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Originally Posted by jayswin
Was that before or after the majority of the world came to understand the gravity of lies that led to the invasion? I'm a little foggy on timelines now, but I recall the media having a pretty good hold on presenting it has as necessary and right when if first started.
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From wikipedia, events prior to and happening amidst Gretzky’s comments:
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The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by some long-standing U.S. allies, including the governments of France, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand.[33][34][35] Their leaders argued that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that invading that country was not justified in the context of UNMOVIC's 12 February 2003 report. About 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs were discovered during the Iraq War, but these had been built and abandoned earlier in Saddam Hussein's rule before the 1991 Gulf War. The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government's invasion rationale.[36][37] In September 2004, Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General at the time, called the invasion illegal under international law and said it was a breach of the UN Charter.[38]
On 15 February 2003, a month before the invasion, there were worldwide protests against the Iraq War, including a rally of three million people in Rome, which the Guinness Book of Records listed as the largest ever anti-war rally.[39] According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war.
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Regardless, do we excuse someone for trusting the story told by the leader they believe in and condemn the other? If supporting the invasion of the Iraq war is excusable or understandable because they believed the government, believed the story told by the media in the invading country, ignored what the world was saying, etc, that should at least allow us to understand Ovechkin.