And who the hell knows how many actually support him or do so out of fear.

How about North Korea? Should we punish their citizens too for not rising against their dictator? I think it's clear that we shouldn't.

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> That's not the fault of civilian

Yes, it is, in the specific case of Iraq. The debunkings of the propaganda (and even the internal documentation of the propaganda effort) were widely published in US/UK media prior to the war.

The war was able to be sold not because the truth was concealed, but because enough people didn't want to hear the truth, they wanted a story which provided an easy outlet for their racist bloodlust.

Was that average pro-war citizens as guilty as the people actively marketing the war? No. But they weren't innocent, either.

Citizenship comes with responsibility.

Holding civilians responsible for the actions of regimes is central to all justification of terrorism. It's a slippery slope, just a heads up.

> Holding civilians responsible for the actions of regimes is central to all justification of terrorism

No, it's not, because most terrorism is, as was the thing for which the name was coined, state terrorism directed at citizens of the state (states who engage in such terrorism tend to prefer to put the focus on other terrorism, of course.) But, even for the kinds of terrorism for which it is true, this part of the rationale is not the problem with terrorism, in the same way that “people are responsible for their own actions” is central to the justification for cruel and unusual punishment for crimes, but is not the problem with that punishment.

The debunkings were published, but major media was heavily pushing the official narrative.

To quote the New York Times' ombudsman (a position that doesn't exist any more) [0]:

> To anyone who read the paper between September 2002 and June 2003, the impression that Saddam Hussein possessed, or was acquiring, a frightening arsenal of W.M.D. seemed unmistakable.

This was the message that the US government, the New York Times, and countless other media organizations were pushing. People who objected were viewed as eccentric, naive, or possibly even cowards who were doing the bidding of a dictator.

0. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/the-public-ed...

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