Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Why We Attacked Iraq

A recent story demonstrates that aspect of human nature that caused the American people to support the invasion of Iraq:

Friends of Steve Irwin say the Crocodile Hunter would be horrified by the recent slaughter of stingrays in south-east Queensland.

The Department of Fisheries is investigating the slaughter of at least 10 stingrays at Hervey Bay and Deception Bay, north of Brisbane.

Irwin was killed last week when a stingray barb pierced his heart.

Irwin's close friend and business manager John Stainton has condemned the attacks.

"I'm absolutely horrified to hear about the slaughter of these stingrays and I know that Steve would be absolutely disgusted," he said.

"This is something that he would never want to hear about.

"Any revenge on any animal, no matter whether it's croc that's taken somebody or a shark that might have taken somebody used to absolutely turn his stomach."

Mr Stainton says Irwin would not have wanted people to harm stingrays to avenge his death.


That's right, a stingray killed Steve Irwin, so people decide to go to war with completely different stingrays. They do have chemical weapons, after all.

63% of Fox News viewers believe that the slaughtered stingrays supported Irwin's killer.

Via Axinar

9 comments:

CyberKitten said...

I think the aspect of human nature you are talking about is stupidity - plain & simple.

Axinar said...

Just wait until it gets out that the crocs put the stingray up to it. :)

Actually, if you go by Joy Rolland's logic that if one man kills another man in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of downtown Cincinnati that the brother of the trigger man and someone who advertises the restaurant of the brother of the trigger man are also "assassins" and "murderers", I suppose you might be able to pin the whole hit on the crocs, the snakes, and, most importantly, Germaine Greer :)

asher said...

And the connection was made how?

Jewish Atheist said...

asher:

Americans who keep up-to-date supported (or didn't support) the war based on the WMD question or whether Saddam was an immenent threat. A large portion of the American people who don't keep up supported it because they can't tell the difference (or don't care to tell the difference) between the Arabs who attacked us and the Arabs who live in Iraq. Like the stingrays, see?

You may remember stories in the weeks and months following 9-11 of Americans attacking random Arab or non-Arab people with dark skin (like Sikhs) as a "response" to 9-11. Those are the crazy ones who actually acted on their irrationality -- many others simply went along with the war.

jewish philosopher said...

People supported the war in Iraq for exactly the same reason that people believe in evolution: because they trusted the experts such as the Vice President, Secretary of State and Director of the CIA, instead of trusting common sense.

Read Fiasco for details.

Moral of the story: check the facts and think for yourself.

Wandering Coyote said...

Great analogy, JA, and nice jibe at Fox News.

asher said...

and here I thought there was a threat to our civilization only cause the president of Iran said so. How silly of me.

Anonymous said...

I thought of the same thing when I read that article on CNN (the parallel between the stingray murders and Iraq). I actually giggled at the similarity between the two issues. And then waved it away....

But now I feel somehow validated.

Anonymous said...

Oh please JA. We found mustard gas and sarin, and even though they're degraded, you wouldn't want to be anywhere near them. And what do you think was in those trucks the Russian special forces helped load to send to Syria? And what was it that Sadaam used to kill Kurds? Sadaam also had ties to Al Qaeda, as we're learning more and more about as more documents get translated.
Say what you want about Fox News watchers, but they are way ahead of those who get their news from MoveOn.org and Kos, not to mention the NY Times.

Another anon