So they went to war. A campaign they called 'shock and bullshit'. Or something.
And the plebes in the US who'd been thoroughly indoctrinated got to watch ringside as the Coalition of the Criminals bombed the shit out of Baghdad. They watched over their chicken wings and from their sports bars and they thought it all was pretty cool.
Everyone had warned the sheeple about what was going on. But the sheeple couldn't be distracted from their Fox News and Glee and American Idol and X Factor long enough to let two of their few brain cells collide.
And then when it was all over, when the US forces got to rummage through the rubble of the country in search of those WMDs and of course came up empty handed, everyone expressed surprise.
No one with an ounce of brains, eyes, ears, and a television set ever though otherwise.
Now most people in the US have eyes and ears and a television set, meaning there's only one remaining possible explanation.
Count the collateral damage.
Joseph Wilson is sent to Africa to find information on possible exports to Saddam that might be coupled to an Iraqi effort to build WMDs. Wilson reports from an embassy there that there's no such thing. White House staff run with the story that Wilson has in fact found evidence of Saddam's WMDs. Wilson counters by writing an op-ed published stateside. The White House counters by outing Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The Downing Street Memos. Everyone knew it was a bluff, including that wonderful British PM Tony Blair. Everyone knew it. Operation Iraqi Liberation was going ahead. And all the big companies were parlaying in Washington and London so they could get in on the party.
Millions of Iraqis were killed. An already destroyed and impoverished country, left in rubble after the first war (also run by a Bush) was worse off then ever before. Planning a holiday in Baghdad soon?
There are some disgruntled grunts, whereof one is purportedly Bradley Manning. A lot of them start sending data to the new whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
In short order in 2010 Julian Assange and WikiLeaks release the biggest scoops in human history: the Collateral Murder video, the Afghan War Diaries, and the Iraq War Logs. People finally get to see how much their governments have been lying to them afterwards.
Bradley Manning is picked up within six weeks. Julian Assange is crippled on a visit to Stockholm less than three months later.
Call it coincidence. Go ahead. It's your turn to buy a round of drinks. Don't let the news and that weird thing call reality disturb you any longer.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. - George W Bush I should welcome almost any war for I think this country needs one. - Teddy Roosevelt The flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory but for humanity's sake. - McKinley campaign poster