The tenth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq has generated some commentary about who was "right" about that proposal back when it was being debated. Many people who supported the war at the time now agree that it was somewhere been a mistake and a disaster. A few of them, though, have been been writing lately that they were misled by the war's opponents, who looked to them like far-left radical extremists. They figured that if those people were against the invasion, then it must not be such a bad idea, although they now grudgingly agree that they should have taken the criticisms more seriously.
In response to this, Conor Friedersdorf writes that opposition to the war ten years ago, although a minority view, was actually widespread and mainstream, not limited to pacifists or "radicals." I thought his item was particularly interesting because he quotes some of the pro-war arguments of the time. His point is that those were really the extremist arguments. Whether you agree with that or not, the quotes are a useful window into American public opinion on foreign policy, or one influential element of it. In the terms of our last class discussion, they reflect the "neoconservative" orientation (the Iraq war was basically a neoconservative project), but also the "populist" idea that the right way to solve international problems is to stomp in with overwhelming force, kill some people and set a warning example for others, but otherwise not spend a lot of time thinking about the world's real complexities. That approach didn't work too well in this case.
And if you don't want to read about war, how about dogs? George W. Bush, the president who ordered the invasion, is spending his retirement learning to paint, and recently painted a couple of dogs. Some critics are claiming that one of these looks a lot like him.
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