el peregringo

Paul Krugman writes a commentary in the International Herald-Tribune that makes me want to stand up and pound my fist at the Bush administation (but then I usually feel that way so it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge).

Here we are, where only the most seriously brain dead could still suggest that Iraq was the right thing to do, or that what we’ve done has been executed well. Finally, someone is recognizing those brave souls who stood up years ago and accurately predicted the mess we’re now in. At the time, Bush and his cronies even tried to tar these insightful folks as unpatriotic…

Now, only a few neocon dead-enders still believe that this war was anything but a vast exercise in folly. And those who braved political pressure and ridicule to oppose what Al Gore has rightly called “the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States” deserve some credit. […]

Representative Ike Skelton, September 2002: “I have no doubt that our military would decisively defeat Iraq’s forces and remove Saddam. But like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.” […]

Gore, September 2002: “I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.”

Barack Obama, now a United States senator, September 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Representative John Spratt, October 2002: “The outcome after the conflict is actually going to be the hardest part, and it is far less certain.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi, now the speaker- elect of the House of Representatives, October 2002: “When we go in, the occupation, which is now being called the liberation, could be interminable and the amount of money it costs could be unlimited.”

Senator Russ Feingold, October 2002: “I am increasingly troubled by the seemingly shifting justifications for an invasion at this time. …When the administration moves back and forth from one argument to another, I think it undercuts the credibility of the case and the belief in its urgency. I believe that this practice of shifting justifications has much to do with the troubling phenomenon of many Americans questioning the administration’s motives.”

Howard Dean, then a candidate for president and now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, February 2003: “I firmly believe that the president is focusing our diplomats, our military, our intelligence agencies, and even our people on the wrong war, at the wrong time. …Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.”

I continue to be amazed at the stupidity of the war mongers around me. At the the time of the invasion, with Bush and his obviously incompetent aides making claims of getting in and out of Iraq in a few weeks… World War II ended 60 years ago and we still have troops in Japan and Germany. Have the republicans gone so delusional that they believe ALL of the American electorate are of below average intelligence rather than just the half that voted for them?