“Experts”? Fuck ‘em. They can save their bullshit for a War Crimes Tribunal.

Reading this group of self-justifying weasels was enough to turn my stomach. Even Anthony Cordesman could not say outright what 70% of the country knows. He had to give an “equal time” comparison. The Bush team “would rival Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy for the worst wartime national security team in United States history.”

Sorry Anthony, these jerks came into office with the INTENT to get us into a war in Iraq, did so on fraudulent terms, screwed it up completely (with the help of several of the authors on this page) and are now refusing to face up to the debacle, but are trying to prolong it. THEY WIN, HANDS DOWN!

That someone like Richard “I’m Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Do You Have a Check for Me?” Perle would be asked his opinion about anything no less the invasion of Iraq he shilled for is proof that it is impossible for a right-winger to be discredited ever in our benighted world.

Speaking of the “liberal” NY Times, they simply can’t say “lying” when referring to Bush. This editorial talks endlessly about how “wrong” Bush is, when he’s not just wrong but lying his ass off.

I’m aure that if we just trust them, they’ll get it right in Iran. Or Syria. Or Pakistan. Or Somalia. Or whoever’s next on the imperial world tour.

For anyone who wants a little romance. The linked NYT article is a bit long, but it’s Sunday and, at least, we’re not living it.

Wow.

That’s a whole panel full of fail. That these jagoffs can still be considered “experts on military and foreign policy affairs” is just mind-blowing. It’s kinda like thinking of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling as experts on honesty and accountability.

Oh, and nice use of a Japanese proverb. Very nice.

They honestly don’t get it, and that alone is what I find the most important reason to stop fucking listening to them.

The reason, Mr Pollack, that “how we got into Iraq” is important is that we need to know why so we can make sure it does not happen again. Part of that is knowing who had not then and who has not now the intelligence and judgment required to keep us from starting such a fucking stupid and rancidly destructive criminal war. If you’re still saying that stunning collection of mistakes, lies, and willful ignorance is not important to understand, then you are very definitely someone we should not be listening to. You’re still wrong, still foolish, still hell-bent on making others sacrifice for your idiotic dreams, and we need to keep that in mind for no other reason than to make sure you don’t get a chance to do it again.

I’m sure these guys all see this as just some pigheaded grudge-holding by a bunch of pacifists who lack the courage to try to change the world, but it’s not, or at least not entirely grudge-holding. We all make mistakes. But when your mistakes (and this is giving you the largely unearned benefit of the doubt that they *were* ignorant mistakes) get a dozen people killed, much less hundreds of thousands, you shouldn’t still be making decisions that are more complex than what’s for dinner. When your mistakes have been this reprehensible, it’s time, gentlemen and ladies, to sit down and shut up and hope people forget about you so you don’t end up defending yourself against a war crimes tribunal.

Thus continuing the New York Times’ time-honored tradition of asking the people who didn’t see the ditch and drove into it how we should get out of it.

When anyone is so monumentally wrong on an issue of such great import, their credentials as an “expert” are no longer operative and they shouldn’t be given column inches to explain that they were right all along in principle; it’s just that those screwy laws of physics messed everything up.

These people swallowed - and helped to promote - whale-sized lies. They’re gullible enablers. Nothing they say has any value because they all lack the most basic common sense. And it’s much worse than We said, “Don’t do it” but you went along because that was what all the cool Meet the Press wannabes were doing and now you hope to buy a bit of cheap grace by saying, “Well, it was the right idea but it was executed poorly” because at the same time they were promoting the lies, they were slandering those of us who knew better. They don’t just want to “buy a bit of cheap grace”, they want to continue to slander the people who were right in the bargain.

These people and many others in government, media, intelligence and armed services are so inept, valueless, myopic and maladjusted that they can’t even provide us with a useful lesson. I don’t mean, they can’t teach us anything, I mean they are not even good bad examples. They are a scourge like smallpox. There isn’t even a hint of a good idea anywhere. Each article (with limited exceptions for Eaton, Fick, and Slaughter) misses the point so widely that I am convinced that they would do the same things again. As I reluctantly conclude that all government leads to evil and reform is impossible, These guys push me over the edge.

PS where was O’Hanlon?

PS where was O’Hanlon?

He’s busy penning his response to the Times’s “experts,” wherein he scolds them for being a bunch of unpatriotic, unserious hippies for even thinking that things aren’t going swimmingly in Iraq.

9/11! 9/11! 9/11! Teh Surge! Teh SURGE!!!!

Thanks T.
No snark necessary.

Asking where the war went wrong in the first place is a stupid question, which is going to generate nothing but stupid answers. Imagine a guy who drives drunk, speeding and weaving all over the road, and kills a family of six (and himself) in a traffic accident. The first question you ask shouldn’t be why the drunk driver didn’t wear a seat belt.

Why the hell does anybody listen to these assclowns at this point. Richard Perle has been wrong on every fucking word he’s uttered since 2002. What the hell does he add to a discussion over why the Iraq war failed? Isn’t there a point where the dead, er, grey lady makes him wear the dunce cap and sit in the corner for, well, eternity?

He was wrong. They were all wrong, and 4000 good young men and women of ours, who trusted these flaming assholes to be thoughtful, serious and well, right, and heaven knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, are dead. Why the hell does anybody even print them at this point?

I don’t think you’re giving Perle the credit he is due.

He’s been wrong on every fucking word he’s uttered since 1996 at the very least.

I swore off the NYTimes after the whole Judith Miller mess. I see that this remains the correct decision.

Instead of looking for the devil in the details of the invasion of Iraq, it’s about time that some of these “experts” face the devil in the mirror

What a great phrase!! I’m stealing that one!!

Clearly, it was not the intent of the Times to actually gain any insight into what might be learned to avoid further mistakes. This particular group of people were given an opportunity to explain why nothing is now or ever has been their fault. And they couldn’t even succeed at that.

What a stunning collection of stupidity.

Kenneth Pollack sums it up best for the group with his first line:
What matters most now is not how we entered Iraq, but how we leave it.

I think it would be better summed up if someone had said,
I would have been right, if I wasn’t so fucking wrong about everything.

Seriously, these essays remind me of the old mad-libs. You could plug in nouns and verbs at random at they would make as much sense.

Just like Vietnam except contractors instead of drafting mostly minorities. Bet the NYT is even using the same template for page setup on the panel discussion. Motherfuckers.

yeah .. i don’t get it .. where’s any credibility from this bunch of idiots ..

“experts” eh ?? in a pig’s ass …

Dammit, tbogg, that didn’t work. Anyone for flogging, tarring, feathering and then ride ‘em on a rail to the Bushco Rancho Borracho II in Paraguay?

i’ll furnish the tar an feathers JDM3 .. you get the rail and transportation …

Ask them what they could have done differently to make this POS turn out swell. There is nothing. People don’t like to be occupied. So we’ve spent 4000 American soldiers and 3 Trillion dollars to kill one defanged dictator and upwards of 1 million innocent Iraqis…for what? Exxon and KBR’s bottom line?

I say, let these war mongers and war profiteers explain it at the Hague.

Instead of looking for the devil in the details of the invasion of Iraq, it’s about time that some of these “experts” face the devil in the mirror: You weren’t part of the solution. You were the problem.

You still are. Please go away.

Hear, hear.

Oh, and if any of you enjoy Tom Hilton’s comments, or checked out his blog, send him some love.

http://tehipitetom.blogspot.com/

Of course, it’s time now for a very serious discussion about how to unshit the bed.

No time to dwell on the fact that there were literally millions of people in the streets pointing out that they were wrong to shit the bed before they went and did it.

No one could have foreseen that a shit-filled bed was a bad idea.

From Danielle Pletka, a chestnut:

We point to all the United Nations Security Council resolutions, the International Atomic Energy Agency statements, the C.I.A. analyses, the Silberman-Robb report, the Senate Intelligence Committee findings — if we were wrong, we were in good and honest company.

Did she really say “if” we were wrong? Sorry Danielle, but wmds are more likely to be hiding up Richard Perle’s anus than anywhere in Iraq. And to include the C.I.A. among “good” and “honest” company re: wmds — why didn’t you include Colin Powell’s report to Congress in there too? It would have made as much sense, since you’re already ignoring the U.N. weapons inspectors who couldn’t find any wmds even though they were on the ground in Iraq.

Combine this war with the current destruction of the U.S. economy and everyone with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker oughta be either tried as an accomplice for murder or sentenced to spend the rest of their lives listening to Charles Manson in an adjacent cell in Vacaville.

I read the tbogg piece as pointing the finger at “poor parenting” rather than poor planning. That seemed right, too.

aimai

The worse this war gets, the farther up their asses these clowns shove their heads. At least ostriches use sand.