The fear mongering lead-up to the Iraq war was eerily similar to how the coronavirus pandemic is being portrayed in the media today.

Tyler S. Farley

There’s been a strange sense of familiarity with the coverage and hysteria regarding the coronavirus outbreak. For the last few weeks I kept getting the feeling that I’ve seen this all play out before, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But then it dawned on me while watching one of the cable news networks and it all became clear.

I was watching the bold graphics flash across the screen that read “coronavirus pandemic”  in giant letters, complete with the most ominous soundtrack you could imagine. It felt like I was watching the trailer for a horror movie instead of a news networks. And that’s when I realized where I had seen all this before. It was during the run up to the Iraq war in 2003.



for those don’t remember, in the lead up to the Iraq we had almost non-stop news coverage of the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to America and the world. The coverage was daily, complete with custom graphics and soundtracks at the start of every newscast to make it clear just how serious this all was.

It began with news stories about how brutally Saddam Hussein ran the country. We heard stories of rape rooms, torture rooms, and prisons full of people who dared to speak out against the dictator..

After a month of that, we moved on to the next phase. We were told Saddam Hussein was manufacturing anthrax and other biological weapons in huge quantities. Colin Powell famously sat before the United Nations and held up a vile of white powder and claimed it was enough to kill an entire city. We were told Saddam Hussein was manufacturing the powder by the ton. Enough to kill the whole planet.

After that we were told Saddam Hussein was manufacturing nuclear weapons. He had already built the machines needed as well as obtaining the famous “yellow cake” uranium and centrifuges. He was weeks or months away from a nuclear bomb according to the “experts”.



Over those months the fear was hyped to an unprecedented level. And by the end of it, many Americans were begging for war. They had been whipped up into a frenzy where they truly believed Saddam Hussein was months away, or possibly only weeks away from striking America with a biological or nuclear weapon.

And so the invasion began.

But as I’m sure you are aware now, none of those things turned out to be true and the experts around the world were all wrong. Saddam Hussein’s army was in shambles and barely functioning, and there were no high tech biological weapon factories. There were certainly no nuclear weapon facilities. The whole debacle has cost America countless precious lives and $5 trillion dollars in wasted spending.

So now we move to today, where we are seeing an eerily similar march towards nationwide fear hysteria. A hysteria that also has a price tag of around $5 trillion, this time in newly printed money.

People are begging for more lockdowns. Any suggestion that the lockdowns could soon end are met with angry attacks. People are called reckless and dangerous for thinking there may be hope of a short outbreak or medical cure. The same way people were called unpatriotic if they dared question the lead up to the Iraq war. It’s impossible to question the doomsday scenarios today, just as it was in 2003.

Then of course we have the experts. Just as in 2003, today we have the so-called experts from around the world warning us all of doomsday scenarios that are right around the corner. America has no choice but to shut down the whole country for months on end or face millions of deaths. There’s no point in debating it because the “experts” have spoken, and the media warns us that only fools question the experts.



I get the sinking suspicion that American history is repeating itself. It’s for different reasons, but the playbook is the same. Ramp up the fear week by week. Attack anyone who dares question the narrative as dangerous, foolish, or uncaring towards American lives. And of course, burn through trillions of dollars that will most likely never be repaid and only burden future generations for years to come.

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