200
Don't forget to turn purple and remove your arms
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
It's not 9/11.
With respect:
Why is 9/11 associated with Saddam jokes?
I'm old enough to remember both Iraq wars and 9/11 and the associated politics in detail the two subjects are very intertwined in the collective American memory.
But I want to hear specifically why people in 2025 think this.
It kicked off another series of stupidity wars that also happened to end up knocking Saddam out of power would be my takeaway
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/9-11-and-iraq-the-making-of-a-tragedy/
The second line of the article really sums it up from my perspective. "President George W. Bush was obsessed with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and deliberately misled the American people about who was responsible for the 9/11 attack."
I was curious how the nebulous connection between Iraq and Afghanistan was perceived by those who weren't as aware of the older Bush's history in the area. In the hours following 9/11, a common question among my peers was "How will this be twisted into us going into Iraq?"
My sister & godmother worked across the street and my partner's dad was one of the narrow misses because he sent a colleague to the Towers that day in his stead. That whole mess probably started my slow descent into radicalisation, now that I think about it. I watched people around there with no connection to the event directly react around me while we couldn't get ahold of my sister for a few days. It was very surreal.