Anti-War Triumphalism
Here's the sort of triumphalism I'm seeing from the anti-war left these days:
It's no wonder some of us accuse some of them of gloating over Iraqi tragedies. I have seen the faces, lit by ghoulish smiles, as they relisah every detail of mayhem and sectarian slaughter in Baghdad these days. I have heard their dripping sarcasm as they recount the hopeful statements of the administration. I cannot help but feel there's schadenfreude, if not genuine pleasure, in their minds when they see the images on the TV.
It disgusts me, but I'm used to it. Twenty-four million Iraqis, and the future of the Middle East, don't mean a thing to them measured against the embarrassment of a U.S. administration they despise.
But who really gets to be triumphalist if the Iraq project goes into a downward spiral? Many are already lining up to claim they saw the whole thing coming. But it is sensible, in observing this, to sort out who among them really perceived this outcome, and to sift those savants from those who simply sold their souls to the insistence than George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was going to be a colossal failure, and who were picking the moment of failure at every step in the last three years.
Anyone can spray birdshot and nail a quail and a lawyer alike. We're looking for the real marksmen here.
If you answer yes to any of those six questions (and there are more), take yourself off the anti-war triumphalist list. Don't feel too badly; you're in the good company of almost the entire anti-war left.
If you answer no, but said all along there was going to be a civil war in Iraq several years after the invasion, then go ahead and gloat. If that's the best you can do. If that's all you've got. But don't expect me to vote for you on that basis.
You can be the party that says, as your primary message, "We wouldn't be in this mess if I had been in charge in 2003." That's nice for you. But what you're saying to me is Saddam still would be in power, and Iraq still would be in chains, and we'd have another, and possibly worse, mess on our hands.*
*Please don't try to say "the sanctions were working, they should have been given more time." Especially if you've read the official reports on oil-for-food. And especially if you were among those, back before 2001, who called them a cruel collective punishment on the Iraqi people that was ineffective against the regime. If you did, though, you can be triumphalist about that; turns out you were right.
I want to comment on this huge blunder of a war that the little emperor has gotten us into. The situation we face in Iraq was entirely predictable. Everyone that really looked at the situation without rose colored neocon naive glasses on saw what was going to happen.
It's no wonder some of us accuse some of them of gloating over Iraqi tragedies. I have seen the faces, lit by ghoulish smiles, as they relisah every detail of mayhem and sectarian slaughter in Baghdad these days. I have heard their dripping sarcasm as they recount the hopeful statements of the administration. I cannot help but feel there's schadenfreude, if not genuine pleasure, in their minds when they see the images on the TV.
It disgusts me, but I'm used to it. Twenty-four million Iraqis, and the future of the Middle East, don't mean a thing to them measured against the embarrassment of a U.S. administration they despise.
But who really gets to be triumphalist if the Iraq project goes into a downward spiral? Many are already lining up to claim they saw the whole thing coming. But it is sensible, in observing this, to sort out who among them really perceived this outcome, and to sift those savants from those who simply sold their souls to the insistence than George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was going to be a colossal failure, and who were picking the moment of failure at every step in the last three years.
Anyone can spray birdshot and nail a quail and a lawyer alike. We're looking for the real marksmen here.
- Did you predict Saddam using chemical or biological weapons against coalition troops in the invasion?
- Did you predict hundreds of thousands of refugees from the war?
- Did you predict Saddam attacking Israel?
- Did you call quagmire when the first advance paused to catch its breath at Nasiriyah?
- Did you predict bloody house-by-house fighting to take Baghdad?
- Did you predict the Iraqi national elections never would take place?
If you answer yes to any of those six questions (and there are more), take yourself off the anti-war triumphalist list. Don't feel too badly; you're in the good company of almost the entire anti-war left.
If you answer no, but said all along there was going to be a civil war in Iraq several years after the invasion, then go ahead and gloat. If that's the best you can do. If that's all you've got. But don't expect me to vote for you on that basis.
You can be the party that says, as your primary message, "We wouldn't be in this mess if I had been in charge in 2003." That's nice for you. But what you're saying to me is Saddam still would be in power, and Iraq still would be in chains, and we'd have another, and possibly worse, mess on our hands.*
*Please don't try to say "the sanctions were working, they should have been given more time." Especially if you've read the official reports on oil-for-food. And especially if you were among those, back before 2001, who called them a cruel collective punishment on the Iraqi people that was ineffective against the regime. If you did, though, you can be triumphalist about that; turns out you were right.
