This might be too political.

[Peter Cairns]

As I say this might be deemed too political and if it is then by all means lock it.

Do people feel that if, and terrible as it is I think we have to say when, US deaths in Iraq exceed deaths from the 9/11, attacks, it will be a psychological turning point in support for the war.

I tend to think the media wil make an issue of it.

Peter.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

there are forums for talking politics. see for example www.dosomefink.com that stars people from this forum.

[Peter Cairns]

Theres politics and there is political analysis.

This topic is pretty borderline, but you can, I feel anyway, express and opinion on whether the point that one passes the other will have a psychological effect whether you are for the war or not.

Peter.

[Cpl Steiner]

As there is so little info on the actual game in this forum, we may as well talk politics!

Whether we like it or not, 9/11 and Iraq are tied together in the minds of a lot of Americans (although much less so elsewhere).

Surveys have shown that a lot of Americans think Iraq had something directly to do with 9/11. This is refuted by most commentators, and I have no reason to doubt them. So, there is a bit of a disconnect there already.

The other argument, that Iraq had WMD that might fall into the hands of terrorists and cause an even worse 9/11, had considerable merit before the invasion. We all knew Iraq had used gas, so it didn't seem unreasonable to think they were capable of giving WMDs to terrorists. However, as not a single WMD was ever found in Iraq, this all looks a bit thin now.

The only argument we have left now is that the Middle-East is a breeding ground for terrorists and has to be sorted out to prevent future 9/11s - by "democratising" the Middle-East. Unfortunately, whether or not Iraq is ever a successful democracy, it would appear that more terrorists have been created by the invasion than existed before, thus increasing the risk of another 9/11 it seems to me.

One final argument, which I have had a suspicion of for a long time, is that US forces are in Iraq to "divert" attacks onto themselves and thus away from the US homeland. Even this argument is historically flawed though. The IRA, when they were fighting for a united Ireland, soon discovered that bombs in London had a far bigger impact on British policy than bombs in Northern Ireland. I doubt this lesson has been lost on the Muslim world.

So, in conclusion, Iraq is "psychologically" linked very strongly to 9/11, even if there is no direct causal link. Large numbers of Americans see the war against terror and the war in Iraq as completely identical. Now, post invasion, they are probably more right than before, as there are now thousands of Iraqis who would dearly like a repeat of 9/11. The sad thing is that this was probably not at all the case before the invasion.

The are no easy solutions to these problems, but sometimes doing something ill-considered makes the situation even worse than if you did nothing.

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

As I say this might be deemed too political and if it is then by all means lock it.

Do people feel that if, and terrible as it is I think we have to say when, US deaths in Iraq exceed deaths from the 9/11, attacks, it will be a psychological turning point in support for the war.

I tend to think the media wil make an issue of it.

Peter.

That is like saying that when the WWII casualty count surpassed the numbers of those killed during Pearl Harbor, there were people who wanted to end the war. (And there were people back then who wanted to end the war, but never a majority).

In WWII, the media was controlled by a censorship office. Nowadays, there is no censorship and even classifed stuff is routinely leaked. The war in Iraq is a bitch politically, since the media is always broadcasting the casualites and the combat, with a few elections thrown in. The 21st century age of instant media means that the US military will always have to take the media in mind in all that is does. The entire "embedded" media idea was purely so that those reporters could get first hand info which would hopefully be positive, rather than reporters waiting in the rear for military reports which they would naturally try to debunk.

Many cops die in the line of duty every year in the US, but no one says that cops on the streets are the cause of crime or that they need to stop policing the streets.

Iraq would be a much more popular war if the Administration sold it from the very beginning for what is was...an invasion into the very heart of the middle east to set up a democracy and change the political/social dynamics that feed Islamic radicalism. It really did not have much to do with WMD and it has not much to do with oil, though it both of those are part of the equation.

I respect the President alot for his beliefs and his standing by his decisions. Few politicians these days actually do what they say. But he has failed as a salesman and being a...politician.

[Imperial Grunt]

Now, post invasion, they are probably more right than before, as there are now thousands of Iraqis who would dearly like a repeat of 9/11.

If you mean Sunni Iraqis, then that is a probably true. But outside of Al-Anbar, the insurgency is not some raging monster as it portrayed in the media sometimes.

The Sunnis want nothing but regime change themselves..another Baathist/Sunni dictatorship. They are a very historical case, the ones who had power and lost it. Nothing but getting that power back will suffice.

What is amazing to me though is that the Sunnis, being a much smaller minority in Iraq, are resisting so much against the US. If we left tommorrow, it would not be long before the Shia empowered government, backed by the Kurds, got tired of their B.S. and decided to do what the US would never do.

But the middle east is ruled by a thought process and mentality that has been unchanged for centuries. Western thinking, especially liberal thinking, does not apply there very well.

[Peter Cairns]

Odd responses so far in that I was most interested in how people thought rightly or wrongly it would effect US domestic support for the war, and no one seems to have picked up on that.

When a war in response to an attack costs more in lives than the attack itself will peoples oppinions change. I don't really buy the WW2 anology as Bin Laden is hardly Imperial Japan.

Peter.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

When a war in response to an attack costs more in lives than the attack itself will peoples opinions change.

The point I was trying to make was that the two have assumed some sort of linkage even though no such link exists in reality. Therefore, it will probably have an effect on US public opinion at some sort of conscious or sub-conscious level, even though by rights the two should be totally unconnected.

I think you mentioned the media in your original post, and I agree that the media will probably make a big connection between the two if and when the numbers killed in Iraq exceed those killed in 9/11. By then the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 will probably have been forgotten by all but the most insistent of commentators.

To all intents and purposes, 9/11 and Iraq are now part of the same war. History is being sub-consciously rewritten in the minds of most American to make this so.

[Moon]

Please read the statement about political discussion in the General Discussion Forum. Or in other words... yep, this is too political and since it has no relation to CMSF whatsoever, I'm locking this thread.

Martin