Contrition

Andrew Sullivan is generally a ninny but worth reading because he writes well. This is a post in defense of Christopher Hitchens, which should tell you how useless it is overall. But it's a good summation of war supporters...with way more credit to himself than is due.

I'd feel a lot better giving him a pass if he hadn't referred to those against the war before it was launched as a "fifth column" - essentially terrorists. This was the kind of polemic screed that made it impossible to have a rational discussion about the war before it was inevitably launched. Now that folks like myself have sadly been proven right (and it wasn't a hard call), is this the best we can get from those who sniffed their noses at us beforehand?

Frankly, I could give a shit about apologies; action is what matters and getting out of Iraq is that action. But I seriously doubt that the utter arrogance of the right-wing (you don't like tax cutting becuase you don't understand economics; you don't want to go to war because you are a wimp...) will ever wane.

clipped from andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

The supporters of this war therefore fall into two camps: those of us who deluded ourselves, and those of us who deluded others. They are not mutually exclusive groups. But the moral burden for this hideous, brutal war falls primarily on those in the administration whose responsibility it ultimately was, who had access to intelligence the rest of us didn't, who were privy to arguments the rest of us never knew about till later.

Yes, I am glad Saddam is gone. Yes, I believe my own intentions before the war were honorable, if mistaken. Yes, I believe Hitch's were as well - and those of many others. But we were fools not to see the true nature of the people we were trusting; and too enraptured by our own sense of righteousness to realize that we could have been wrong. And wrong we were.