Thursday, April 10, 2008
it's like asking an orphan to shut the fuck up:
Gregg Easterbrook writes in -- I'm so sorry to say it -- The Washington Independent:
Here is the October 2002 joint congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq. Give it a read in light of what is now known. Needless to say, the resolution cites banned weapons as a justification for war; we can stipulate this was a reasonable belief at the time. Other justifications for war cited include that "members of Al Qaeda… are known to be in Iraq." Whether this was true then or not, members of Al Qaeda are known to be in Britain; is the presence in a country of individual criminals a justification for invasion?
Of course, you didn't have to wait until the invasion occurred to recognize that kind of fallacious reasoning. And I worked with Gregg at TNR at the time -- I even had to waste a weekend combing through his books for potentially-offensive statements after he attacked the Jews on his blog -- and I don't recall him saying a word in opposition to the war at editorial meetings when the magazine was backing the resolution.
--Spencer Ackerman