PNAC signatory: I supported the war in Iraq, but I've had a change of mind

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/3796248.html

SEVEN weeks ago, I published my case against the Iraq war. I wrote that although I had originally advocated military intervention in Iraq, and had even signed a letter to that effect shortly after the 9/11 attacks, I had since changed my mind.

But apparently this kind of honest acknowledgment is verboten. In the weeks since my book came out, I've been challenged, attacked and vilified from both ends of the ideological spectrum. From the right, columnist Charles Krauthammer has accused me of being an opportunistic traitor to the neoconservative cause — and a coward to boot. From the left, I've been told that I have "blood on my hands" for having initially favored toppling Saddam Hussein and that my "apology" won't be accepted.

In our ever-more-polarized political debate, it appears that it is now wrong to ever change your mind, even if empirical evidence from the real world suggests you ought to. I find this a strange and disturbing conclusion.

For the record, I did change my mind, but in the year preceding the war — not after the invasion. In 2002, I told the London Times that "the use of military power to push (Iraqi democracy) forward is a big roll of the dice. We may not win on this one." On the first anniversary of 9/11, I argued in The Washington Post that we should invade Iraq only with approval from the U.N. Security Council, and in December of that year, I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal warning that the project of democratizing Iraq and the Mideast might come to look like empire and that it violated the conservative principle of prudence.

But when my political shift occurred is not important: Even if it had come a year or two later, it would still not have represented a cowardly retreat or an apologia, but a realistic, intellectually honest willingness to face the new facts of the situation.

[annabanana]

1. It is unfortunate

that he EVER saw merit on PNAC's theories.. But he is now learning what the backhand of the right wing echo chamber looks like..

[Dunvegan]

2. Hey, Fukuyama...you're welcome to wise up!

Drop in at DU sometime.

I think a number of people against the war and PNAC in general have welcomed Fukuyama's enlightenment.

[Botany]

3. F.U. Fukyama.

I've been told that I have "blood on my hands" for having initially favored toppling Saddam Hussein and that my "apology" won't be accepted.


You and your blood thirsty, arrogant, and greedy friends @ PNAC worked 24/7 @ getting us into Iraq. Papers were written
politicians and the republican party was supported, news shows were went on, President Clinton was hounded with a bullshit
impeach charge after he said no to an Iraqi war, and the Supreme Court rolled over and stopped the counting of votes in
Florida so as to get your guy in power. Once in power ( and even before his inauguration ) planning for an Iraqi war was under
way which got wretched up several notches after 9/11 even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and now after all that
work Iraq has become a bloody hell hole in which lives, money, families, and world peace has been tossed you want us not to
judge you?

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Francis, that is your signature on the bottom isn't it?

[Tinksrival]

4. The complete title is telling...

April 15, 2006, 7:29PM
NO APOLOGIES
I supported the war in Iraq, but I've had a change of mind. I refuse to be
PARALYZED, POLARIZED

By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA



*(This is authors use of capitalization, not mine)

[leesa]

5. The shadow of the noose is giving him nightmares, eh?

You participate in a war crime, you pay the price, buddy.

[RufusEarl]

6. Me thinks that one can change ones mind,

and we should let them and encourage them. But that person doesn't get a free walk, it remains on ones bio as the type of mistake that causes people to die.

These mistakes aren't like taking a wrong turn and getting lost, this types of misjudgments causes harm. But if one has seen the error's of judgment, and wants to correct ones thinking then we should allow it, encourage it and welcome it.

[lostnfound]

7. He can't admit his own poor JUDGMENT, not a lack of information,

distinguished him from those who opposed the war from the beginning.

Too proud, apparently, to consider that those who opposed the war from the beginning were right, or had better judgment. Can he pat THEM on the back for recognizing what even George's own father knew, which was that regime change imposed by American forces would lead to an unwinnable and unending war?

No, instead he is patting himself on the back for being willing to accept "new information" and feeling sorry for himself for not being admired for it.

[Cleita]

8. Crying crocodile tears here.

*snarf*

[Chomp]

9. FUKUYAMA

Is one of the most self-absorbed, self-important, humourless charlatans I've ever come across.

There is nothing constructive, substantial or practical in that article, merely endless interminate paragraphs of self-justification.

What an ass.

(I actually agree with him that changing your mind should not be a hanging offence, but to change your mind as gracelessly and pompously as he does here is never going to win friends or influence people).

[Zenlitened]

10. Fukuyama needs to quit whining about "attacks from the left."

He writes that his latest view of the Iraq war results from "a realistic, intellectually honest willingness to face the new facts of the situation."

Baloney.

There are are no "new facts of the situation."

This situation was EXACTLY PREDICTED before the invasion was ever launched.

It required an enormous level of intellectual dishonesty to ignore this uncomfortable truth.

The fact that he hedged his position by calling it a "roll of the dice. might not work, not prudent, etc." only makes his claim of "intellectual honesty" now all the more preposterous.

He should have known better, he probably did know better, but played along with the neocon fantasy anyway.

Shut up, Fukuyama. Show us you have even a shred of integrity, and just keep your mouth closed for a while, while you reflect and observe and learn from your mistakes.

If you want to show us you're a "changed man," quit hurling accusations at us in the same breath you claim to be Innocent of any misdeeds yourself.

:grr:

[immoderate]

11. Self serving and opportunistic.

He's just a ship-jumping rat. Too bad.

--IMM

[malaise]

12. Well he is fugging history now n/t

[cboy4]

13. You know what you idiot? Maybe you should think twice or

even three times before you sign a document advocating killing innocent people so that America can rule the world.

You remain a coward. Sorry.

[SOS]

14. Fukuyama's real reason

for disavowing the neocon failure is detailed in his 2004 article in the National Interest, linked here through Tacitus.
It's a long article, so here's a hint, "an American policy toward the Muslim world like Sharon's will be a disaster"
http://www.tacitus.org/story/2004/8/15/163930/722

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. The "Good German" defense in the face of failure.

"I didn't speak out..but I was against Hitler."

[Warren Stupidity]

16. I say that he is only against it because it is foobar.

See the review in the nation for how Mr. Fukayama is distorting his own record when he claims he was against the war "in the year preceding the war" by not acknowledging the leading role he took in promoting it to begin with, and his less that full acceptance of what is wrong with this sort of american exceptionalism.


On September 20, 2001, little more than a week after 9/11, he appended his signature to a blunt demand for war that waved aside any relevance of links to Al Qaeda and did not even bother to raise the specter of WMD:

'It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a "safe zone" in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.'

For good measure, the signatories added that "any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah" and prepare for "appropriate measures of retaliation" against Syria and Iran as its sponsors.

...

But the miscellaneous proposals with which America at the Crossroads ends--greater reliance on soft power, more consultation with allies, respect for international institutions--are of a desolating predictability, the truisms of every bien-pensant editorial or periodical in the land. The most that can be said of them is that in offering a bipartisan prospectus for the foreign policy establishment, they seal a well-advertised vote for Kerry and understanding with Brzezinski, who co-edits The American Interest with Fukuyama. There is not the faintest suggestion in these pages of any basic change in the staggering accumulation of military bases around the world, or the grip of the United States on the Middle East, let alone symbiosis with Israel. Everything that brought the country to 9/11 remains in place. "



http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060424/anderson

p.s. the nation may have recently changed its web access policy, for which, if true, I apologize. The article is well worth reading, as is much in that magazine. Consider subscribing.