admitting you were wrong

i received an email today that contained this quote from bertrand russell’s essay on power.

“One of the advantages of democracy, from the governmental point of view, is that it makes the average citizen easier to deceive, since he regards the government as his government. Opposition to a war which is not swiftly successful arises much less readily in a democracy than under any other form of constitution. In a democracy a majority can only turn against the government by first admitting to themselves that they were mistaken in formerly thinking well of their chosen leaders, which is difficult and unpleasant.”

the war in iraq is 100% wrong. always was, always will be. the bush administration had to lie to the american people in order to start the war, and karl rove got the democratic leadership on board by calling them pussies. of course, it is difficult for the democrats to admit at this point, but they largely went along with the program because they were afraid to look soft on terrorism, and even though iraq had absolutely NOTHING to do with terrorism, the white house propoganda machine had a majority of the people in this country convinced that it did. it was all about politics and cynicism and winning elections, and the dems STILL lost big when rove cooked up the swift boat veterans horseshit and smeared john kerry. but the republicans were right, the democrats flip-flopped on the war. they knew better, and went along because they were afraid to lose votes. they lost them anyhow.
so where does that leave us now? if we are to be honest, the purpose of this war was to install a government friendly to the united states. that’s what is really meant by “bringing the joys of democracy and freedom” to the iraqi people. the problem is that’s not going to happen, and the longer we are there shooting people, the less likely it is.
so who is going to stand up and admit they were wrong? who is going to tell all those parents, spouses and children of servicemen who died over there that, in fact the whole thing was wrong, that far from acheiving the objective we set out, things have been made worse? i don’t have to. i always knew and said it was wrong. but once again, most people don’t really give a shit. and the easiest answer to give at a cocktail party is that you “support our troops”. why? because you have been lied to, and that’s almost as hard to admit as having not believed the lies and gone along anyhow as a strategic political decision.