Honorably taking responsibility
By Mona
Every war must have a war party, a group that actively tries to sell war to the government and to the public. For Iraq, that war party was us – neo-conservative intellectuals, and pundits and bloggers who were sympathetic to them. Without all these people arguing for war, legitimizing it, begging for it, an invasion would have been difficult.
Anyone who argues for war plays with dangerous forces, so they must do it responsibly or not at all. Foolish wars have led countries to disaster. They have caused the deaths of millions. History and psychology tells us that war parties tend to be over-confident, paranoid and emotional. So the minimum you should expect from a responsible war supporter is that they are aware of this bias, and do their best to counterbalance it.
It’s not enough to believe that you are right. You have to be actively open-minded, you have to listen to your critics, and encourage devil’s advocates. You have to set up a robust information structure that makes it as difficult as possible for you to ignore reality. This is the only good way to prevent self-deception. It works. And we did not do it.
What we did was the opposite. At every level, from the lowliest blogger to the highest official, war supporters set up filters that protected them from facts they did not want to hear. We saw what we wanted to see, and if anyone saw differently, we called them left-wing moonbats who were rooting for the other side. We defined the entire mainstream media establishment as irrelevant, leaving more biased, less experienced “new” media as our primary source of facts. We ignored reasonable critics, and focused on the crazy ones, so that we could tell ourselves how incredibly smart we were.
Bravo, Mr. Staerk. There will be some on the anti-war side who will never forgive you, no matter what you say or what atonement you attempt. For that you must also be prepared; where you are is a guilt-ridden, largely friendless and lonely place to be.
Comment by Ashley —
March 1, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
Saying I’m sorry, or I was wrong, is not taking responsibility. Taking responsibility would be donating his income for the period to the Red Cross or personally leading an aid mission while aggressively blogging against non-defensive foreign aggression.
Apology is only an option in civil crimes where the other party agrees it’s sufficient repayment.
Comment by Mona —
March 1, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
That is not all Staerk did — he identified the hubris and other intellectual sins that led to his errors and arrogance vis-a-vis those who were right. What he did was lend his voice in support of a wrong foreign policy; he is now using his voice to expose the errors that many former war supporters, and certainly those who remain pro-war, won’t concede.
That’s impressive, and is important to do.
In my own case, I believed that we were fighting a defensive war, and more than anything else, Colin Powell’s trip to the UN persuaded me — along with the fact that no small number of “liberal” elite pundits were supporting the invasion. Never was I a neocon or driven by rosy-eyed notions of nation-building, altho I did beleive those who said Iraq was overwhelmingly constituted of secular cosmopolitans yearning for non-theocratic democracy and who foresaw minimal potential for post-invasion sectarian strife.
My mistakes were in believing the wrong people. All I can do now is analyze why so many promoted lies and distortions (as well as identify who they are and what motivates them, so they can be exposed and defanged) and why it was so easy for them to demonize and marginalize the voices I ought to have heeded. So that’s what I do.
That is also somehwat what Staerk is doing wrt to the reasons he supported the war (which were not entirely the same as mine). Further, and apparently unlike him, I never demonized people as traitors or moonbats for opposing the war (I have called a few people moonbats — and still would — but that was for those who advocated very extreme conspiracy theories, not all of them related to foreign policy) so I owe no apologies in that regard.
Comment by Leonard —
March 1, 2007 @ 7:45 pm
Ashley, please understand that Stærk is not, and was not, George Bush. He was just a little pundit. Big compared to me and big compared to you, perhaps. But what is responsibility of a talkist? Just to admit when he is wrong. A mea culpa is all I expect, and more than we get from most of ‘em.
I would like it if people like him would learn a few things, and he has not apparently learned what I would have him learn. But at least he is trying. Again, far more than we get from most of ‘em.
The idea of using the state as a blunt instrument to redeem humanity is far from a new thing; indeed it is far from over. I bet you believe it, too, in your way. Most people do.
So, let’s not to be too quick to demand penance for the splinters in each others’ eyes.
Comment by diana —
March 1, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
Being dropped like a hot potato happened to me too. But that’s the way people are.
The thing I most regret about supporting the war — other than the fact itself — is the lack of courage that I showed in not listening to my own instincts about people like Ledeen. If anyone cares to look up my old blog on the wayback machine, at one point (where Ledeen was confidently predicting the fall of the Iranian regime, back in 2002!) I gingerly said that Ledeen was “dodgy”, if memory serves.
Nowadays, I’d just call him a fucking maniac fiend and be done with it.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 1, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
There will be some on the anti-war side who will never forgive you, no matter what you say or what atonement you attempt. For that you must also be prepared; where you are is a guilt-ridden, largely friendless and lonely place to be.
I’m willing to forgive pundits and bloggers (not so much the policy-makers), but in defense of those who are less forgiving: We’re talking about A LOT of dead bodies. That’s not easy to forgive.
Comment by McMartin —
March 1, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
Forgiveness really shouldn’t come into it; the idea that blogging in favor of a disastrous policy is a crime is repugnant no matter how you slice it.
This is also ignoring the social dominance games implied by the usual “apology is not good enough” responses, but Ashley’s version was significantly nicer than the various gruesome fantasies I was seeing elsewhere.
Comment by Ashley —
March 2, 2007 @ 12:51 am
Who then is responsible—Godwinning it for all it’s worth.
I personally appreciate any contribution against wasted lives and capital; even virtual ink, even if it’s a recant. Everyone should be wary of apologies, though. They are generally worth their weight in the breath the take to give.
I didn’t mean to imply free speech could ever be a crime. I was arguing conscience and actual “taking responsibility.â€
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
March 2, 2007 @ 1:52 am
FWIW – I find it interesting, Mona, that Powell’s UN dog-and-pony show “persuaded you” to support the war. It convinced me that Powell was completely, utterly useless.
Comment by FMguru —
March 2, 2007 @ 3:47 am
Wow, it only took him FOUR YEARS to admit he was wrong to support an catastrophic war. What a moral giant. Brah-vo. (sfx: golfclap)
Was it the third tranche of corpses numbering in the hundred-thousand range, or the fourth that finally caused him to change his mind? Maybe the fifth? The sixth?
Comment by sglover —
March 2, 2007 @ 9:50 am
Wow, it only took him FOUR YEARS to admit he was wrong to support an catastrophic war. What a moral giant. Brah-vo. (sfx: golfclap)
Well, it’s not clear when the epiphany happened. My impession was that ever since the Iraq project began he’s had nothing but doubts and disappointments.
Look, I have as much contempt as anyone for the great majority of penitent hawks. Since practically ALL of the war advocates I’ve ever encountered were deeply dishonest from the start, their ersatz remorse has never impressed me. To date, almost all of their mea culpas have been elaborate exercises in buck-passing: Ach, Bush fucked everything up! Whoever could have imagined such a thing?!? Staerk is the first one I’ve run across who’s actually doing some honest soul-searching, and I think he deserves a lot of credit.
Comment by mb —
March 2, 2007 @ 10:52 am
There will be some on the anti-war side who will never forgive you, no matter what you say or what atonement you attempt. For that you must also be prepared; where you are is a guilt-ridden, largely friendless and lonely place to be.
Jesus Christ, does the self-absorption ever stop with you? Six feet under in Baghdad is a friendless and lonely place to be, so give it a rest with the odes to your own honor and sacrifice as a repentant warmonger. It’s tasteless.
Comment by Mona —
March 2, 2007 @ 11:03 am
I wrote no odes to my honor and/or sacrifice; what I did write is demonstrated by Ashley’s comments, as well as your own. What I advised Mr. Staerk is simply true, as you two amply show.
Comment by max —
March 2, 2007 @ 11:23 am
Huh. I remember when 9/11 happened. And I sat, waiting, for that fool to get his ass up to NYC. Which he did, and he made what sounded to me like the lamest speech I had ever heard. And everybody thought it was wonderful. I guess they got the Red M&M’s. Then they went lightweight to Afghanistan, which I had said beforehand was stupid, because I didn’t think it would work. Then I believed we had missed Osama, when everybody said we got him and we didn’t need to do anything else. And then I started getting email from the FBI demanding to know who I was. (No, really, I tracerouted the origin.) I figured I was going to get arrested! And that’s just through March 2002. Afterwards, people REALLY went crazy.
So I know all about being in a lonely place.
I don’t hate war-supporters. I dislike the great many dishonest twits, sufferings from overweening narcissism who claim to be experts (on war? on strategy? on what, exactly?) and can’t, in reality, fight their way out of a wet paper bag. People who, if they experts were as advertised, should have fuckin’ known better. I knew better, and I am not even in the loop.
Fuck those guys.
m, wheeeee
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 2, 2007 @ 11:48 am
I haven’t been through Staerk’s archives. Is it the case that this particular widely linked post is his first admission of error or recantation of support?
Comment by Jesse Walker —
March 2, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
The best part was the critic in the comment thread who said “If you have ever played Diplomacy, you know that…”
Comment by Phillip J. Birmingham —
March 2, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Yeah, the Diplomacy bit was funny. Were I more of a regular over at Bjorn’s blog, I would have posted the quote from that X-Files episode: “Well, hey, I didn’t spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.”
Comment by Gary Denton —
March 2, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
So Bjorn Staerk joins the Coalition of the Repentants.
I am trying to think where I might have been if I had only read American mainstream media and if I didn’t have an instinctual distaste for and disbelief of pundits and politicians I caught in lies and those who were making quasi-racist arguments against the Arabs.
You only had to see the record of Cheney and Rumsfeld and the neocons that were appointed to important foreign policy posts and how they had constantly exaggerated past threats. Distrusting them and seeking alternate sources for the “facts” they were putting out to drum up support for a war they had wanted for years was the only responsible course.
After years of watching otherwise smart people defend the indefensible it is good to see some looking back over their mistakes.
Will you and Staerk still give weight to the future opinions of those who were consistently and repeatedly wrong that you had once praised? Will you give more weight to the ones that were denigrated and turned out to be repeatedly correct? Will you tell the ghost of Molly Ivins, “You were absolutely right and I was a dumb smuck?”
After beating myself against closed minds for four years I am sorry my reaction is primarily “its about f*cking time.”
Comment by diana —
March 2, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Geez, what is the point of recriminations??
Jim, remember back when (a few weeks ago…) I asked you, “what did you learn?”
I think that ALL of us can learn a lot from this debacle. And one of the things I’ve learned (or re-learned) is that the world is better off without our military intervention, however well-meaning some of the sentiment behind it may be. (The good intentions are not from the Bush/Cheney/neocon wing, but from the chumps who support the war.)
After Iraq, it’ll be some other worthy cause. Why, look at Angelina Jolie, in WaPo:
“Until the killers and their sponsors are prosecuted and punished, violence will continue on a massive scale. Ending it may well require military action.”
Who among you is man enough to deny Angelina Jolie a humane military intervention?
Comment by Mona —
March 2, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
Gary Denton, I never defended the invasion of Iraq in neocon terms, have always known they are duplicitous scoundrels, and recently explored that topic here. I did not praise them, and even when I supported the Iraq war I detested people like Hugh Hewitt or the Powerline shills.
My reasons for supporting the invasion were realpolitik as I saw it, even if predicated on incorrect assumptions. But I’ve never had any use for neoconservatives.
And, I cannot swear to it, but I do not believe I denigrated any pundit or other person for disagreeing with me about Iraq when I supported that war. I got very pissed and in some flame wars with other libertarians on the matter, and on a private email list a true moonbat drove me insane with her Kum Ba Yah, “we will get along with the Muslims if we share recipes” inanities, but I never accused people of being traitors or anything remotely like that.
In fact, I’d say the reason I came to oppose Bush and his war well before it was popular to do so is precisely because I am a libertarian, a creature of reason, and was able to observe the shifting arguments and utter lies of the neocons as things did not turn out as had been predicted, and that Bush was leading or sometimes tracking them. I’m no foreign policy expert and I believed the wrong people’s assessment beforehand, but not for the wrong reasons.
Comment by laura —
March 2, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
I never supported the war.
I am not going to get all judgemental about ordinary people who did and since changed their minds. (I’m counting bloggers as ordinary since, so far, most aren’t established pundits). It takes courage to change one’s mind about something important. Few people do it. Most people make a decision and that’s it forever.
I have a different attitude toward people who present themsleves as political leaders or opinion leaders. The basis of their leadership is a presumed superiority in judgement. If they fuck up, then the hell with them forever. A public demonstration of bad judgement on such a massive scale as Iraq should get them the equivalent of fired.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 3, 2007 @ 8:57 am
Mona, you say that you supported the war because you thought that Saddam Hussein either had or would soon have WMD. Did you think there was any chance of deterring him? I figure that, regardless of what dictators may say in their speeches, people who live in giant gold palaces are mostly just interested in keeping their wealth and power. Supporting a WMD attack on the US is not a good way to hang on to wealth and power.
Even if a dictator is “pretty sure” that the attack won’t be traced to him, how sure is sure enough when golden palaces are on the line? And while I realize that ostensible ideological enemies can collaborate against common foes, there’s a big difference between sending a check to the family of a West Bank suicide bomber and handing your deadliest weapons to somebody who calls you an infidel. The first action (check to family of suicide bomber) is fairly low risk.
But handing your deadliest weapons to fanatics who supposedly hate you? What’s to say that they won’t keep one or two cannisters of nerve gas in reserve? Or maybe after their deadly attack, right before vanishing into the mountains of Waziristan, they’ll tell the whole world “Hey, just so you know, Saddam gave us the nerve gas.” And then they’ll laugh at the war that follows.
If I were a murderous fanatic, and one of my enemies gave me the keys to the kingdom, I’d probably think outside the body bag and find a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Arguments like this are the reason that I subscribed to the “deterrable Saddam” theory and opposed the war from day one.
Comment by Mona —
March 3, 2007 @ 9:16 am
But he had notoriously attempted to assassinate a former president of the United States, which is an act of war and rather an invitation to smash his golden palace. That indicated to me he was not necessarily constrained by reason and enlightened self-interest. If he had had heaping mounds of WMDs, that did worry me a great deal, especially after 9/11.
Comment by diana —
March 3, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
I supported the war because it gave me a nice testosterone rush, to which I had become addicted, after 9/11.
Women fall victim to that, too.
Not that od’ing on estrogen is any better.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 3, 2007 @ 11:57 pm
Mona-
Not to defend any attempted or planned violence against anyone, but is an attack on a former head of state an act of war? Of course it would be murder, but would it be war? Also, as I recall, Saddam was considering an attack that would have taken place on foreign soil (while he was traveling) rather than US soil. In that case, if the violence is not planned for US soil, and if the intended target is not a US leader, is it really an act of war against the US?
Mind you, murder is murder, but the concept of war takes things to another level. I’m not sure that it applies here.