Robert D'Angelo
One of the most “dangerous” conspiracy theories of my lifetime has been the speculation about the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the United States’ subsequent response to them…. because when fifteen Saudi Arabians are responsible for one the most tragic days in American history, everybody and their Mother could tell you the next “logical” step would be invading Iraq and killing 375,000 civilians?
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375,000 civilians. Think about the magnitude of that number. The total number of undergraduate students at SEC schools is 371,233. If the whole SEC was wiped out tomorrow, it still wouldn’t equate the damage inflicted upon the Iraqi population
One of the biggest critics of the Bush administration is a man many of you know very well. I’m not going to say his name, but let’s just say he’s big, he’s red, and he got sued for over a billion dollars this past year. Like many people, this man had problems with the justifications for invading Iraq. The claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, was responsible for 9/11, and was the absolute WORST person (or group) to be leading the Iraqi people.
We were then told that we would liberate Iraqis from their abusive leader- anybody who disagreed with this sentiment was a conspiracy theorist who hated America, loved Saddam, and didn’t sympathize with the families of 9/11 victims. As it turns out, Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush administration’s incompetent plan for restructuring their government left their population worse off.
You know how Buzzfeed has those where are they now updates from famous actors of the 1990s? Let’s see where the Iraq crew is today.
Former President George W. Bush currently makes $100,000 per hour he speaks at events. Bush, the man most responsible for the deaths of 375,000 civilians, did not get sued for over a billion dollars like the man we discussed briefly before; he is an American icon who much of the public likes more than Jamie Lynn Spears.
Dick Cheney, who said that Iraq was working on nuclear weapons (which was a lie), lives a quiet life fishing with a boatload of money.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell both died rich men in 2021.
One of the most vocal Democrat supporters of the invasion of Iraq was a senator from Delaware, who is now (kind of) the President.
As for the journalists that served as the Bush administration’s mouthpieces? David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times who recently wrote this article, Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, and many others got cushy jobs and promotions. As the popular opinion for the invasion changed, one woman was blamed for the media’s bias- Judith Miller from The New York Times.
Except Miller just lives out a destitute career, she never had to pay over a billion dollars for her costly mistakes.
What about the US troops? Our heroes that risked their lives for a fraction of an executive’s pay? Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that 30,177 active-duty personnel and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their own lives over the last nearly 20 years. That doesn’t include the 4,431 troops who died in action. Studies suggest that between 8% and 20% of post-9/11 service members have sustained at least one — frequently more — traumatic brain injuries throughout their service.
I’m glad the United States government has saved me from “misinformation” for my entire life. Fifteen years ago, the economy tanked, and in response, the government and all of our news outlets recognized it was time to talk about race and sexuality more than we have had before. Three years ago, the most crazy conspiracy theorists in the world tried to tell me that I didn’t need to wear a mask, a virus that affected all of our lives didn’t originate the way my government was saying it did, and all of the tech companies were in bed with federal agencies. It seems like we live in a country where yesterday’s conspiracy theory is tomorrow’s scarcely-covered news.
