The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies by Joshua Holland
Polls suggest that Americans tend to differentiate between our good war in Iraq Operation Desert Storm, launched by George HW Bush in 1990 and the mistake his son made in 2003.
Across the ideological spectrum, theres broad agreement that the first Gulf War was worth fighting. The opposite is true of the 2003 invasion, and a big reason for those divergent views was captured in a 2013 CNN poll that found that a majority of Americans (54%) say that prior to the start of the war the administration of George W. Bush deliberately misled the U.S. public about whether Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction.
But as the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to urge the US to once again commit troops to Iraq, its important to recall that the first Gulf War was sold to the public on a pack of lies that were just as egregious as those told by the second Bush administration 12 years later.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/27-7
tanyev
(42,623 posts)I was fresh out of college then, and not paying much attention to politics.
bananas
(27,509 posts)She was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador.
guyjohn59's channel
Uploaded on Jun 15, 2010
Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ (Arabic: نيره الصباح ), called "Nurse Nayirah" in the media, was a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl, who alleged that she had witnessed the murder of infant children by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait, in verbal testimony to the U.S. Congress, in the run up to the 1991 Gulf War. Her testimony, which was regarded as credible at the time, has since come to be regarded as wartime propaganda. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was in the employ of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, had arranged the testimony. Nayirah's testimony was widely publicized. Hill & Knowlton, which had filmed the hearing, sent out a video news release to Medialink, a firm which served about 700 television stations in the United States. That night, portions of the testimony aired on ABC's Nightline and NBC Nightly News reaching an estimated audience between 35 and 53 million Americans. Seven senators cited Nayirah's testimony in their speeches backing the use of force. President George Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks. (Wikipedia)
Full video at c-span video website.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN KUWAIT, Oct. 10, 1990
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus conducted a hearing to investigate alleged Iraqi human rights violations in occupied Kuwait. Cases of rape, execution, imprisonment and the destruction of hospitals in Kuwait were heard by the committee.
bananas
(27,509 posts)<snip>
As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline. On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.
Read the rest at http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf
Excerpted from Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, Chapter 10
bananas
(27,509 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)America has Niger yellow cake all over its face, it has not washed off.