{"id":1959,"date":"2004-04-12T15:57:05","date_gmt":"2004-04-12T19:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2004\/04\/12\/1959.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:46:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:46:03","slug":"introspection-from-a-year-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2004\/04\/12\/introspection-from-a-year-on\/","title":{"rendered":"introspection, from a year on"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems odd now, but a year ago, more or less, people were saying that the anti-war faction had been proved wrong by events.\n

I wrote a note<\/a> at the time, detailing what I saw as the four major camps who were anti-war; my buddy David alerted me to a fifth. I’ll list them again, briefly: pacifists<\/I>, who would be against any military action; Bush-haters<\/i>, who, well, yes; Where's-the-Threatistas<\/I>, who didn’t believe that Iraq under the Baathists was a threat; At-What-Costniks<\/I>, who felt that however justified, the invasion would come at the expense of more important things; and the Chomsky-ites<\/I>, who never believed any of the stated reasons for the invasion and viewed it as a simple resource grab.\n

Um, which were wrong? Honestly, Your Humble Blogger was wrong to favor the invasion as late as February<\/a>; I didn’t come around to calling myself anti-war until the first of March. Ultimately, my reasoning put me in the Bush-hater category; I wrote the “Bush has finally convinced me” to oppose the invasion. The Where's-the-Threatistas<\/I> were right, and I was wrong. The At-What-Costniks<\/I> were right, and I was wrong (although I still think we’re a rich enough country to pay for both rebuilding Iraq and taking care of domestic priorities, the costs, in blood and treasure, are much more in line with their thinking than with mine). The Chomsky-ites<\/I> were right, at least that the stated reasons for the invasion were all lies, and I was wrong. As for the pacifists, well, as I said at the time, “It's a basic principle, and as such not susceptible to concrete proof.”\n

I read what I wrote last year, and I can’t believe that I thought the Baathists would be a threat. I am shocked by how taken in I was. And I am still clinging to my digression of May 31st of last year, when I said:\n

Digression: Another way, ultimately, to restore the US to the good graces or at least the better graces of the world is to build a paradise in Iraq. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, like Cato saying Delenda Carthago<\/I>, until I either die or persuade somebody. End Digression. <\/blockquote>\nNow, we’ve dug ourselves further than we were before. Building a paradise in Iraq is now only necessary, but even that will, I fear, not be sufficient. Still, it would be a start, at least with those parts we now control.\n

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems odd now, but a year ago, more or less, people were saying that the anti-war faction had been proved wrong by events. I wrote a note at the time, detailing what I saw as the four major camps…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16994,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions\/16994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}