Neo-Con War Blogger First to Admit "Our Opponents Were Right"

[BurtWorm]

The whole piece is very interesting:

http://blog.bearstrong.net/articles/2007/02/27/what-went-wrong

Every war must have a war party, a group that actively tries to sell war to the government and to the public. For Iraq, that war party was us - neo-conservative intellectuals, and pundits and bloggers who were sympathetic to them. Without all these people arguing for war, legitimizing it, begging for it, an invasion would have been difficult.

Anyone who argues for war plays with dangerous forces, so they must do it responsibly or not at all. Foolish wars have led countries to disaster. They have caused the deaths of millions. History and psychology tells us that war parties tend to be over-confident, paranoid and emotional. So the minimum you should expect from a responsible war supporter is that they are aware of this bias, and do their best to counterbalance it.

It's not enough to believe that you are right. You have to be actively open-minded, you have to listen to your critics, and encourage devil's advocates. You have to set up a robust information structure that makes it as difficult as possible for you to ignore reality. This is the only good way to prevent self-deception. It works. And we did not do it.

What we did was the opposite. At every level, from the lowliest blogger to the highest official, war supporters set up filters that protected them from facts they did not want to hear. We saw what we wanted to see, and if anyone saw differently, we called them left-wing moonbats who were rooting for the other side. We defined the entire mainstream media establishment as irrelevant, leaving more biased, less experienced "new" media as our primary source of facts. We ignored reasonable critics, and focused on the crazy ones, so that we could tell ourselves how incredibly smart we were....

...


As for the chance of success, what gave us the idea that we could estimate this? There are some now who say that even if the war supporters got a lot of things wrong, so did the opponents, so there you go, that's uncertainty for you. Everyone was wrong, but at least we were on the side of freedom, and they were on Saddam's. But that's just not true. The opponents were right. They said this was extremely risky, they said it might result in countless deaths and instability. They got a lot of details wrong, but that's just the point. For the Iraq invasion to go right, war supporters had to get many predictions right. Opponents knew that if any of those predictions were wrong, the whole thing could fail. So the smart choice was to be cautious.

[Jacobin]

1. Everything he describes about how to analyze

decision making about starting a war he knew before 2003. His description of how these things should be considered is all fine and good.

What he does not answer is why they refused to do what they knew they should have done. He doesn't tell us what he thinks the motives were for barging into a war based on unfounded thinking.

Maybe he will tell us that next?

[BurtWorm]

2. kick

[Dammit Ann]

3. Jeezus...

It must be frightfully cold in hell today. Holy crap, a pig just flew by my window!

[TahitiNut]

4. It's not rocket science. A belated KSOTO Award to bearstrong.

Everything he says is axiomatic. It's why it was OBVIOUS to some of us - painfully obvious.

[UpInArms]

5. I followed your link to the cesspool

and now I feel soiled.

A thick oozy goo would be a step up - FR is cleaner - I do so hope that blooger rots in hell.

[Mr. Ected]

6. Oh, For God's Sake. He's Talking In the Past Tense

The same idiocies he describes here can STILL be attributed to the 29% Club of today.

I have no tolerance for those who refuse to listen to reason, then somehow try to forgive their inpudence by pretending to be self-deprecating.

Bottom line: I don't forgive you for your stupidity, sir, because people are still dying BY THE THOUSANDS because of it.

[BurtWorm]

7. One thing I will say in his defense.

Compare this to apologies from people like Peter Beinert and especially to the counterarguments from the neocons and paleos in the comments defending the position Staerk abandons. Staerk's self-criticism is fresh air in comparison to that staleness.

[Mr. Ected]

8. He'll Return to the Dark Side Soon Enough, My Friend

His confession is self-serving and his penance will be short.

[BurtWorm]

10. He may never have left the dark side on all other matters

but I don't recall another mea culpa as honest about the evils of his former position as this one. I've never seen another mea culpa that didn't say, as so many dummies on the right keep saying, "at least we erred on the side of liberty (or civilization or decency or what have you)." They all try to pretend that there was a good *reason* for having erred at all. This guy admits there was no good reason. He goes all the way with his confession of error.


I don't see how he serves himself coming out so strongly against the pro-war position if he intends to stick with his brothers on the right. You can see how well this is sitting with them. They can't even see the argument, they can only see the deviation from "correctness."

[Mr. Ected]

12. You Make Your Case Quite Eloquently

I applaud his mea culpa. He has indeed admitted the gravest of intentional oversights at a time when America and the world could ill afford them.

But I cannot respect the blogger. Too many of us were yelling at him at the time...and he paid us no heed. He would admit as much.

I only hope his mea culpa becomes contagious. I doubt that will ever be the case. But we can always hold out hope.

[BurtWorm]

14. I like your style, sir.

By chance, have you been reading Swift of late? ;-)

Welcome to DU, sir.

:toast:

[butterfly77]

9. They are very scared now...

because they see that they have let loose something that they can't control. If you look at Scarborough and some of these other rightwingers they are slowly trying to back away from the situation. No matter what though, you will never get Slannity and the other neocons to tell the truth about the situation. I have yet to hear Slannity do any stories about the mistreatment of the soldiers and if he does he will somehow blame it on the liberals.

[Jonathan50]

11. I only read one reply which sounded freeperish

I read all of the replies to date and in every case but one the writer has applauded the author of the piece for being big enough to admit error.

[BurtWorm]

16. There have been replies on other blogs I've seen.

One by John Rockford, or whatever that guy's name is, on another site, and another very lengthy point by point rebuttal. I can't remember which site it was on, but follow the links at the bottom of the comments and you'll find it.

[Jonathan50]

17. If they don't have the courage to come to the original source I don't care to read them

The lengthy point by point rebuttal can't be all that good or the writer would have posted it in the comments section. That the writer failed to do so is a sign of a lack of courage of his convictions.

[BurtWorm]

18. Of course it isn't any good. How can you rebut the unrebuttable?

It is odd that the writer took all that trouble and then posted it on a blog about Staerk's blog. Good point. :wtf:

[Dr Fate]

13. Thanks for nothing. Too late for honesty now- may as well just keep on lying.

n/t

[wiggs]

15. Wow. Deserves WIDESPREAD MSM attention and discussion. nt

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

19. I really don't feel like going to the link. But given the admission of error, does the writer

advocate we should keep hemorrhaging lives, limbs, and money there? Is there any of these "conservatives" who actually advocate rectifying the mistake, or at least not compounding it further?

[BurtWorm]

20. This guy has slowly lost faith over five years to the point where

he sounds like he's ashamed of ever falling for such crap. He seems especially pained by the loss of life, and as angry as any DUer over the foolishness that thought nothing about life while cooking up a pie in the sky dream of a golden age in the ME.

[Swamp Rat]

21. Ok, he admits that he is wrong... how does he feel about what he did?

Does he feel guilty for all the deaths that have occurred as a result of his supporting the neo-con agenda?

I look forward to reading how he plans to pay for this mistake.

Will he incarcerate himself?

Will he enlist in the military?

Will he actually take responsibility for his past actions?

[Hissyspit]

22. What details did we get wrong?

I haven't clicked on the link, but I would sure like to know what details exactly we got wrong.

[TheBaldyMan]

24. self delete

sry

[TheBaldyMan]

23. How can he be a 'war blogger' - he's in Norway?

Mr Staerk is still getting it wrong, he might admit that he has made errors in the past but shifts responsibility away from himself. How could he have known it would all go horribly wrong?

He is still compounding error upon error in his blog, wrongly attributing causes and effects to unrelated items. His muddled analysis and wishful thinking led him astray in the first place. Maybe he should start by thinking honestly and critically. The neo-cons have never been logical, they are - first and foremost - a party of ideology. Accepting viewpoints no matter how bizarre as an auto da fe.

To put it crudely, he should start by pulling his head out his ass.

[riverdeep]

25. Now to start reparations

does he have a couple hundred billion lying around?