100 years ago...
Which reminded me of something Mark Ames has repeatedly said: that absolutely no one has suffered as a result of supporting the Iraq war. Sure, in the sense that they've been somewhat diminished in the eyes of some of their peers they have been, and yet no one has truly paid the cost of being wrong in the sense of losing their job, or no longer being able to earn a crust through giving their opinions, or being denied employment at any number of financial institutions, or not being able to give speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Your Nick Cohens, your David Aaronovitches, your Hillary Rodham Clintons, your Michael Ignatieffs, your Tony Blairs, any number of others you could care to remember and bring up, they're all still around, all still giving us their hot-takes on why we should have intervened in Syria and how terrible it is that Russia is killing moderates and bombing hospitals and all the rest.
It almost gives the impression that just as some institutions are too big to fail, so too are some personalities. No matter how many times they've been wrong, no matter how often they're wrong, no matter how badly wrong they have been, they stay in place. Almost as though it's not the opinions that matter, but rather their other qualities that have always mattered. Almost makes you think it's not worth bothering. Almost.
Labels: foreign policy, Iraq, media analysis, politics
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