[NickC25]

I remember it clearly. The support was huge...only a fringe few who were labeled crazy had the audacity to say "wait, so a bunch of Saudi dudes who were trained in Afghanistan by the CIA to fight the Russians, and funded by Saudi royals ended up attacking us, and as a result we're going to invade Iraq? How does that make any sense?"

Yet here we are....

[SkyMarshal]

I remember it too, but my memory is that a large portion of the US population opposed it, just not a majority. The majority supported it. Mainstream media was mostly on board, in manufacturing consent mode, though they had some problems navigating Colin Powell's less than convincing presentation at the UN on supposed Iraqi WMD, but they succeeded anyway.

[eternalban]

There were very large demonstrations in NYC and DC. These were underreported. The press began loosing credibility after 9/11 but when WP stuck this in "Metro" that was the end of it for me.

"Thousands" buried in "Metro":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/10/27/thou...

"A headline in some editions of the Oct. 27 Metro section incorrectly stated that Saturday's antiwar demonstration in the District was the largest since the 1960s. The rally, according to police and estimates of the organizer, was the largest antiwar demonstration in the District since the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975."

< ! >

Honestly, if this demo -- it was huge -- happened in say Cairo, wouldn't it be splashed all over front pages for days?

-- ps --

"Demonstrations in other cities, including Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, Denmark, Tokyo and Mexico City, were held to coincide with the Washington march, and in San Francisco, thousands marched through downtown."

Do they teach this at Columbia's School of Journalism?

- There were demonstrations in lots of major capitals all over the world. Put it in 'international' section?

- Sister cities. Metro.

[bumby]

I think people forget that the country was still somewhat raw from 9/11 and didn't know how to treat the uncertainty regarding future attacks. This was the timeframe when the "1% doctrine" was proposed, where if a threat was thought to have a 1% probability, it had to be treated as a certainty and response was more important than analysis.[1] In that context it doesn't take much to convince someone, even if in hindsight, Powell's presentation was "less than convincing."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_Doctrine

[kube-system]

I'd say the majority of the voting public was pretty uninformed at the time about what was what regarding anything in the middle east. They were trusting that other people knew what they were talking about. Most of the reason most people know anything about it now is because it has been discussed at length as a result of the mistake.

[hungryforcodes]

Uninformed in this case really means "mislead".

[seanmcdirmid]

I remember it also. I remember lots of people speaking out against it, and a lot of hand wringing on CNN about weapons of mass destruction that no one could find.

[anigbrowl]

I think the opposition was huge too, but neither was evenly distributed.

The protests against the Iraq war were international in scope and generally regarded as the largest political demonstrations in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War