Sunday, March 11, 2007

Pre-war predictions

There's a blog meme going around asking whether pre-war predictions were right or wrong on Iraq. While this blog didn't exist in 2003 (or even two months ago), Sweaterman and I (and Captain Dave, another of our friends) repeatedly predicted just about every thing that would go wrong. I was so deeply distressed at the impending war that I hid out on the San Juan river when it became clear that shrub was about to invade, because I couldn't bear to watch the news. I thought it was obvious that defeating Saddam would be easy, and the aftermath would be terrible. I knew that the whole WMD thing was a sham, based on the inspection results. I have enough knowledge of the middle east to know that sectarian violence would follow, and that occupation would never be greeted with flowers. The whole disaster has been making me crazy ever since. I've had to hear and read way too many rightwing pundits continue to be mind numbingly wrong, and yet their idiocy is still respected.
One of the best posts I've read on this meme is by Badtux, one of my fav bloggers:http://badtux.net/2007/03/what-did-i-get-right-and-what-did-i-get.html#links
I especially like his end statement:
So, given that I was right and every single right-wing pundit, politician, blogger and commentator was wrong, why should I listen to them? More importantly, why should *anybody* listen to them? How can anybody listen to someone who has been proven wrong so many times? This penguin has no idea, other than that monkeys are stupid. But that's hardly a satisfying answer, given that monkeys rule the world...

2 comments:

Demeur said...

I knew way before the invasion that it would happen as a first resort from this article:
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=provisions13&date=20021013&query=preparing+for+war
I knew that when you remove an entire government no matter how bad you'll not win the hearts and minds of that nation. Remember Iraq was a socialist country. And by removing the government that was secular in nature it gave way to Islamic extremists to move in and add their 12th century ideologies. Lastly that a government that had ruled for over 30 years would not sit idley by and give up power but regroup and fight when they had safely melted into society was obvious.
It appears that now even the main stream media can not ignore the lies, the cover ups and scandals we've experienced without looking like fools. Hopefully the end of monkey rule is near. Sorry this is an insult to real monkeys.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I too thought that attacking Iraq would prove to be a disaster. I was watching one of the cable tv news shows while in DC and they had a right wing pundit actually trying to convince America, and maybe himself that this war was never about WMDs. I find that amazing that the PR people really believe that we are that stupid, that we have no memories, that the Administration never claimed that attacking Iraq was necessary because of how dangerous SAddam was to the USA...just amazing...these folks are nuts, drowning in their own lies.