The brief genre of "Iraq war mea culpa" was telling because, for the most part, they were thumbsucking exercises expressing, "How could I, a Harvard grad with a big brain, have been wrong, and those pig people, the protesters, have been right? Here are 27,000 words about why they are, AKSHUALLY, the stupid ones, and I will learn nothing from this."
For years I regularly asked why "we" were still in Iraq. There were several reasons, of course, but a big one was that no one influential was capable of admitting that the pig people were correct. The next 6 months are critical, and those hippies will be proved fucking wrong at least!
There really is no limit to the number of deaths some of these people will endorse in order to prove the fucking hippies wrong. I know that sounds ridiculous, and it is, but you have read their columns. I'm not far off here!
So many articles were written after the war started about how those stupid fucking hippies - the antiwar movement - were wrong and shameful and stupid and ridiculous and borderline treasonous and juvenile and naive and blah blah blah.
George Packer, editor of "The Fight is for Democracy," a collection of essays about America and its role in the world after Sept. 11, would like to see progressives put pressure on the administration to do more for the people of Iraq, rather than less. But Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says, "I see little evidence of any such liberal alternative that is serious and constructive for the people of Iraq, unfortunately." Liberals who care about the welfare of Iraqis, he says, must "start to distinguish between their dislike of Bush and their recognition that the mission must succeed. That would be a big start, and the crucial one.""Hatred of Bush and the opportunism of Democratic politicians has created a tactical alliance between mainstream Democrats and the fringe," says Packer, who writes about his own six-week trip to Iraq in a forthcoming New Yorker article. "It's disappointing to see both presidential candidates and leading members of Congress really fail to see the importance of what's going on in Iraq right now. You can object to no bid contracts, you can object to cronyism and waste as I do, without undermining the basic understanding that we are committed to this and we have an enormous obligation to the Iraqis. I don't see why you have to choose between disliking Halliburton and supporting the Iraqis in their efforts to create a decent society."
My guy - these "progressives" had no power! Your guys won! What the fuck are they supposed to do - you wont even let them write articles in the New Yorker! You own the microphones! They just write stupid blog posts and put some slogans on signs!