Peters: Blame the Iraqis for the Iraq mess.

Even whilst admitting that the Iraq war is a disaster, Ralph Peters and his ilk still manage to find a way to blame the Iraqis themselves for this neo-con misadventure:

Yet, for all our errors, we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy. They preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption. It appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it. And people get the government they deserve.

For us, Iraq's impending failure is an embarrassment. For the Iraqis — and other Arabs — it's a disaster the dimensions of which they do not yet comprehend. They're gleeful at the prospect of America's humiliation. But it's their tragedy, not ours.

Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future, not just a bitter past. The violence staining Baghdad's streets with gore isn't only a symptom of the Iraqi government's incompetence, but of the comprehensive inability of the Arab world to progress in any sphere of organized human endeavor. We are witnessing the collapse of a civilization. All those who rooted for Iraq to fail are going to be chastened by what follows.

And you'll notice in that last sentence an attempt to put the blame for what comes next on to the shoulders of "all those who rooted for Iraq to fail". In other words, the mess and carnage on the streets of Iraq can be blamed on all those who did not support the glorious invasion.

I think this is what most disgusts me about lazy right wing thinking. It is their total inability to ever take responsibility for their own actions. You see this manifested in a thousand different ways. In the way Bush supporters blame Clinton for 9-11, the way they blame the citizens of New Orleans for having the temerity to be caught in a hurricane, and now we have Peters blaming the Iraqis and anti-war protesters for the disaster of a policy that Peters and his ilk promoted, and campaigned for, and denigrated all who offered any words of caution against.

These people are despicable. There is no other word. A party that talks about personal responsibility and yet evades it when they find themselves responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands - possibly hundreds of thousands - of people in a war that has proven to be an abject failure.

They should be hanging their heads in shame, resigning their posts, and sliding off into obscurity, never to be heard from again.

But no. They will attempt to shift the blame on to others as they quickly shift their attention on to new country's to be attacked; namely, North Korea and Iran.

If one casts one's mind back to 2002/3 when Bush and Blair were attempting to drum up support for this military misadventure, public scepticism was actually rather high. Blair found himself producing dodgy dossiers in an attempt to bring the general public round to his way of thinking as two million people marched on the streets of London protesting against the planned invasion.

Bush and Blair would never have got away with the invasion were it not for a group of dedicated right wing mouthpieces like Peters, who tirelessly repeated the pro-war line and attacked the patriotism of anyone who questioned the war as a tacit supporter of terrorism in general and Saddam in particular.

There is no way one can overestimate the importance of journalists like Peters in helping to sell the Iraq war to the public.

For him now to attempt to place the blame for the failure of that policy on to others is an abdication of personal responsibility on a shocking scale. But, worse, for him to attempt to place the blame on to the shoulders of the people who tried to prevent the war - the anti-war protesters - and the people who were most victimised by that war - the people of Iraq - is simply disgusting.

He ends his rather hateful article by attempting to write the war off as quite a good thing for the US:

Islamist terrorists have chosen Iraq as their battleground and, even after our departure, it will continue to consume them. We'll still be the greatest power on earth, indispensable to other regional states — such as the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia — that are terrified of Iran's growing might. If the Arab world and Iran embark on an orgy of bloodshed, the harsh truth is that we may be the beneficiaries.

There is simply no way that a rational person can argue with a mind that is so racked with delusion. The mystery is that publishers continue to pay people like this for their opinions and will continue to pay them long after their opinions have been proven to be dangerous and delusional and wrong.

In this way, Peters exemplifies the mind of the Bush supporter. Never admit you are wrong. Always find a way to blame others for anything bad that happens.

It is imperative that in the mid term elections power is taken away from these irrational lunatics.

Click title for Peters' diatribe.

tag: Iraq war, , United, States, Bush, mid-term, elections, November, Republican, "Staying the course", "Stay the course", neo-con, Ralph Peters,