Kudos to Tim Noah

Glenn Greenwald directs us to...

Glenn Greenwald: Atrios notes some commendable observations from Tim Noah, whose mea culpa article is, by far, the most thoughtful in the Slate pile (a distinction easily achieved)...

Tim Noah:

Forget what I got wrong. Why did Mary McGrory and Barack Obama get Iraq right?: Why should you waste your time, at this late date, ingesting the opinions of people who were wrong about Iraq? Wouldn't you benefit more from considering the views of people who were right? Five years after this terrible war began, it remains true that respectable mainstream discussion about its lessons is nearly exclusively confined to people who supported the war, even though that same mainstream acknowledges, for the most part, that the war was a mistake. That's true of Slate's symposium, and it was true of a similar symposium that appeared March 16 on the New York Times' op-ed pages. The people who opposed U.S. entry into the Iraq war, it would appear, are insufficiently "serious" to explain why they were right.

Fortunately, this Lewis Carroll logic hasn't prevailed... in the... Democratic nomination.... Barack Obama, is winning primary votes partly on the strength of his having opposed the Iraq invasion. Another person who ultimately proved right on Iraq is Mary McGrory... Feb. 13 [2003]...:

[E]veryone needs a respite from the encircling apprehension and dread. Beginning with the president, all should take a deep breath and reassess. Colin Powell is working overtime to close the loop on Iraq's ties to al Qaeda. In his masterly U.N. speech he made the case against Saddam Hussein, but not the case for war. He needs a rest. The orange alert has worn everybody out.

McGrory repeated this sentiment in her March 6 column, addressed to readers who'd misconstrued her Powell column. A couple of weeks later, McGrory suffered a stroke, and 13 months later she died. But she leaves behind a lovely anthology, edited by her friend Phil Gailey. It can be read more profitably than this pile of tired mea culpas.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Comments

[degustibus]

"Why should you waste your time, at this late date, ingesting the opinions of people who were wrong about Iraq?"

The problem is that the people who got Iraq wrong still have their jobs.

[Chris Brown]

I read the Noah piece and my reaction was to ask who would really believe Powell's lies to the UN. Powell made a career of lying and sweeping dirt under the rug, beginning with the My Lai massacre.

There were lots of credible voices calling BS on the Powell's delivery in it's immediate wake.

Why didn't Noah, for example, check in with Bob Graham, Scott Ritter, and etc., etc.?

I'm not forgiving the guy.

[Chris Brown]

I read the Noah piece and my reaction was to ask who would really believe Powell's lies to the UN. Powell made a career of lying and sweeping dirt under the rug, beginning with the My Lai massacre.

There were lots of credible voices calling BS on the Powell's delivery in it's immediate wake.

Why didn't Noah, for example, check in with Bob Graham, Scott Ritter, and etc., etc.?

I'm not forgiving the guy.

[Rob]

Powell was "John McCain" before there was a "John McCain". He was worshiped as an oracle in the press.

[tom f]

Just to remember, its not about forgiving. You don't forgive or not forgive someone for missing free throws, you just take them out of the game when they're gonna draw fouls.

A whole intellectual industry of US (sorry, it sounds crass because of previous usage) imperialists can't comprehend a lot of the world because the world most urgently includes the United States. The United States is a story book construct in their minds.

Iraq can't be about oil and power. Or, if its about power, its not like the lust for power that every other "great nation" experiences at its height. The United States has to be about democracy and human rights. Even if it makes no analytical sense, you don't analyze the Indespensable Nation anymore than you analyze why babies are cute. The US just is good. Sure, it makes mistakes in an imperfect world, especially when trying to bestow its light on backwards peoples.

Vietnam and S. East Asia, Central America & the Caribeean, the Persian Gulf and Western Asia. Those were all about democracy and human rights. It has to be so. Analyzing actions are unnecessary when the words of our leaders and the echo chamber of the Washington indoctrination industry count as facts.

Seriously, its not that anti-war voices don't matter. That can be explained in terms of normal pyschological projection. What's really batshit is: no Iraqis. Not in the NY Times, not anywhere. Imagine a Russian retrospective on Afghanistan after 5 years of war and no Afghani's. Even they could probably pull out some Communist doctor who wouldn't have to talk about how all his neighbors approve of shooting at Russians.

[doonga]

Why, oh why, even bother reading Slate? I, for one, have not regretted for one moment deleting it from my bookmarks. Haven't missed it all, boyo!