101 Reasons Why Our Leaders Should Admit that Invading Iraq Was a Mistake
Admitting that it's a failure means we can actually come up with a better policy.
Admitting it was a mistake will shed the scales of denial and align us with world opinion—in the same way that admitting you're an alcoholic during an intervention aligns you with the opinion of all your friends;
Admitting it was a mistake will win hearts and minds around the world, suggesting that the U.S. is after all a beacon of freedom.
Admitting it was a mistake will at last permit the tumbrils to travel down the cobbled streets of Georgetown to the guillotines by the river. As it is, a lot of people are holding on to fancy jobs notwithstanding the greatest error of judgment since Vietnam. The White House's admitting it was a mistake will force them to admit it was a mistake too, or lose their heads. There will be confessions and embraces. Tears will run through the streets of 20036, statues will be erected commemorating the 11 freelance writers who opposed the war. It will be a great show, and maybe restore authority to editorial writers and the Brookings Institution;
Admitting it was a mistake will at last shut up the pious Democrats who voted for the war and now insist that Rumsfeld simply mishandled it—as though putting 500,000 soldiers in a foreign country, rather than 263,000, to install a new form of government, was genius;
Admitting it was a mistake will make the American Enterprise Institute the new Alcatraz;
As Laura and Papa Bush surely know, George Bush might actually get a legacy if he admitted that Iraq was a mistake; as it is, he has stubbornly set himself up for twisting around in this psychopolitical glue trap forever, insisting into his old age that he did the right thing, or, at best, writing a book like Robert McNamara's Vietnam mea culpa—too late for anyone to be helped by it. (James Baker should lead the intervention.)
Admitting it was a mistake will save lives...
I think that's about a million reasons. I'll think of some more later...
Admitting an error is contrary to Neocon ideology and Bush's lack of morality. As David Brooks said, no one is willing to admit an error in the White House because it implies that Cheney is not infallible. I grant little or nothing to GW Bush since he can't speak English well enough to know what the concept of error is.
I don't know. American hatred for the "Islamofacists" seems to have taken root (you always hate those you have wronged), and God knows Arab and Muslim hatred for the US is now stronger than ever. In other words, we're now embroiled in a war that's likely to keep simmering for at least a generation. If I were an Israeli, I'm not sure I'd consider it a mistake.
Thank the sheep, the gullible american public for the current dilemma that will continue indefinitely , we're screwed.
Mistake, what mistake? Everything in Iraq is going well. It's just the liberal media and the defeatocrats' lies that make it seem like things are not going perfectly. Bush is the best President this country ever had!
It is classical Rove not to admit mistake or failure so one should not hold one's breath on this.
Iraq is unravelling as one always knew it would. Sectarian differences have been liberated. The country is embroiled in civil war, US military caught in the middle.
The US military is peerless at shock and awe. In urban guerilla warfare it is clueless.
Iran and bin Laden are big, big winners. Bush is their point man, doing their work for them. Neocons inhabit their own world, far distant from the real world.
The situation is bizarre. While all the killing is going on, the Kurds are using US lobbyists to attract investment to 'Kurdistan-the other Iraq'. How Turkey will respond to this initiative is anyone's guess. And Israel is backing the Kurds.
Iraqis will sort themselves out, albeit perhaps in blood. They should be left to do the job without an army of occupation that itself provides a focus of hatred.
Should Bush hit Iran, he will nearly guarantee that Pakistan will go militant Islam. Pakistan HAS nuclear weaponry and has the infamous Dr Khan to advise on suitcase technology. Khan is a national hero in Pakistan so no one will restrain him.
Suitcases up a people smuggling route into the south of the USA, then perhaps on Greyhound to LA, Chicago, NYC...
I have a son, daughter in law and one grandchild in Boston so I have a personal interest in this nightmarish scenario.
Bush is an illiterate buffoon with no sense of history, Cheney and Rumsfled neocon zealots, Rice a girl on a woman's mission.
God help us all.
JB
You call it a mistake? Isn't word crime more appropriate?
It's always a mistake when the Benevolent Hegemon does it. Crime is for peons, terrorists and Fully Dispensable Nations.