"So we were wrong, so what?"
I'm very tried of nonsense like this from the neocons. It also came up with Doug Feith on The Daily Show last night (see uncut interview part 1 & part 2).
The Bush administration pushed a specific set of arguments in favor of going to war, based on the threat of Hussein & Iraq. I think there's a great deal of evidence that they wanted to go to war even before they came into office in January of 2001 and I also think there's also evidence that they deliberately ginned up evidence. But let's put those two points aside.
They were wrong. Totally wrong. They weren't even in the suburbs of the neighborhood of Right. But five years later, they brush this aside. They thought there was a threat, so isn't that justification enough?
I am reminded of something Jon Chiat wrote in 2005, which I blogged about at the time. Chiat argued that Saddam Hussein was like:
Watch the last minute or so of the Stewart interview. Feith's defense is that if Bush had left Saddam in power and "if the things we were worried about as an administration and a country had materialized," then people would be criticizing them. But that standard of evidence can justify anything, as the Bush administration proves all the time. I should be able to do whatever I want, because I'm acting in good faith, and if I'm wrong, we shouldn't worry, because what if I had been right?
Enough. You were wrong. Take your goddamn beating.
The Bush administration pushed a specific set of arguments in favor of going to war, based on the threat of Hussein & Iraq. I think there's a great deal of evidence that they wanted to go to war even before they came into office in January of 2001 and I also think there's also evidence that they deliberately ginned up evidence. But let's put those two points aside.
They were wrong. Totally wrong. They weren't even in the suburbs of the neighborhood of Right. But five years later, they brush this aside. They thought there was a threat, so isn't that justification enough?
I am reminded of something Jon Chiat wrote in 2005, which I blogged about at the time. Chiat argued that Saddam Hussein was like:
...a known murderer walking down a dark alley with his hand stuck inside his jacket. The police shout at him to put his hands up, yet he continues to walk toward them. After he ignores still more warnings, they shoot him dead, only to discover he was unarmed. Were they wrong to shoot him?I guess with this mindset, they would argue that we can put up with a few Amadou Diallos and Sean Bells in the name of safety. I think Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine makes it clear that if you assume every potential threat is a probable threat, then you waste your resources and end up less safe. You can't assume that if you're wrong about Saddam's threat, there's no harm. Safer to knock him out first based on the hypothetical and ignore the consequences.
Watch the last minute or so of the Stewart interview. Feith's defense is that if Bush had left Saddam in power and "if the things we were worried about as an administration and a country had materialized," then people would be criticizing them. But that standard of evidence can justify anything, as the Bush administration proves all the time. I should be able to do whatever I want, because I'm acting in good faith, and if I'm wrong, we shouldn't worry, because what if I had been right?
Enough. You were wrong. Take your goddamn beating.
Advertisement
In the interview with Stewart, Feith says Bush wanted to respond to 9-11 from a position of strength. Almost like saying "Who cares if they had anything to do with it- we just need to kill some Arabs"
May 13, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
...And while we're at it, steal their oil and get some contracts for Halliburton and Blackwater!
May 14, 2008 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
And the President got to fly on a cool jet and land on one of them aircraft carrier ships. He said it was better than a roller coaster! What fun playing war is.
May 14, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "strength" that Feith was talking about is the key to the entire neo-con ideology. The idea is that the US as the lone superpower, must act strong militarily in order to keep the rest of the world in check. Of course by combining a flawed ideology like this with ineptitude get the last 5 years in Iraq which by all accounts hasn't made us look very strong at all.
Idiots!
May 13, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Feith is a horse's ass. And can't HRC drink him under the table anyway?
May 13, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And then Jon pointed out that good intentions and outcomes aren't really the point. The problem is, in withholding information from the American people (therefore engaging in deception), the Bush Administration denied Americans the opportunity to evaluate and judge for themselves the risks and justifications for going to war.
May 14, 2008 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
good point, laurajordan! :)
May 14, 2008 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"good intentions and outcomes aren't really the point"
Yes, and by the way, we all know what the road to Hell is paved with.
May 14, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jon Stewart ... Wow, that guy is a sharp thinker and debater, was he some law student or something?
I liked his remark about that "One percent thing":
'By that standard we should take out at least 15 countries'
Soooo right. And actually, those countries have now become more dangerous, since they've now seen what the usa will do.
In that respect, voting for Obama is more secure, since they will less threatenend by Obama.
May 14, 2008 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, remember that in that analogy of "a known murderer walking down a dark alley with his hand stuck inside his jacket" Chiat didn't say that
the more correct analogy would be that there were at least FIFTEEN other known murderers walking towards you with his hand stuck inside his jacket.
This is the same case of omitting facts.
May 14, 2008 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who else is on your list? I've got Iran, North Korea and Syria as states we're constantly quarreling with. Venezuela? Gaddafi was smart and got himself off the list.
May 14, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't help noticing how long some of these quarrels have been going on. I wonder if we would have invaded Iraq without a history of conflict going back to Desert Storm. In some ways, the quarrel with Iran has been going on even longer and has been just as violent if you include the fact that we backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. North Korea goes back to the '50s. We'd been in Afghanistan before, helping them throw the Russians out, but failing to maintain a position there. So much of what we do looks like unfinished business.
May 14, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Watching that interview on the Daily Show, I thought to myself: "Jon Stewart is asking the questions that the media should be asking. On a comedy show."
May 14, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
He has been asking them four days a week for years.
May 14, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
General Tommy Franks called him "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet". After his TDS appearance, it's clear that Franks was being charitable. He's like a developmentally disabled 9 year old that cannot connect his actions with their outcomes.
May 14, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stewart has a mixed record of pressing people during interviews, but the Feith interview was one of the best ever done with a planner of the Iraq invasion.
Not that Stewart was a great interviewer, but because these guys have been so rarely pushed to justify their mistakes.
May 14, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
sociopaths seldom have a genuine moment of reckoning.
PNAC signatories are essentially war criminals.
May 14, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink