Liberal commentator apologizes

[renata]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/opinion/22KRIS.html

At least he had the integrity to admit most of his predictions were wrong.

I Said That?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


Last September, a gloom-and-doom columnist warned about Iraq: "If we're going to invade, we need to prepare for a worst-case scenario involving street-to-street fighting."

Ahem. Yes, well, that was my body double while I was on vacation.

Since I complained vigorously about this war before it started, it's only fair for me to look back and acknowledge that many of the things that I — along with other doves — worried about didn't happen. So let's look back, examine the record and offer some preliminary accountability.

Despite my Cassandra columns, Iraq never carried out terrorist attacks in the U.S. or abroad, it didn't use chemical or biological weapons, and it didn't launch missiles against Israel in hopes of triggering a broader war. Turkey has not invaded northern Iraq to attack the Kurds.

So let me start by tipping my hat to administration planners whose work reduced those risks. For example, one reason Iraq did not attack Israel may have been the Special Operations forces in the western desert of Iraq, where the launches would have come from. And belated pressure from Washington has kept Turkey out of the war so far.

The most curious aspect of the war was Iraq's failure to use weapons of mass destruction, and neither most doves nor most hawks get credit for predicting that. If the U.S somehow blocked Iraq from using them, a deep bow to President Bush. But if Iraq never had any weaponized chemical or biological agents, then Mr. Bush has plenty of explaining to do to the children of the Americans and the Iraqis who died in the war.

President Bush, in his State of the Union address, described a vast Iraqi weapons program and talked about several mobile labs, 30,000 munitions, 500 tons of chemical weapons, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin. These weapons were supposedly deployed in the war and controlled by field commands that we have long since overrun — so where are they?

It's too early to be sure, but my guess is that doves cried wolf in terms of the risks of upheavals in Pakistan and Jordan. Indeed, that alarm has been raised repeatedly — at the time of the first gulf war, again with the Afghanistan war and now with the Iraq war — and the worries proved exaggerated each time. True, radicals came to power in parts of Pakistan, but on the whole the Muslim Street has not been as scary as we expected. Maybe it's time to retire that bogeyman.

No one got the level of resistance quite right. We doves correctly foresaw that the war would not be a cakewalk, but for all our hand-wringing, there was never prolonged street-to-street fighting in Baghdad.

The ones who really blew it were the superraptors like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and, to a lesser extent, Paul Wolfowitz, who over the years had suggested, as Mr. Perle put it in a Washington Post essay in 1998: "It would be neither wise nor necessary for us to send ground forces into Iraq" because Iraqi exiles could do the job by themselves with American weapons and air cover. Fortunately, Tommy Franks and Colin Powell demanded more than an Invasion Lite pipedream.

As for the reaction of the Iraqi people, I'd say the doves were more accurate than the hawks. Frankly, the reaction varied hugely. There were some places where, as Vice President Dick Cheney had forecast, our troops were "greeted as liberators." But even in the Shiite south, one feels as much menace as gratitude.

Those Americans who contend that Iraqis hail us as liberators should try traveling around Iraq. I grew a mustache to look more like an Iraqi so hostile locals wouldn't throw rocks at my car. (I've now returned to the U.S. and had to shave my mustache so my family wouldn't throw stones at me.)

The hawks also look increasingly naïve in their expectations that Iraq will soon blossom into a pro-American democracy. For now, the figures who inspire mass support in postwar Iraq are Shiite clerics like Ali al-Sistani (moderate, but tainted by being soft on Saddam), Moqtadah al-Sadr (radical son of a martyr) and Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim (Iran's candidate), all of whom criticize the United States.

As in revolutionary Iran, the Shiite network is the major network left in Iraq, and it will help determine the narrative of the war: infidel invasion or friendly liberation. I'm afraid we infidels had better look out.

 

[arcticpenguin]

It's good he could admit he was wrong. Just this week there was a letter in the local paper about how much the Iraqi people were suffering, and it was all due to sanctions which meant Iraq couldn't buy hopital supplies, etc.

Meanwhile, in the news, over half a billion US$ worth of currency has already been found stashed in homes of former Baath party rulers in Baghdad.

 

[a_unique_person]

I would say he has reviewed his predictions, and some are wrong, some are right, some things surfaced he never expected.

So what. You can say exactly the same for the right.

 

[Skeptic]

So what.

The newsworthy point is not that a liberal columist was wrong--that's like saying the sun came up in the morning--but that he was willing to admit it.

 

[iain]

Seems like a fair column. Some right, some wrong, some still waiting to see.

(If there's anyone here, or anywhere in the media, who thinks they can accurately and consistently predict the future, they should be applying for Randi's $1 million. If not, either don't make predictions or be willing to admit your mistakes.).

 

[a_unique_person]

So what.

The newsworthy point is not that a liberal columist was wrong--that's like saying the sun came up in the morning--but that he was willing to admit it.

I have yet to see any right wing columnists 'admit' anything like this. This guy has shown an ability to self-analyse, the right seems to lack this ability from what I can see. They are pretty well clones of 'I am always right' JK when it comes to this.

 

[crackmonkey]

At least the guy had the class to admit he was mistaken. That's a lot more than can be said for some other left-wing hacks...
Some right-wing commentators weren't completely accurate in their predictions for the war, but it's a far cry from " The war will be over in a week" (when it lasted 3) to " We'll be doomed if we go into Iraq. It will be a quagmire with no end... the entire MIddle East will attack us".

 

[jj]

At least the guy had the class to admit he was mistaken. That's a lot more than can be said for some other left-wing hacks...
Some right-wing commentators weren't completely accurate in their predictions for the war, but it's a far cry from " The war will be over in a week" (when it lasted 3) to " We'll be doomed if we go into Iraq. It will be a quagmire with no end... the entire MIddle East will attack us".

Yep. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nerve Gas. Nukes. ...

And, now, Saddamn has sent his troops all home to survive, so when we leave, he can resurface and go on like nothing every happened.

 

[RandFan]

I have yet to see any right wing columnists 'admit' anything like this. This guy has shown an ability to self-analyse, the right seems to lack this ability from what I can see. They are pretty well clones of 'I am always right' JK when it comes to this.

One mea culpa does not exhonerate the left. That "you" don't remeber having seen any "right wing columnists" culp a mea is not a condemnation of the right.

Fallacious reasoning and BTW screw JK. UCE is on the left and as I remember he thinks that "HE" is always right.

 

[Smalso]

I made no predictions so much as I expressed fears. I breathe a sigh of relief that my fears did not come to pass. Everything seems to be going better than expected, and for that we all can be grateful. One thing that bothers me, though, is that despite the elation, it ain't over yet.

(culp a mea??? )

 

[RandFan]

I made no predictions so much as I expressed fears. I breathe a sigh of relief that my fears did not come to pass. Everything seems to be going better than expected, and for that we all can be grateful. One thing that bothers me, though, is that despite the elation, it ain't over yet.

(culp a mea??? )

Thanks Smalso,

What is the line "I made no predictions..." from?

 

[Smalso]

Thanks Smalso,

What is the line "I made no predictions..." from?

Just a statement on what my position was and is. I read predictions of the dire consequences that would befall the United States if it invaded Iraq. I was against it; mainly because of fears that I had. I expressed these fears--some of them, at least--but i did not mean that I was predicting these things to happen. I don't like Bush, I don't trust him, and I did not vote for him; but, dammit, he's the only president I have right now and my loyalty to my country dictates that I be loyal to the president--within bounds, of course.

I have found that, in many instances, when columnists, politicians and, yes, even posters in internet forums, make dire predictions they all too often hope they will come true; they want to be able to say, See. I told you so." For my part, I felt that once the course was set, it was my duty to get behind it and help make it work.

Clear as mud, I know. I have not been at my best the past few days. My apologies.

 

[RandFan]

Clear as mud, I know. I have not been at my best the past few days. My apologies.

Not at all. I found the statement eloquent. I assumed that you were quoting someonone. I won't make that mistake again.

I find your willingness to support Bush refreshing. That was my position when Clinton was in office. My family and my wife's family are very conservative and I found myself chalenging people's logic and defending Clinton when I thought the criticism unfair. Though I admire Clinton as a politician I did not vote for him and don't share allot of his ideology and spoke out against him when I thought he was making incorect decisions. That said I supported him as president.