What an odd exercise you propose
Yes, any exercise in intellectual honesty is odd to those who have none. Those who are prepared to forget the arguments they actually proposed (that would be mega quagmire, humanitarian disaster) and adopt in retrospect the 500,000 troop argument of those they disagreed with at the time.
Cole's dishonesty is of another type. He switched in an instant from 'oh my gosh the awful neocons have hijacked US foreign policy, just hijacked it, and it will lead to utter disaster, the anti-Americanism will boil over, the Arab Street will rise' to 'well even if some of the neocon predictions of Iraq becoming a model for Arab democracy look like they're happening, it doesn't count. First because Iraq is a mess, so no good news from there counts (the 1997 Iranian elections were more democratic), second because Bush didn't use the neocon rationale as his official reasons for war, so the neocon rationale doesn't count'
Boy, if the Arab Street had risen in anti-Americanism as Professor Cole predicted, instead of carrying signs thanking Bush as they did in Beirut last Monday, don't you think Bush would have been saddled with responsibility for the full neocon rationale? Including the parts he did not use in his UN speech?
This is called having it both ways in an argument. And it is fundamentally dishonest. Especially from those who puff themselves as academic experts.
You are more honest in your way, Win. You don't bother ever making an argument. You just sneer. |
