Conservatives and neconservatives have begun renoucing war

[whimsicaldeb]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html

From the Mar. 13, 2006 Magazine | Essay

What I Got Wrong About the War
As conservatives pour out their regrets, I have a few of my own to confess
By ANDREW SULLIVAN

Posted Sunday, Mar. 05, 2006

Was I wrong to support the war in Iraq? Several conservatives and neoconservatives have begun to renounce the decision to topple Saddam Hussein three years ago. William F. Buckley Jr., as close to a conservative icon as America has, recently wrote that "one can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." George F. Will has been a moderate skeptic throughout. Neoconservative scholar Francis Fukuyama has just produced a book renouncing his previous support. The specter of Iraq teetering closer to civil war and disintegration has forced a reckoning.

In retrospect, neoconservatives (and I fully include myself) made three huge errors. The first was to overestimate the competence of government, especially in very tricky areas like WMD intelligence. The shock of 9/11 provoked an overestimation of the risks we faced. And our fear forced errors into a deeply fallible system. When doubts were raised, they were far too swiftly dismissed. The result was the WMD intelligence debacle, something that did far more damage to the war's legitimacy and fate than many have yet absorbed.

Fukuyama's sharpest insight here is how the miraculously peaceful end of the cold war lulled many of us into overconfidence about the inevitability of democratic change, and its ease. We got cocky. We should have known better. The second error was narcissism. America's power blinded many of us to the resentments that hegemony always provokes. Those resentments are often as deep among our global friends as among our enemies--and make alliances as hard as they are important. That is not to say we should never act unilaterally. Sometimes the right thing to do will spawn backlash, and we should do it anyway. But that makes it all the more imperative that when we do go out on a limb, we get things right. In those instances, we need to make our margin of error as small as humanly possible. Too many in the Bush Administration, alas, did the opposite. They sent far too few troops, were reckless in postinvasion planning and turned a deaf ear to constructive criticism, even from within their own ranks. Their abdication of the moral high ground, by allowing the abuse and torture of military detainees, is repellent. Their incompetence and misjudgments might be forgiven. Their arrogance and obstinacy remain inexcusable.

The final error was not taking culture seriously enough. There is a large discrepancy between neoconservatism's skepticism of government's ability to change culture at home and its naiveté when it comes to complex, tribal, sectarian cultures abroad. We have learned a tough lesson, and it has been a lot tougher for those tens of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis and several thousand killed and injured American soldiers than for a few humiliated pundits. The correct response to that is not more spin but a real sense of shame and sorrow that so many have died because of errors made by their superiors, and by writers like me. All this is true, and it needs to be faced. But it is also true that we are where we are. And true that there was no easy alternative three years ago. You'd like Saddam still in power, with our sanctions starving millions while U.N. funds lined the pockets of crooks and criminals? At some point the wreckage that is and was Iraq would have had to be dealt with. If we hadn't invaded, at some point in the death spiral of Saddam's disintegrating Iraq, others would. It is also true that it is far too soon to know the ultimate outcome of our gamble.

What we do know is that for all our mistakes, free elections have been held in a largely Arab Muslim country. We know that the Kurds in the north enjoy freedoms and a nascent civil society that is a huge improvement on the past. We know that the culture of the marsh Arabs in the south is beginning to revive. We know that we have given Iraqis a chance to decide their own destiny through politics rather than murder and that civil war is still avoidable. We know that the enemies of democracy in Iraq will not stop there if they succeed. And we know that no perfect war has ever been fought, and no victory ever won, without the risk of defeat. Despair, in other words, is too easy now. And it too is a form of irresponsibility.

Regrets? Yes. But the certainty of some today that we have failed is as dubious as the callow triumphalism of yesterday. War is always, in the end, a matter of flexibility and will. And sometimes the darkest days are inevitable--even necessary--before the sky ultimately clears. Visit Andrew Sullivan's blog, the Daily Dish, at time.com

--- end of commentary


Finally!!!

I hope they don't stop there ...

[stilltrucking]

Listened to an npr bit on social conservatives last night. From memory:
I am sick and tired of these doubting Thomas’. George W Bush is a noble Christian man. Sure he has made a few mistakes. But his Christianity is sincere and I forgive his mistakes because of his stand for family values.

The correct response to that is not more spin but a real sense of shame and sorrow that so many have died because of errors made by their superiors, and by writers like me..

Well that is all well and good but at least he ends on an upbeat note. Not all is lost. All we to do is stay the course.

Regrets? Yes. But the certainty of some today that we have failed is as dubious as the callow triumphalism of yesterday. War is always, in the end, a matter of flexibility and will. And sometimes the darkest days are inevitable--even necessary--before the sky ultimately clears. Visit Andrew Sullivan's blog, the Daily Dish, at time.com --- end of commentary[/quote

The guy is still full of sh*t if you as me.

[whimsicaldeb]

This guy, full of shit or not, finally admitted he - and others like him - were wrong! And, that this war was a mistake.

Thank goodness!

Because other conservatives listen to this guy, and Buckley, and their words carry weight, influence. And we need them to influence their own. We need them to know they were wrong, we need them to know they made a mistake - because we need them to help correct and put things back right, as best we can.

Bush - and this nameless other person on npr you mention; still publically are doing their song & dance routine. And Sullivan - being pudnit as he is, needs to put some sort of salve on his ego's wounds ... so what.

Focus on the positive of this ... they finally are seeing and admitting ~ and we (this country!) needs that do this very thing!

As, all the while, Bush and his stay the courser groups continue their public dancing routine, all around them ... their support (the platform they're dancing on) is steadly falling away, and away, and away ...

Sullivan and Buckley as mentioned in the aricle above, and ...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030706A.shtml
GOP Lawmakers Work to Limit Probe of Domestic Spying Program

Washington - Republicans in Congress are trying to limit the scope of any investigation into how President Bush's secret domestic-surveillance program has operated. Some key lawmakers are also working to legalize such spying on U.S. citizens in the future, perhaps with some judicial restrictions.
The dual-track effort is designed to protect the Bush administration from an all-out congressional inquiry into the secret program, while rejecting Bush's argument that he already has full legal authority to order such surveillance.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030706E.shtml
Majority in US Fear Iraq Civil War
Poll also finds growing doubt about Bush

http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina
Newly released video footage shows how, in dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his Homeland Security Chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers. Bush did not ask a single question during this final briefing before Katrina struck. Four days later Bush declared "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030706E.shtml
March 06, 2006
On security, it's Congress vs. Bush
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are taking on the president over terrorism and American power.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers are moving into open confrontation with the White House on everything from its conduct of the war on terrorism - at home and abroad - to its vision of American power.

You remember Vietnamn ...

remember how long it took for the conservatives - those 'stay the coursers' - back then to finally admit they were wrong? A whole lot longer (and a lot more lives) than this time.

This war is like Vietnam – only … faster. People are coming to their senses (finally!), faster.

Thank goodness!

Not a perfect world – ST ...
http://gnn.tv/articles/2010/Which_Wolf_ ... ed_in_2006

[firsty]

it's a bunch of asscrap bullshit if you ask me. the neocons have to renounce the war with enough lead time to the 2008 elections, and theyre doing just that. the war now is no different than it was a year and a half ago when we were too fucking stupid to get bush out of office when we had the chance. the only chance america has to affect any real change is for the impeachment demands to gain legs and get on the front pages. an indicted fraud (delay) won the republican primary in texas yesterday. the american people need a whole shit load of excrement piled on their heads in order to make a sound decision about the fat elephant hanging over their lives, and having the next generation of republican minds get out the anti-war talk isnt going to do anything but further institutionalize the self-serving morally-fucked capitalistic diarrhea we've had to endure the past 6 years.