The conventional wisdom is that you want your fighting men and women to not think too much and to just follow orders. But there's pliant and docile, and then there's just plain mentally retarded:
Almost 90% of U.S. troops in Iraq think the war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11.
Now let's think about this for a minute. Even though nine out of 10 of the troops think Saddam had something to do with 9/11, 72 per cent of them still want to get the fuck out of there.
Can you imagine how much higher that figure might be if those troops weren't, you know, stupid and actually understood that Saddam and 9/11 were in no way connected?
Maybe someone should explain it to them.
5 comments:
Being a religious type of person I hate to say it, but you are dealing with a religious view of the world: The religion of the righteousness of democracy and the United States. It's not that they are dumb, it's that reality conflicts with their religious views, and they are not willing to accept the consequences of challenging their religious views. On the other hand, they aren't so fanatical that they are willing to die for their religious views.
edwin
Just to be clear, it may sound harsh to be describing the troops as "stupid" but it's been over four years since 9/11 and there's been more than enough evidence that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it, and even the Bush administration has (when pressed hard enough) admitted as much.
So, at this point, there's really no excuse to not be aware of that anymore.
Perhaps "stupid" isn't the right term. "Indoctrinated" might be better. Face it, if you're 19, poorly educated and have your superiors feeding you the Bushco line 24/7 then what are you going to believe?
Army = Cult
Most of these kids really didn't take much interest in world affairs, and I'm sure, before going to Iraq, couldn't find it on a map.
They took whatever they were told, and beleived it.
There was some survey a couple years ago that found that a pretty big majority of the country thought that some of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, despite no news reports saying that. Now, if people make up that little "fact", it's not surprising that, with the administration pushing the nonexistent 9/11 - Iraq connection that these guys would believe it.
Remember, they probably never even heard Bush admitting that they have no evidence of a connection. The information that the troops get is highly controlled. A lot of them don't even know that Bush admitted there was no connection, and that Cheney now says he never said there was, until they get home. Then, they aren't too happy about it.
BTW - good snark
just posted on this same poll - wtf are they doing in the US military, hitting people over the head with a shovel at the induction center? I know some soldiers and most are bright enought to come in out of the rain, which is really all the brains you need to know that the Saddam - 9/11 link has been widely disproved.
Post a Comment