Molly Ivins: What. A. Mess.

[Dudley_DUright]

Remember what it was like just before the war? Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- Colin Powell told us to the pound how many tons of this, that and the other -- Saddam had a reconstituted nuclear program, he had numerous ties to Al Qaeda, and he was an imminent threat.

As the president put it, we couldn't afford to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.

"To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man... Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."

The quote is from Thucydides, the Father of History, writing about the day in 415 B.C. when Athens sent its glorious fleet off to destruction in Sicily. I have not been re-reading Thucydides, but found the quote in a footnote in a splendid little book called "Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy" by Lewis Lapham, in my opinion the most incisive essayist in America.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17498

[medeak]

1. when is Molly

going to get a cable show?

Gawd..I love her.

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Good advice from Molly to the Kerry campaign

Sooner or later, someone is going to ask Kerry the question he so famously asked about Vietnam: "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" He'd better have an answer ready.

[cornfedyank]

3. almost makes me sad

It is so painful to read about what is happening in Iraq today (can we put the old dog about how the news media are ignoring "the good news" to rest now?), it is not clear whether we should barf or go blind. With the best will in the world, one cannot pull a positive outlook out of this tragedy. I never advocate despair, but ignoring reality is just as destructive. What. A. Mess.

snip

The patriotic bullying that went on in this country over Iraq should not be forgotten. It is brilliantly described and dissected in Chris Hedges' important little book, "War Is a Force That Gives Life Meaning." In one of the great ironies of the Iraq War, Hedges himself became the victim of the very group-think he had analyzed after starting a speech with the observation, "War in the end is always about betrayal; betrayal of the young by the old, soldiers by politicians, and idealists by cynics." He was booed off the stage.


http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17498

[PATRICK]

4. I wanted to use that Sicily comparison

Nothing was worse than the attitude of the Athenian at their peak, the insolence and the trap of fighting someone in their own land when THAT is how they whipped the Persians themselves. You can repeat this error and quagmire ad nauseam as long at bluff and bluster males plan "great things" of this nature. The bravery of the patriot defending Marathon was replaced by the braggadocio of the new anti-democratic Athenian Satrap. They had become their enemy to repeat his defeat.