Blaming Cassandra

One of the most common themes coming from the rightwing is to blame liberals for the failure of the Iraq War. If it were not for us Surrender Monkeys undermining the war effort Iraq would be Utopia now. Nonsense. We didn't cause the failures, we just predicted them.

The war was destined to fail. Conquer a third-rate dictatorship - easy. Impose a pluralistic pro-American democracy at the point of a gun without utterly obliterating their society (see Japan and Germany in WWII) - absurd. Do it without the support of the international community, indeed without any apparent plans for the postwar occupation - hubris. It is easy to walk into a swamp without a map, compass, or hip-wadders. It is easy to go in but damn hard to get out again alive.

I admit I underestimated the degree of failure. I did not anticipate the level of corruption of the Coalition Provisional Authority and how that would inhibit reconstruction as well as encourage Iraqi corruption. While I anticipated opposition by Shi'ites, I didn't foresee the pending civil war between Shi'ite factions (Mahdi Army vs. Badr Brigade). I didn't predict that the Pentagon would allow wide-spread looting in the aftermath of the conquest of Baghdad and how that would quickly destroy any image of omnipotence the invasion would give to the US Army. I didn't anticipate our soldiers would be exposed to the world torturing prisoners. While I knew President Bush was not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, I failed to envision his pigheadedness.

Blaming liberals for our defeat in Iraq is like blaming Cassandra for the fall of Troy. We may have predicted it, but we didn't cause it. The failures in Iraq have been caused by attempting an impossible task and doing it incompetently.

Cassandra ~ daughter of King Priam of Troy. Beloved by the god Apollo, he granted her the gift of prophesy; spurned by her, he cursed her to never be believed. She predicted the Trojan War, the fall of Troy, and her own rape and death. No one believed her until it was too late.