Hover over Huff Hagel for the full effect.
What a difference a decade makes when your predictability wins you seat at the head of the Pentagram.
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Ah, you know, some people will just oppose getting involved in any war, no matter what.
That's probably true. And some people will support any & all proposed operations, at least up until they have begun - whatever that means - and then the most you'll get is opposition to the method by which they were waged.
And then, those with such strong opinions about why "we should take a measured approach" but certainly "can't just sit idly by" will spout off what they claim are facts about the situation "on the ground", right down to using the terminology they've just been fed hours before. Their confidence in the veracity of the stories they see & hear is uncannily similar to the faith folks have in God, or their belief in whatever latest science they're sold.
People only ever selectively question what they're told.
They could believe that there're mushroom clouds on the horizon; subsequently, they are shown to their apparent satisfaction that there is no such reality in their foreseeable future. Forget the fact that neither state of mind is any more or less reasonable. What is remarkable is how they swing to-and-fro between certainties number one and two.
I, too, tend to get misdirected from the simple for the complex: We have seen that those who desire engaging in heavily armed theatrical scrimmages only have to do so. We have also seen that the actual action is much different than how it is presented.
On the other hand, plenty of people also fall into the camp that sees every clip & photo and story & op-ed as meant to garner political support for this cause or that. But it is more likely that the aim of every bit & piece presented to the populace is just to shape perception, and that political approval is entirely unnecessary from a folk that has grown up with a horizon embedded with clouds, whatever shape they may be.
Still, it is of note that all it takes for someone to cry, "Charge!" is a scary video, or a threat grown vivid through the imagination. Or, at least, that's how it seems.
In other words, it is not consent being sought, but the plausibility of it.
