69% think Saddam supported Al Qaeda pre 9/11.

The Harris Poll. June 8-15, 2004. N=991 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Do you believe that Saddam Hussein was supporting the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, which attacked the United States on September 11, 2001?"


6/8-15/04
Yes-69 No-22 Unsure-9

http://pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

A stunning victory for the big lie.

never thought I would be living in Orwellian times...

and those who want to support Bush will believe it.

Your friends and neighbors are idiots, my fellow Amerikans.

This is a disgusting commentary on the state of the Nation.

American education system. We need to either improve the classes on reading OR encourage crititcal thinking classes in high school, not let it wait for college.

I have serious doubts about the numbers in this poll. But, if true, then we'd better be worrying about the lack of literacy and decision making skills in our fellow citizens.

...I just can't accept that Americans are that stupid to believe this lie being propagated by the Bush & Cheney teams...

If it is a true reflection of the US population we are all F**ked...

the 9/11 commission conclusions which were released?

I'd like to see this poll repeated to see if the new commission findings has any effect.

Saudi Arabia, etc, probably more countries I am sure directly or indirectly supported al qaeda, and we haven't bombed them. Reading "Blood From Stones" by Doug Farah who was based in Sierra Leone during end of Clinton, beg of Bush admin. (He's WaPo).

He alleges they made a deal with Charles Taylors' RUF to get their currency into diamonds in the months before 9/11, and were paying 30% above market for them. So that's two more countries directly supporting al qaeda, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

This is an amazing book, but people who are alread upset at the intel failures already out in the open shouldn't read it without expecting your head to explode. With every page I feel like mine is going to, one of his sources went to the U.S. embassy on 9/10 and told them he knew something bad was going to happen in the U.S. and they ignored him...it get's worse with every page.

Geez. What are we doing wrong that we are still failing to get through to these people?

I realize that we are confronting the huge obstacles of conglomerate media and human denial/rationalization,...but,...there must be some way of overcoming such challenges.

Because some people don't want to hear the truth. Some people think that we, America, can do no wrong in this world.

The media really can't be blamed for this idiocy. Even the TV news has reported often and prominently the absence of any connection.

This is a classic example of what Sartre called "bad faith." People don't want to admit the truth, even to themselves. So they ignore any evidence that might prove them wrong.

them the rationale they need to justify their decisions. I read that somewhere and bought it.
Just like 'you can't cheat an honest man', they don't call them neocons for nothing.

People who think Bush can do no wrong are maybe 35% tops.

These numbers speak to the complete and utter dereliction of duty on the part of the american "news" media.

And I disagree with your point about the news media. They are rotten about most things, but not about this. Both print and TV have reported often and loudly all the stories de-linking al Qaeda from Iraq.

Nevertheless, most Americans still believe that there is a connection. They believe this because they don't want America to have been wrong. They don't want to believe that we are bombing and shooting and torturing innocent people who have never done anything to harm us. They don't want to face the truth. So they disregard the ample evidence for this unpleasant truth. It is a classic example of self deception. It is fueled by emotion: pride and fear. Fear of being wrong on an enormous scale.

in psychological terms.

...I ask them ( my father and stepfather both included) what they are "afraid" of...none of them know how to answer and then go on a diatribe about evil Michael Moore....

collar, the phone numbers fallen out of the suit. She's in a comfortable situation and just "chooses not to see".

To confront the truth of this evidence and what it means points to an unbearable reality.

The 69% cannot bear to think, if Iraq wasn't behind 9/11 and had no WMDs, what that implies we are capable of in the world. That we can be a force for evil.

That is why things like the Abu Ghraib pics are important. They help pierce the veil of denial.

people will believe you. Cheney vomits his lies with so much authority, that people who don't read the news would just assume that he's right. Bush doesn't speak with as much authority as Cheney, but he speaks as if he really believes it.

Evil, lying bastards.

Because we are trying to communicate on the basis of reason and logic and the 62% are working from the primitive brain, courtesy of Rush, Hannity et al.

another question in the supplied link asks:

"Do you believe that what we were told by the government before the Iraq war about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization, was generally accurate or misleading?"

Accurate Misleading Unsure
% % %
6/8-15/04 44 51 5
4/8-15/04 40 51 9
2/04 40 53 6
12/14-16/03 45 47 8
12/10-13/03 42 51 6
----------------------------
And it has a 12 pt difference from a poll from 2 months ago-

snip>
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Poll: 57% of Americans Believe Saddam Gave Substantial Support to al-Qaeda

A new poll shows that as of mid-March, 57% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had given substantial support to al-Qaeda. Worse, 45% actually say that "clear evidence" has been found in Iraq to support this allegation! As for weapons of mass destruction 45 percent say they believe Saddam had them before the recent war, and 22 percent say that he had a major program for developing them.

There is no documentary or physical evidence for any of these assertions.

http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108287521120764481

Harris is the poll that gave Bush a 10 point lead yesterday. Something's screwy with them.

...believe that Saddam and Al Queda are connected....I don't believe these Harris Polls....America couldn't possibly be that stupid...or if they are, we are in deep sh*t...



http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/late.edition/

after all st, ronny was the most popular president ever.... & religious nonsense is booming

I repeat "SADDAM TURNED AL QAIDA DOWN" when they requested help.

AQ: Wanna help us?
Iraq: No.

AQ: Wanna help us?
Iraq: No.

AQ: How 'bout now?
Iraq: No.

AQ: Aw, come on.
Iraq: No.

AQ: Come on, ya know ya want to...
Iraq: No.

AQ: Your guy's an infidel and we're gonna hack him to death. Wanna help us?
Iraq: No. Go away.

AQ: How about now?
Iraq. NO!

AQ: You sure?
Iraq: We're sure. Go away.

AQ: Aw, come on; it'll be fun.
Iraq: No.

AQ: How 'bout next week?
Iraq: No.

AQ: Ramadan, maybe?
Iraq: No.

AQ: Ya know, maybe just a few quick atrocities, come on.
Iraq: For the last time, NO!

AQ: The last time? I knew it; I knew you'd come around.
Iraq: No. Now stop it.

AQ: Oooh! Iranian giver Iranian giver! You said! You said!
Iraq: Get out.

AQ: Ya know you want to.
Iraq: No.

AQ: Say, remember that little jihad thing we were talking about awhile back?
Iraq: No.

AQ: Maybe just a little one...
Iraq: Get out!!

AQ: But...but, we've got a relationship.
Iraq: Guards!

AQ: I thought this meant something to you...
Iraq: Out!!

AQ: No one will ever love you like I do...
Iraq: Yeah, well I certainly hope not, now GET OUT!

AQ: Is it someone else? Are you seeing another murderer?
Iraq: Stop it!

AQ: Oh, I can take it. What can they give you that I can't?
Iraq: Please.

AQ: All I wanted was a little bloodbath.
Iraq: Stop.

AQ: You're so cruel.
Iraq: (sigh of disgust)

AQ: You'd butcher for Hamas; you never did get over her, did you?
Iraq: Out. I said out.

AQ: You'll regret this.
Iraq: Out!!!

AQ: I'll get you for this!

and 69% of Americans still believe the lies :(

He was evil scum!!

But, tens of thousands of their lives have ended or been permanently damaged by us.

I still wouldn't make a fake script showing McVeigh valiantly turning down Al-Quaeda.

And Saddam Hussein was much worse.

There was reference to his support of Palestinian militants in the fake dialog.

There was no attempt to make Saddam into a hero in it. If you read it, you would know that. If you are genuinely upset, I suggest you read it again, and understand that someone can talk to to someone else without necessarily collaborating with them. That is the point.

If you can't see that this was not an attempt to paint Saddam as a hero, I don't know what else to say to you.

There was reference to his support of Palestinian militants in the fake dialog.

There was no attempt to make Saddam into a hero in it. If you read it, you would know that. If you are genuinely upset, I suggest you read it again, and understand that someone can talk to to someone else without necessarily collaborating with them. That is the point.

If you can't see that this was not an attempt to paint Saddam as a hero, I don't know what else to say to you.

Iraq, for all its ills, rebuffed Al Queda. Goering, even though he was a hunter, was a pioneer in anti-vivisection laws and animal rights. Hitler was a vegetarian. McVeigh was a good Catholic boy who asked for and received last rites. So...fucking...what?

Maybe, even with all it's ugliness, the Hussein regime wasn't a threat to the United States. Maybe that's why the Bushies had to rely on lies to whip up a war frenzy.

If they do this once, they'll do it again.

Truth is VERY important; without it, we are at the mercy of snake-oil salesmen and preachers. Somewhere north of 20,000 human beings no longer exist because of Junior's pissy little family revenge and greed adventure, and countless thousands of others are maimed and left fatherless, motherless and demoralized.

You have no sense of humor; this, unfortunately is incurable. I suggest a heavy dose of religion and conservatism to remove the nuance, doubts and fear of unruly reality. Also, read peoples' posts before replying.

I think Bin Laden just had a crush on Hussein and was rebuffed; this, coupled with his self-loathing at any form of sexuality at all caused him to have a paroxysm of rage, resulting in him suckering the United States to destroy his longed-for lover. Because we're such oblivious nitwits, we obliged.

Oh...that was a joke, by the way. But since it casts aspersions on Bin Laden's manhood, I'm sure you got a wisp of lightheadedness and odd curling at the edges of the mouth; remember that feeling: it's the rumbling of proto-humor. Too bad it's at the expense of others, but hey, it's a start...

I must now go wash.

n/t

Upwards of 800 dead Americans and thousands of Iraqis, including children.

Not funny at all--yet AWOL jokes about it at the White House Correspondents' dinner, pretending to look all around the room for those darn WMD's.

THAT is the height of unfunny.

that this is evidence that Al Qiada and Saddam had contact on 26 occasions!

yeah right Dick. Nor surprising, considering how you've led them to believe that.

The 911 Commission has spoken since the end of the polling period; when the Bush and Cheney threw a hissy fit about the truth being told, the Commission diplomatically requested that they put up or shut up.

This shows we still have work to do. The most important message we need to get out is that Bush lied.

Polls also show that people who know this are more likely to support Kerry for President. It seems a no-brainer, then, that Senator Kerry needs to get on this message and stay on it. He can keep is options open as to what should be done in Iraq now, but at the very least he needs to paint Bush and his neoconservative friends as untrustworthy stewards of American power.

Their propoganda works, so they keep using it. People believe their lies. They only watch Fox news and CNN and 700 club and their church pulpit, and the pope..... so how do we get them to ignore all these authority figures who are willing to put them on cattle cars and drive them to the ovens.....

:silly:

no joke.

YES. The North Koreans do not have computers, satellite TV, palm pilots or access to the BASICS ie food, energy... Americans have no such excuse for what is nothing more than willful ignorance.

And no pollster in the world will convinced me that people who knew there was no connection just changed their mind lately. Pure unadulterated BS!

they are all owned by republican supporting companies, and they all own stock in each others companies. So essentially, FOX is CNN, ABC is NBC, and so on, and so on. And as long as money is fueling elections, the American public will only receive propaganda from the media.

every time they use the term "war on terror" to describe the war in Iraq -- for instance - "part of the president's war on terror" they are spreading the lie.

I blame the media 100% for this. They need to be shut down, sued, and prosecuted.

The media sided early on with this misadministration and has toed their line without fail. Maybe, just maybe, they have been showing a little spark of truth of late, but they are part and parcel to the mind control tactics of this government. They have no excuse.

and it's high time that the media is seriously re-regulated. At this point, they have absolutely no accountability and have become a danger to society, while at the same time profiting handsomely from a public resource.

If Kerry wins the presidency, he need to completely overhaul the FCC.

Edit....

JUST F'ING AMAZING!!!!!! THESE GUYS ARE TAKING DOWN ALL SITES THAT CAN PROVE OTHER WISE....
Let me see if I can upload these pics somewhere... again... and again...

DU will not show the pics as pics but it comes out as a link for some reason but here is a thread with the pics in it... Hoepfully it is still up

http://www.itshappening.com/showthread.php?t=45621

========

Why is the US media ignoring this? I am gagging when ever I read the stuff from the 911 commission how they point to everyone else but themselves. The Saudis the Pakistan's the Africans the Asians the Arabs the Muslims and communists the whales...

But conveniently forgets who helped Osama, who funded him, who trained him and in the end who taught him how to go global by helping him move over forces to Bosnia in 1996....


============ This was part of a web page but they keep disappearing often and have to put up again... Gets tiring doing it so many times....

Examine the photos below.


Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Regret what? That secret operation (the CIA backing of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists) was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?"

Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Quoting http://www.geocities.com/RepresentativePress/binLadenphoto.html#Brzezinski>Zbigniew Brzezinski Jan, 1998*<1> (This interview was deleted from the version of Le Nouvel Observateur sent to the US)




http://www.geocities.com/RepresentativePress/binLadenphoto.html#bin Laden>Osama bin Laden: "The Western regimes and the government of the US bear the blame for what might happen. If their people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries, they should seek to elect governments that are truly representative of them and that can protect their interests. **<2>(This part not aired on ABC)

Osama bin Laden: "This is my message to the American people. I urge them to find a serious administration that acts in their interest and does not attack people and violate their honor and pilfer their wealth." Quoting Osama bin Laden May, 1998




Q:WHO the hell supports such murderous people like bin Laden?
A:The CIA, on behalf of Big Business interests.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567510523/ref%3Dnosim/representativ-20>Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II is an excellent book that documents the incredibly immoral, unjust and criminally stupid tactics of the CIA. ( Mr. Blum, author of 'Killinmg Hope', writes, "It should be noted that there is no demonstrable connection between the Afghanistan war and the breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellites." )

"The single most useful summary of CIA history."- John Stockwell, former CIA officer

"Far and away the best book on the topic." - Noam Chomsky

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567510523/ref%3Dnosim/representativ-20>Click here to buy it now. Learn what the CIA has been up to in detail, this book will make you mad!


1. Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski about how the US provoked the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan and starting the whole mess: Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76 There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress,* the version sent to the United States is shorter than the the than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not included.

2. From the PBS site Frontline: Read the translation of the ABC John Miller interview (videotaped) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html>which is further down on this page. Or, read the full interview with Bin Laden which starts with questions posed to him by his followers. This interview begins right here; it is then followed by the translation of the Miller interview with Bin Laden. **
(The first quote was not aired by ABC.)

(Note the most probing questions (clarifying the issues) are not asked by ABC's John Miller. (Bin Laden had the whole interview recorded by his own camera and an associate gave a copy of the tape to PBS's FRONTLINE.)

links: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0138/ridgeway2.php


US and bin Laden

Former Friends: President Carter's national security adviser ZbiGniew Brzezinski on his 1980 tour of the Afghan border. Bin Laden first went to Peshawar, Pakistan, here in these photos Brezezinski checks out bin Laden's gun on the border of Afghanistan in 1980. This is what the CIA considers a "good idea": funding terrorists.

This is the only web page on Earth that features these two photos.

Does ANYONE see anything wrong with that? (prove me wrong)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0138/ridgeway2.php>Photos: Photographs by Philippe Ledru/Corbis Sygma. Larger one scanned from the Village Voice. The Village Voice web site does not have the photo. The smaller one is from a Polish web site, also seen in Spiegel.

Notes on Zbigniew Brzezinski: From 1977 to 1981, Zbigniew Brzezinski was National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. We must stop these dangerous, shortsighted and stupid US foreign policies.

Please visit RepresentativeMedia.org

(/= is shorthand for"not equal to")

Q: "Now that it has been shown that Saddam Hussein was not at all connected with the attacks on 9/11, do you support the President's decision to invade Iraq?"

If we could get a thousand bloggers to each call a hundred people, we could begin to undo the treachery of the big lie presented by our media.

How do we start?

the more TV you watch, the more misinformed you are.

lends itself to a "yes" answer because it ends with mention of "Al Qaeda" and September 11. That's what people are responding to - yes, Al Qaeda attacked the US on Sept. 11. Also, I think many people think Hussein and Bin Ladin are one and the same. Ridiculous, but true. The corporate whores sure don't spend any time making the distinction.

People react to images -- Bush, flags, graphics, military, white house, etc

People are incapable of piercing the images for the content.

This began with Reagan: Leslie Stahl did a tough piece on Reagan and waited for the sparks to fly -- and shortly thereafter his handlers called to THANK her. She said, 'Why are you thanking me when I just criticized him?' and they said, "You don't get it -- putting his photo up there with flags and presidential insignia is all that people notice.'

Look around: we are just like the Germans when Hitler took power.

The Mainstream Media, esp. TV has been compicit in advancing the BushCo propaganda even during the Bush/Gore campaign. Do some research on the Media and it will become clear why this is the case.

Which means we don't live a democracy. Most US citizens don't have gad ideas. They have no ideas at all!

What to do?

Support can be active or passive.

I support Democratic Underground by donating money and participating in discussions.

vs

I support Greenpeace in a general sense, but I don't actually do any thing for them or give them money.

In the same way, some people may interpret this question as "Saddam gave money, arms, succor to Al-Queda" (active support) vs "Saddam was generally in agreement with Al-Queda's anti-American/anti-Saudi/etc. policy" (passive support).

I think it fits a pro-Bush agenda to confuse the issue and make it seem like most people feel this way - an appeal to the bandwagon effect. "69% of Americans cannot possibly be wrong" sort of thing.

People have a hard time believing that they've been lied to, that people they trust are capable of barbaric acts, and will sometimes even deny that barbaric acts happened.

Most of the sex offenders in the US get probation, even for second and third offenses. Most of their victims are children. Why? Because the DA's know that it's hard to convince a jury unless they have an adult eye witness. Even if the child is old enough to testify and his or her parents let them, juries are more likely to think that a child made it up than to convict the defendant.

It's difficult to get a rape conviction unless the victim is beaten within an inch of her life. He can say it was consentual and there's at least a 50/50 chance that they'll believe him, except if the victim is white and the rapist is black or Hispanic. Then the odds are probably a little better for conviction.

Even though people will joke about how all politicians crooked, they want to think that they wouldn't lie about something important, something that could cost lives. They want to think that our leaders wouldn't sell us out for their own financial gain. It's very hard for people to face reality, especially when it's as ugly as this.

Propagandist Rove has managed to spin the Iraq/al-Qaeda link to the utmost of his ability! Heil Rove!

sense to them ... this is how they look at it:

Saddam Hussein is Arab
Al Qaeda membership is Arab

Saddam Hussein is evil
Al Qaeda is evil

Saddam Hussein is a religious nut (I know he isn't)
Al Qaeda are religious nuts

Saddam Hussein hates America
Al Qaeda hates America

end of story to them ... they are so ill-informed that they can't think of a reason why Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda wouldn't be allied together

This is why, as I stated in another thread, I hold certain journalists and the owners of corporate media complicit in crimes against humanity.

There's no excuse.

One can just imagine the back slapping that's going on.

Although logic and a shread of common sense would tell you that such terrorism like 9/11 would cause a massive retaliation as Bin Laden knew and braced for. Saddam, on the other hand, did not want to face such retaliation especially with fighters flying north and south of him. He would lose the one thing that has kept him alive, his job. Saddam knew he could never quietly go into retirement anywhere, nor did he want to. He got bombed after trying to kill BushI, and then any talk of terror from him quickly quieted down.

However, true believing GOPers, and its looking like more and more of the population, has had it in for Saddam, and they think all terrorists are all cut from the same cloth and are all secretly in cahoots to bring America down. They don't need a videotape showing Saddam handing money to an Al-queda terrorist. All they need is someone bad mouthing America. And Saddam has done that and that's all the evidence that alot of people seem to need.

The theory of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1957), is concerned with the relationships among cognitions. A cognition, for the purpose of this theory, may be thought of as a ³piece of knowledge.² The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, a value, and so on. For example, the knowledge that you like the color red is a cognition; the knowledge that you caught a touchdown pass is a cognition; the knowledge that the Supreme Court outlawed school segregation is a cognition. People hold a multitude of cognitions simultaneously, and these cognitions form irrelevant, consonant or dissonant relationships with one another.

Cognitive Irrelevance probably describes the bulk of the relationships among a person¹s cognitions. Irrelevance simply means that the two cognitions have nothing to do with each other. Two cognitions are consonant if one cognition follows from, or fits with, the other. People like consonance among their cognitions. We do not know whether this stems from the nature of the human organism or whether it is learned during the process of socialization, but people appear to prefer cognitions that fit together to those that do not. It is this simple observation that gives the theory of cognitive dissonance its interesting form.

Two cognitions are said to be dissonant if one cognition follows from the opposite of another. What happens to people when they discover dissonant cognitions? The answer to this question forms the basic postulate of Festinger¹s theory. A person who has dissonant or discrepant cognitions is said to be in a state of psychological dissonance, which is experienced as unpleasant psychological tension. This tension state has drivelike properties that are much like those of hunger and thirst. When a person has been deprived of food for several hours, he/she experiences unpleasant tension and is driven to reduce the unpleasant tension state that results. Reducing the psychological sate of dissonance is not as simple as eating or drinking however.

To understand the alternatives open to an individual in a state of dissonance, we must first understand the factors that affect the magnitude of dissonance arousal. First, in its simplest form, dissonance increases as the degree of discrepancy among cognitions increases. Second, dissonance increases as the number of discrepant cognitions increases. Third, dissonance is inversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions held by an individual. Fourth, the relative weights given to the consonant and dissonant cognitions may be adjusted by their importance in the mind of the individual.

If dissonance is experienced as an unpleasant drive state,the individual is motivated to reduce it. Now that the factors that affect the magnitude of this unpleasantness have been identified, it should be possible to predict what we can do to reduce it:


Changing Cognitions
If two cognitions ar discrepant, we can simply change one to make it consistent with the other. Or we can change each cognition in the direction of the other.


Adding Cognitions
If two cognitions cause a certain magnitude of dissonance, that magnitude can be reduced by adding one or more consonant cognitions.


Altering importance
Since the discrepant and consonant cognitions must be weighed by importance, it may be advantageous to alter the importance of the various cognitions.

The material above is the background reading for the Cognitive Dissonance Lab. These are excerpts from Frederick M. Rudolph¹s page on Social Psychology. For a more detailed discussion on cognitive dissonance and related theories, visit http://www.mindspring.com/~frudolph/lectuires/SOC/soc1.htm

That's why Bush wants us to all be screened for mental health problems and subsequently doped up. He knows that his adminstration is responsible for millions of Americans becoming paranoid, depressed and having chronic anxiety. It's the Brave New World. Give us all Soma.

Nah , not new....Georgie Orwell had down pretty good ;-)

AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it would be silly for anyone to assume that Hussein didn't "support" BinLaden in-spirit. If there is any proof of COLLABORATION then I'd be interested in seeing it.

So, back to the definition of "support"... I wonder what percentage of the "yes" votes defined "support" as "collaborative" and how many defined it as "goodwill and wishes for more successful attacks on the US".

-- Allen

It seams that many American's have to using crack on a daily basis. Who are these people that they are polling. Asking the local crackhead who's busy worrying about his/her next hit should not be considered legitimate statistics.