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Just imagine if all of the extravagant charges last year against Iraq had been proven true: Saddam really did launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes; his "nuclear mujahideen" had reconstituted atomic weapons; his aluminum tubes were becoming missiles tipped with chemical warheads; his fleet of mobile weapons labs were delivering biological weapons to frontline troops; his feared remote-control drones were dropping nerve gas on coalition forces; his alliance with al Qaeda was revealed, including his complicity in 9/11; and the notorious prison of Abu Ghraib boasted a plastic shredder into which his opponents were fed feet first.
And imagine if all the promises made last year to Iraqis had been kept, and their hopes fulfilled, and the country now had an elected government, while US troop presence was minimal, and ever shrinking.
I imagine many here who were opposed to the invasion would admit that they'd got it wrong.
But we must use our imagination, because none of their claims were proven true, and none of their promises kept. And all we warned about, and worse, has come to pass. While the war party, wrong about everything, presses on.
It's said knowledge is power, but I've come to think that bullshit. I've never been better informed in my life than now, and I've never felt more impotent. And what's the good of being right if it means only comprehending the magnitude of the disaster called the New American Century. Getting it wrong for a change would mean things weren't as bad as I'd feared. And for a change, I'd like that.
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