Wouldn't it be great to be wrong for a change?

[Minstrel Boy]

Just imagine if all of the extravagant charges last year against Iraq had been proven true: Saddam really did launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes; his "nuclear mujahideen" had reconstituted atomic weapons; his aluminum tubes were becoming missiles tipped with chemical warheads; his fleet of mobile weapons labs were delivering biological weapons to frontline troops; his feared remote-control drones were dropping nerve gas on coalition forces; his alliance with al Qaeda was revealed, including his complicity in 9/11; and the notorious prison of Abu Ghraib boasted a plastic shredder into which his opponents were fed feet first.

And imagine if all the promises made last year to Iraqis had been kept, and their hopes fulfilled, and the country now had an elected government, while US troop presence was minimal, and ever shrinking.

I imagine many here who were opposed to the invasion would admit that they'd got it wrong.

But we must use our imagination, because none of their claims were proven true, and none of their promises kept. And all we warned about, and worse, has come to pass. While the war party, wrong about everything, presses on.

It's said knowledge is power, but I've come to think that bullshit. I've never been better informed in my life than now, and I've never felt more impotent. And what's the good of being right if it means only comprehending the magnitude of the disaster called the New American Century. Getting it wrong for a change would mean things weren't as bad as I'd feared. And for a change, I'd like that.

[Octafish]

1. I've been hoping that for 30-plus years now.

Ever since someone's big brother took the time to explain to us 8th-graders WTF was going on, I've been hoping -- HOPING -- to be wrong. Every one in a while, some tiny ray of hope would appear in the form of a semi-kind deed or even a statement from one of these conservative so-and-sos. Then, "POOF!," it disappears, the image only to be replaced by the reality of what Neil Young called a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.

[Minstrel Boy]

3. I think the cognitive dissonance is at last driving America mad.

When people say "what have we become?", it's because their eyes have been opened to the yawning chasm between the sustaining myth of the "Greatest Country and the World" and the dark truth of the National Security State.

The gulf is so great, I don't think Americans can hold onto both anymore.

[Octafish]

4. And that captures the essence of the psyche, Minstrel Boy.

It IS crazy, but that's just because the situation is so maddening. Having the responsibility for world policeman thrust upon it in the fight against the Fascists and then the Communists, the United States was forced to evolve into the National Security State. The nation didn't have to. But the people who could have beaten the Soviets and whatever else comes next WITHOUT having to become the NSS were ALL killed by the people who benefit for what's become the status quo. They just happen to be American. Traitors. But, American.

[laura888]

2. "While the war party, wrong about everything, presses on."

So true.

Watching, the Rumsfeld hearings today, I felt that these people who were supposed to be more intelligent than myself, were maddeningly clueless.

I've been feeling that a lot lately.

well-written post, BTW.