Tuesday, January 16, 2007
'Scuse me for not being right enough
I thought the Iraq invasion was a bad idea from the start, based as much on the obvious bad faith and lying and overselling by the administration as anything else. But as Megan McArdle points out (via tbogg - McArdle pissily blocked traffic from tbogg so to hell with linking to her), I am guilty of not predicting every single way in which the administration would fuck this up.
For example, I failed to oppose the invasion on the grounds that we would completely fail to secure the capital and protect the infrastructure and deploy sufficient manpower to get the electricity back on and prevent looting of Iraq's treasures.
I didn't figure we'd create a Coalition Provisional Authority and stock it with snot-nosed junior idealogues whose only qualifications were their daddy's name and their adherence to Bushie idealogy.
I never suspected Bush would put on a fighter pilot costume and pretend to land a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier and get out and strut around without loosening the parachute harness straps and then stand in front of a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and announce "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," long before major combat operations ended.
I didn't figure that when that particular publicity stunt backfired, Bush would blame the troops.
Abu Ghraib? I confess: I didn't see that coming.
The whole unleashing of Islamic fundamentalists bit? I sorta was afraid of that. And of this. But I figured the administration's big shot foreign policy experts surely knew more than I did, and that I must be worrying too much. So, again, I was wrong in assuming that anyone in the Bush administration knew his ass from a hole in the ground.
Saddam Hussein's lengthy trial for only some of the crimes he committed, with the verdict's being suddenly announced just in time for the US midterms and the hasty execution conducted by a gang of Shia thugs chanting the name of an Islamic fundamentalist cleric? And that execution being videotaped and put on the Internet for all to see? You got me. I totally failed to anticipate that.
So in short, although Megan McArdle was completely totally wrong, I myself am guilty of not being right enough.
Mea fucking culpa!
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I thought the Iraq invasion was a bad idea from the start, based as much on the obvious bad faith and lying and overselling by the administration as anything else. But as Megan McArdle points out (via tbogg - McArdle pissily blocked traffic from tbogg so to hell with linking to her), I am guilty of not predicting every single way in which the administration would fuck this up.
For example, I failed to oppose the invasion on the grounds that we would completely fail to secure the capital and protect the infrastructure and deploy sufficient manpower to get the electricity back on and prevent looting of Iraq's treasures.
I didn't figure we'd create a Coalition Provisional Authority and stock it with snot-nosed junior idealogues whose only qualifications were their daddy's name and their adherence to Bushie idealogy.
I never suspected Bush would put on a fighter pilot costume and pretend to land a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier and get out and strut around without loosening the parachute harness straps and then stand in front of a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and announce "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," long before major combat operations ended.
I didn't figure that when that particular publicity stunt backfired, Bush would blame the troops.
Abu Ghraib? I confess: I didn't see that coming.
The whole unleashing of Islamic fundamentalists bit? I sorta was afraid of that. And of this. But I figured the administration's big shot foreign policy experts surely knew more than I did, and that I must be worrying too much. So, again, I was wrong in assuming that anyone in the Bush administration knew his ass from a hole in the ground.
Saddam Hussein's lengthy trial for only some of the crimes he committed, with the verdict's being suddenly announced just in time for the US midterms and the hasty execution conducted by a gang of Shia thugs chanting the name of an Islamic fundamentalist cleric? And that execution being videotaped and put on the Internet for all to see? You got me. I totally failed to anticipate that.
So in short, although Megan McArdle was completely totally wrong, I myself am guilty of not being right enough.
Mea fucking culpa!
