Mea Iraq-ima Culpa

Ezra Klein takes to Bloomberg News to admit his guilt in supporting the unconscionable Iraq War ten years ago, which in this business takes some guts.  It's also a reminder that A) it's been ten years, and B) a hell of a lot of liberals supported Iraq and believed the nonsense spun by Bush and Cheney.

I supported the Iraq War, and I’m sorry.

I have my excuses, of course. I was a college student, young and dumb. I thought that if U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell and former President Bill Clinton and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair all thought it was necessary, then that was because they had intelligence proving as much. I thought there was no way the Bush administration would neglect to plan for the obvious challenges of the aftermath. I turned on the war quickly when I saw how poorly and arrogantly it was being managed. 

Back in 2002 I was out of college and had lost my job in the dot-com collapse,  so I had some time on my hands.  I didn't buy the intelligence then, and I'm glad I didn't.  I didn't see the reason to go in to Iraq at all, considering as a high school student I watched the first Iraq War on TV and saw how thoroughly flattened the place was.  If Saddam was a cruel despot and he still didn't use his "WMD" against us then with tanks rolling up entire divisions of his troops, why would he have waited years?

By 2004 it was clear Iraq was a huge mistake.  I was told to shut up and support our troops.  The anti-war movement was shouted down, ridiculed, and persecuted at every turn.  Now, a vast majority of Americans believe it was a horrible, bloody error in judgment.

It's a lesson all of us should remember.