Beating on Kevin Drum.
Sometimes Kevin Drums bugs me. His latest irksome post starts this way and doesn't get much better.
Channeling Judith Miller, "I was proved fucking right". I was protesting this strategically and ethically bad idea in the cold in Feb 2003 with a placard the said: "Why Iraq?, Why war?, Why now?" It seemed to me that there were no good answers to those questions then and there are none now.
As I said to people at the time: I don't need a reason to be against starting a war... I need some bloody good reasons to support such a thing and I wasn't getting them. That was enough to be against the invasion. Before I knew all that I know now, I knew: 1) that Iraq was a distraction from prosecuting the perpetrators of 9/11 -- OBL and al Qaeda, 2) that the U.S. starting a war in the Middle East would not make the world a better place 3) that there was no reason to rush. What was the hurry?
None of it passed the sniff test. I started doing research and everything I learned was consistent with BushCo, not just being wrong, but with being deliberately misleading and lying to us all. As most people have learned, when people lie about why they're doing something, they tend to be short of legitimate reasons.
Another fact which made me realize that there was no validity to their claims of WMD was that, if Saddam had had WMD and was such an evil tyrant and, furthermore, saw that he was doomed, he would have used them. The fact that they launched the invasion the way they did anyway, indicated to me that BushCo was damned sure there weren't any WMD. WMD was just something to scare people into acquiescence.
Like I said, I was against the invasion for good reasons at the time. The fact that Kevin wasn't, probably just means that he was caught up in the fear-mongering along with so many others. He's probably embarrassed now and (perhaps subconsciously) wishes he could find a way to justify the actions he took back then.
I resent his comment "It's because they don't deserve it". We do deserve it. We were proved fucking right... and not just about the outcome (which as many have said is much worse then I would have predicted) but we were right about why we shouldn't have started it. It's not the fact that the U.S. has lost this war that makes it wrong (that just compounds it). It was predictably (and predicted) wrong to start the war for the reasons I stated in Feb 2003 and it still is.
UPDATE: He bugs Atrios too, so I posted my comment there too:
If anti-war liberals were right about the war from the start, how come they don't get more respect? Here's the nickel version of the answer from liberal hawks: It's because they don't deserve it. Sure, the war has gone badly, but not for the reasons the doves warned of.What follows is the Comment that I left on his blog just now.
Channeling Judith Miller, "I was proved fucking right". I was protesting this strategically and ethically bad idea in the cold in Feb 2003 with a placard the said: "Why Iraq?, Why war?, Why now?" It seemed to me that there were no good answers to those questions then and there are none now.
As I said to people at the time: I don't need a reason to be against starting a war... I need some bloody good reasons to support such a thing and I wasn't getting them. That was enough to be against the invasion. Before I knew all that I know now, I knew: 1) that Iraq was a distraction from prosecuting the perpetrators of 9/11 -- OBL and al Qaeda, 2) that the U.S. starting a war in the Middle East would not make the world a better place 3) that there was no reason to rush. What was the hurry?
None of it passed the sniff test. I started doing research and everything I learned was consistent with BushCo, not just being wrong, but with being deliberately misleading and lying to us all. As most people have learned, when people lie about why they're doing something, they tend to be short of legitimate reasons.
Another fact which made me realize that there was no validity to their claims of WMD was that, if Saddam had had WMD and was such an evil tyrant and, furthermore, saw that he was doomed, he would have used them. The fact that they launched the invasion the way they did anyway, indicated to me that BushCo was damned sure there weren't any WMD. WMD was just something to scare people into acquiescence.
Like I said, I was against the invasion for good reasons at the time. The fact that Kevin wasn't, probably just means that he was caught up in the fear-mongering along with so many others. He's probably embarrassed now and (perhaps subconsciously) wishes he could find a way to justify the actions he took back then.
I resent his comment "It's because they don't deserve it". We do deserve it. We were proved fucking right... and not just about the outcome (which as many have said is much worse then I would have predicted) but we were right about why we shouldn't have started it. It's not the fact that the U.S. has lost this war that makes it wrong (that just compounds it). It was predictably (and predicted) wrong to start the war for the reasons I stated in Feb 2003 and it still is.
UPDATE: He bugs Atrios too, so I posted my comment there too:
I opposed the war primarily because it seems like a bad idea to go to war for no reason. And there was no reason. I don't really know why I have to keep explaining that.
Not only was there a no good reason, but it was transparently sold with lies in a hostile divisive political campaign.
[...]
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
..adding, as I meant to say in the original post, there are also numerous obvious bad consequences to killing a bunch of people for no good reason. So, yes, there were numerous reasons to oppose this war and no good reasons to support it. Why are we still arguing about this?
posted by Bill at 7:03 PM
2 Comments:
Why don't anti-war liberals get respect?
It's not because they weren't right. It's because the MSM bought it hook line and sinker and doesn't want to admit its mistakes. It's because what's pounded into America's conscious and subconscious is that liberals blame America first and only care about the rights of the terrorists. It's because it doesn't comport with the right wing handlers who run the media who profit off of war and fear. That's why.
You got that right!
But, according to MSM pundits, it doesn't matter that you were right, you weren't nice while you were being right and that makes you wrong. The Kewl Kids were drinking the Kool-Aid with their pinkies extended, so it doesn't matter if they were wrong... they're Kewl Kids, dontcha know?
You liberals don't seem to acknowledge America's Manifest Destiny. -- they're good guys who can do no wrong. Oh, LJM... why do you insist on supporting the terrorists?
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