Revolutionary Moderation

Thanks for the archival work



Here's a writer, fellow calls himself Stefan Sharkansky, who has itemised the arguments we have all been mentioning about why the war was a very bad, perhaps criminally bad, idea (and relates them back to one columnist, like that's the only source for these lines of reasoning). Seems Stefan doesn't agree with us, judging by the way he calls the list "canards". And yet, if you asked me to list all the reasons I thought the war was a bad idea, most of that list would be there.



Perhaps he has rebuttals for these so-called "canards". To be honest, I don't have complete patience for wandering his blog to find out, though I may tomorrow.



An example: September 11: Bush has been telling the American people that Saddam was responsible for the September 11 attacks. [he hasn't] It would otherwise be impossible to persuade the American public that there were valid reasons for removing Saddam from power. If "He hasn't" is the whole of the rebuttal, I can live with this - I think it's a reasonable description of the argument. No straw dog here. There are a couple of straw dogs, but only a couple.



I guess what I'm trying to say is, thanks, Stefan, for all the legwork. To those people who supported the war, disputing the arguments on that list would be a good place to start.



Update: It was too late, and my example was not entirely clear. I know that the administration has never explicitly linked September 11 with the former Iraqi regime. They have simply gone out of their way to create the impression that they had --- thus the half of Americans that had drawn that conclusion. Surely you remember the pains the Administration took to convince us of an al Quada/Iraq convention back at the beginning of Operation Get Consent. Stories surfaced of clandestine meetings in dark Egyptian barrios, theatrical enough for an episode of Secret Agent. Sure, the claims were retracted, but by then, people were convinced enough and the noise of the retraction was so small that the impression remained, and GW Bush could make subtle implications about the known terrorist connections Iraq had, and only people paying close attention realized he was talking about Hamas, and not Osama. It is disingenuous of Stefan to suggest this was not an intentional confusing of issues on the Administration's behalf.