based on site demographics I can’t be alone in this. immediately feels like 2004 never ended.
fuck every single person involved in conceiving and executing these actions, and the many who will make excuses for it.
EDIT: idk why I was so specific about the years. any fellow “war on terror” experiencers are the intended audience here.
I don’t think it’s entirely similar. Bush was riding a massive wave of popularity at the time thanks to 9/11 and there was a massive campaign to manufacture evidence from both the media and the Bush administration itself, plus of course American hogs were incredibly bloodthirsty. The Trump admin is neither as popular as Bush was at the time nor is it competent enough to execute that kind of media campaign.
At the time, there also seemed to be this undercurrent, a remnant of the end of history 90s, that the US could and should act as a “world police”.
Also the concurrent invasion of Afghanistan by NATO was considered a universal good like the very recent invasion of Yugoslavia (a different case of brain worms)