March 28, 2024
Letter

Selling the war in Iraq

It was just about this time of year five years ago when the campaign to sell the Iraq war to America began. The Bush administration brilliantly pummeled the airwaves with experts and high-ranking members of his cabinet telling us how dangerous it would be to not invade Iraq.

We were inundated with rhetoric about WMDs, mushroom clouds and the imminent threat that Iraq posed to the U.S. The sales job was so effective that by the time we dropped the first bombs on Baghdad in March 2003, 75 percent of Americans were in favor of that course of action.

Now about two-thirds of that group have come to the realization that we were lied to and have had the courage to admit that they had made a mistake in giving approval for the illegal and immoral invasion of a sovereign country. There are still about 25 percent that still don’t get what’s going on here.

Now the same people that lied to us about the danger that Iraq presented have begun their campaign to sell us the idea that our best bet is to invade Iran. I would like to think that Americans are way too sharp to be sold another false bill of goods that will lead to the same disastrous results that we are still achieving in Iraq. Surely we won’t let them get away with this twice in five years. Will we?

Gerald Eldridge

Dedham


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