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Comment by ccooffee | Hacker News Reader

> very large majority of the people were against it the entire time

I don't think this claim holds up to the evidence. Looking at opinion polls between 9/11 and 2003's invasion of Iraq makes it unclear that a "very large majority" was against the invasion. Here's a quickly-found Gallup poll[0] from October 2002 wherein 53% of polled Americans supported a ground invasion of Iraq.

The American people were misled by government claims about WMDs and handwavy connections between Iraq and 9/11. But that doesn't permit us to retroactively declare that "well, if only the people knew in 2002 what we know now then they would have been against it."

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20171201030755/http://news.gallu...

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>The American people were misled by government claims about WMDs and handwavy connections between Iraq and 9/11. But that doesn't permit us to retroactively declare that "well, if only the people knew in 2002 what we know now then they would have been against it."

Can you explain more? If the American people knew they were being lied to in order to create support for a war, why would they support the war? The argument at the time, repeated all over the media, was that the war was necessary because of WMDs. 53% is a narrow majority supporting invasion, you don't think knowing they were being tricked would have caused at least a 5% swing?

People tolerate being lied to by politicians because they see it as politicians having to convince others to go along with a plan they believe and agree with. They don't see it as politicians lying to them, it's politicians who they approve of and agree with lying to others to convince them to go along with an agenda they approve of.

In other words, it's okay for politicians to lie because the supporters of those politicians believe they are in on the lie.

Sorry, I was trying to make an almost pedantic point. I agree with you that deceiving the public is important to understanding what/why. However, the claim that "very large majority of the people were against it the entire time" is false, and trivially testable. 53% in favor of war means at most 47% against. 47% is not "very large majority".

Would people have been against it _conditioned on having knowledge from today that was unavailable then_? Possibly, but this hypothetical doesn't move discussion in a useful direction.

Had Gallup asked about the atrocities listed above, I don’t think 53% would also support those.

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