Wingmuppetry
Bill Sjostrom, US expat and NUI Cork academic:
I remember fondly the good old days when the left used to have the decency to lie about their opposition to an Iraq invasion. You remember, Saddam was a wicked man and all, but there is the matter of sanctity of the UN and all. But now they barely seem to bother. David Hirst, the Guardian's former Mid-east correspondent, in a rant blaming George Bush for the rise of Hamas, offers this:
It certainly does, but not about the entirely innocent Guardian reporter. The short institutional memory of wingnuttery strikes again, we fear!
US Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, press briefing 11th April 2003:
Postscript 6/06: of course, Sjostrom has long form in being wrong.
I remember fondly the good old days when the left used to have the decency to lie about their opposition to an Iraq invasion. You remember, Saddam was a wicked man and all, but there is the matter of sanctity of the UN and all. But now they barely seem to bother. David Hirst, the Guardian's former Mid-east correspondent, in a rant blaming George Bush for the rise of Hamas, offers this:
Even if the US did succeed in bringing Hamas down, it would, like the overthrow of Saddam, be a catastrophic kind of success . . .The overthrow of Saddam was catastrophic. Pretty much says it all, doesn't it.
It certainly does, but not about the entirely innocent Guardian reporter. The short institutional memory of wingnuttery strikes again, we fear!
US Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, press briefing 11th April 2003:
"[The invasion of Iraq] is fascinating. This is just fascinating. From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been."US President George W. Bush, August 2004:
"Bush, in an interview with Time magazine, suggested he still would have gone into Iraq, but with different tactics had he known "that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day."Did Bill not get the memo?
He called the swift military offensive that led to the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 "a catastrophic success" even though fighting continues despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government."
Postscript 6/06: of course, Sjostrom has long form in being wrong.
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