The Smart Guys
I'm starting to see the beginnings of a new trend or fad from D.C. "thinkers" and media hacks. It is being oh-so-slyly dropped in articles and TV head time that the only real problem with the Iraq conflict is that it has been waged incompetently. The underlieing premise, simply understood of course, is that invading and occupying Iraq was the "correct" foreign policy. The implementation was just messed up.
As this theme is woven like a web for U.S. consumption, many, many conservatives, and some libs too, will eventually, I predict, flock to this completely erroneous concept and embrace it as their own.
The reason why this will happen is simple. It is the proverbial "cover your ass" tactic. See if you recognize it in your own thinking. People who were enthusiastic about invading Iraq were snookered into a corner by the neo-con cheerleaders. WMD, al-Qaeda in Iraq, complicity in 9-11, Iraqi drones over the U.S. eastern seaboard, uranium from Niger, mushroom clouds, Atta meetings with Iraqis, and I'm sure many more falsehoods made up the "message" for Americans to swallow. This isn't in doubt now, is it? The "message" was a lie.
Now consider the great length the neo-cons and their enablers went in order to NOT admit these things were untrue. It would be comedic if it wasn't so tragic. Slowly but surely each and every "reason" to go into Iraq have been shown to be untrue. And yet, new reasons to justify the invasion kept coming. Democracy, freedom on the march, stand up stand down, fighting there so not fight here, oil in the hands of them there ter'rists, and much more.
None of this is happening, none of it is true, but neo-cons and their enablers keep right on truckin'. New lies and repeated lies like hordes of locus swarm the American scene. WMD were taken to Syria, Iran is really the enemy, we must protect Israel from Iran so we must stay in Iraq, and on and on.
All of this just in order to avoid saying, confessing even, "we were just wrong about Iraq". Even liberal columnists like Richard Cohen, who was for the "war", says he thought the invasion of Iraq would give us Americans some much needed "therapeutic violence" to calm our 9-11 national nerves. But alas, the real problem wasn't the pre-emption policy of the neo-cons, in Cohen's and many other oh-so-smart folks minds. No, it was just incompetence. They just didn't invade and occupy Iraq like they should have.
All of this crazy hopping around non-logic is for one reason and one reason only. To avoid admitting being utterly mistaken about Iraq. Republicans especially have bred an environment where admission of ANY mistake is anathema. Now, no one can do it if they once supported the pre-emptive mistake. So it can't be that pre-emption is incorrect or the illegal invasion and occupation was wrongheaded. Why? Well, after all, these folks leave unsaid, we can't be wrong.
Very few can admit it. As if being human no longer includes the possibility of being wrong or incorrect about something. It is simply "cover our asses" so we can live on to always be right in the future.
So, incompetence will be the word of choice for all the "smart" people who were originally for invading Iraq. It was the right thing to do, but we just didn't think George and Dick and Don would be so, well, incompetent. I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of victims of this "smart" conflict will find great comfort in knowing it was really incompetence and not just ignorance that led to their losses. Don't you?
As this theme is woven like a web for U.S. consumption, many, many conservatives, and some libs too, will eventually, I predict, flock to this completely erroneous concept and embrace it as their own.
The reason why this will happen is simple. It is the proverbial "cover your ass" tactic. See if you recognize it in your own thinking. People who were enthusiastic about invading Iraq were snookered into a corner by the neo-con cheerleaders. WMD, al-Qaeda in Iraq, complicity in 9-11, Iraqi drones over the U.S. eastern seaboard, uranium from Niger, mushroom clouds, Atta meetings with Iraqis, and I'm sure many more falsehoods made up the "message" for Americans to swallow. This isn't in doubt now, is it? The "message" was a lie.
Now consider the great length the neo-cons and their enablers went in order to NOT admit these things were untrue. It would be comedic if it wasn't so tragic. Slowly but surely each and every "reason" to go into Iraq have been shown to be untrue. And yet, new reasons to justify the invasion kept coming. Democracy, freedom on the march, stand up stand down, fighting there so not fight here, oil in the hands of them there ter'rists, and much more.
None of this is happening, none of it is true, but neo-cons and their enablers keep right on truckin'. New lies and repeated lies like hordes of locus swarm the American scene. WMD were taken to Syria, Iran is really the enemy, we must protect Israel from Iran so we must stay in Iraq, and on and on.
All of this just in order to avoid saying, confessing even, "we were just wrong about Iraq". Even liberal columnists like Richard Cohen, who was for the "war", says he thought the invasion of Iraq would give us Americans some much needed "therapeutic violence" to calm our 9-11 national nerves. But alas, the real problem wasn't the pre-emption policy of the neo-cons, in Cohen's and many other oh-so-smart folks minds. No, it was just incompetence. They just didn't invade and occupy Iraq like they should have.
All of this crazy hopping around non-logic is for one reason and one reason only. To avoid admitting being utterly mistaken about Iraq. Republicans especially have bred an environment where admission of ANY mistake is anathema. Now, no one can do it if they once supported the pre-emptive mistake. So it can't be that pre-emption is incorrect or the illegal invasion and occupation was wrongheaded. Why? Well, after all, these folks leave unsaid, we can't be wrong.
Very few can admit it. As if being human no longer includes the possibility of being wrong or incorrect about something. It is simply "cover our asses" so we can live on to always be right in the future.
So, incompetence will be the word of choice for all the "smart" people who were originally for invading Iraq. It was the right thing to do, but we just didn't think George and Dick and Don would be so, well, incompetent. I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of victims of this "smart" conflict will find great comfort in knowing it was really incompetence and not just ignorance that led to their losses. Don't you?
posted by bluester | 5:18 PM
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